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You can now play 'Where's Wally?' in Google Maps

An April Fool's Day treat from everyone's favourite internet overlords

You can now play 'Where's Wally?' in Google Maps
03 April 2018
April Fool’s Day was a bit of a damp squib this year wasn’t it?

With it falling on Easter Sunday this year it was always bound to be a bit difficult to get too excited about some weak larks and lame jokes when there was the serious business of eating 55 Easter eggs to be getting on with but, still, we didn’t see many decent pranks land. 

Even the Burger King one, which was the announcement of a ‘chocolate whopper’ was a) clearly an April Fool’s and b) genuinely a bit upsetting that this wasn’t actually going to be a real thing and it’s not cool to get our hopes up OK?


Read more: Here’s how to find Wally super fast, using science


But fear not, because it wasn’t all a total waste of time thanks to your favourite internet overlords over at Google, who thoughtfully created a Where’s Wally (fine, Waldo, for our inferior American cousins) game which you can play on Google Maps.

It’s up there until Saturday 7 April which, helpfully, means that it’s live right now, aka Tuesday, your first day back at work after a delicious long weekend where you ideally want to slow, gently, easy your way back into the working routine.

The Easter Egg stars Wally/Waldo and his friends Wenda, Wizard Whitebeard, Odlaw and Woof the dog and involves five levels of increasing difficulty across the globe where you have to hunt them down in amongst a crowd of people. Y’know, it’s Where’s Wally, it’s the usual thing - we shouldn’t really have to explain it to you.

Desktop users simply need to head to google.com/maps where you’ll see Wally waving at you from the side of the screen. iOS and Android users will need to update their version of the Google Maps app before they can get involved.

Google announced the news in a blog post, written by our elusive friend where he said/an intern at Google wrote: 

“Hello, friends! My name is Waldo. I love to travel around the globe - it’s a whole world of fun.

“I’m always on the lookout for fantastic new places to explore. My last adventure started in sun-sational Mountain View, CA where I visited the terrific team at Google, including Google Maps product managers Max Greenwald and Shreena Thakore. Wow!

“By the way, I’m not traveling on my own. Wherever I go, my trusty friends Wenda, Woof, Wizard Whitebeard, and even that pesky Odlaw go as well. You can come, too—all you have to do is find me!

“Starting today, you can use Google Maps to join in my amazing adventures for April Fools this week. Are you prepared for a perplexing pursuit?”

We’ve never been more prepared Wally. More prepared to avoid starting our work this week and play Where’s Wally? instead.

(Image: Getty)