A showcase that proved the browser could play
DocumentedGoogle launched Chrome Experiments in 2009 as a gallery of projects built with open web technologies: JavaScript first, later WebGL, audio and machine-learning demos. The collection grew into a long-running “Experiments with Google” archive covering art, music, AI and augmented reality.
Our readingIt was a recruitment poster disguised as a toy box. Every particle swarm and drum machine quietly argued that the browser no longer needed plug-ins to be delightful.
The page that points back at you
DocumentedPointer Pointer, made by the Amsterdam studio Moniker in 2012, asks only that you move your mouse and then stop. After a moment it shows a photograph of a person pointing directly at the spot where your cursor rests, drawn from a large collection of images.
Our readingThe cursor is normally the one thing on screen that points at everything else. Reversing that relationship is a tiny joke about attention, and it still lands.
One button, infinite detours
DocumentedThe Useless Web, created by developer Tim Holman, is famous for a single large button. Press it and a new tab opens on a randomly chosen single-purpose website, from spinning objects to deliberately pointless toys.
Our readingIt is the “I'm Feeling Lucky” button with the search removed: pure chance, no query. The joy is in giving up control on purpose, inside a curated list rather than the open web.
A keyboard that becomes an instrument
DocumentedPatatap, created by Jono Brandel in collaboration with the Japanese duo Lullatone and released in 2014, maps every letter key to a sound and a burst of animated shapes. Tap a rhythm and the screen paints it back at you. The spacebar changes the colour scheme and sound set.
Our readingThe control is one most of us press thousands of times a day without thinking. Patatap simply listens more carefully than a text box does.
Rules that escalate on purpose
DocumentedNeal Agarwal's site neal.fun hosts dozens of interactive pieces, including Spend Bill Gates' Money and The Deep Sea. Its 2023 hit, The Password Game, begins with an ordinary “at least five characters” rule and adds ever stranger requirements until the password field becomes a puzzle box.
Our readingIt is satire with a real target: the password rules we all meet on sign-up forms. You laugh because you have been rule number seven.
When a search page became an arcade
DocumentedIn May 2010, for Pac-Man's 30th anniversary, Google published a playable doodle on its homepage. A year later, searching “do a barrel roll” made the results page spin. On Reddit, the April Fools' project r/place (2017) gave every user a shared pixel canvas and allowed one pixel every few minutes; it returned in 2022 and 2023.
Our readingEach turned a familiar surface into a game board without warning. The surprise works because the page usually behaves so predictably.
Caveat: permission prompts are real choices
Some experiments ask for your camera, microphone or location. The browser prompt is the genuine decision point, not a formality. Allow access only if the experiment clearly needs it, and you can revoke it later from the padlock or site-settings icon beside the address.