snow globe

This is a snow globe that runs in the browser, with nothing to download. Flick hard and you throw everything into the air at once; drag slowly and you only stir the top of it. From a keyboard, space or enter gives it a good shake.

The snow is simulated rather than animated, so no two settles look alike. Each grain carries its own weight, its own wobble and its own depth, which is why the near ones fall past the front of the glass while the far ones drift behind the scene. What lands piles into a bank along the bottom, and the bank slumps under itself the way real snow does instead of stacking into a spike.

There are three worlds under the glass. A cabin with a lit window, a stand of pines, and a lighthouse throwing a beam across the inside of the dome. Four seasons change what is falling and the light it falls through: white snow on a cold blue night, amber leaves, pink petals, or gold.

Shaking earns a Drop and a full settle earns three more, which is deliberately not much. Drops are the playground’s own currency and spend in the studio on a Bead avatar, themes and sound kits. Your longest settle is kept on your own device.

Snow globe is one of the dopa+ toys, alongside tide pool, kinetic chime and the loom. It runs offline once the page has loaded, and if you have motion reduced in your system settings the snow falls sooner and sits quieter rather than not falling at all.