Turn your favorite website into a playable 3D maze

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,240   +192
Staff member

If the myriad of Easter eggs on Google and YouTube aren’t enough to keep you entertained while surfing the web, you might want to check out the latest browser-based game called World Wide Maze. The game constructs a playable 3D maze based on real websites in which players are tasked with guiding a small ball around the site to reach the finish line.

The style of play is similar to mobile games like Super Monkey Ball albeit with a completely unique experience for each website map you build. Players can use their Android smartphone to control the action or simply stick with the trusty ole keyboard. You’ll need to sync the phone to the browser with a unique code if you want to go that route. When using a handset, gamers can tilt the device to guide the ball around the track.

turn google chrome world wide maze

Do note, however, that you’ll need a computer with pretty decent hardware to power the game. The game uses the WebGL standard which requires at least 1GB of system RAM and a GPU with 256MB of memory.

World Wide Maze was developed for Google Chrome although I didn’t have any problems running it in Firefox. My Core i5 Sandy Bridge-equipped work PC with integrated graphics wasn’t quite up to the task, however, as the game was pretty much unplayable due to lag.

It probably isn’t something you’ll spend a ton of time playing but it’s fun to mess around with and see how some of your favorite websites look as a 3D maze.

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Worked fine for me - and using Chrome. Kinda entertaining, really. Nice little (and unique) time waster. :)
 
After finally getting it to work, I have to agree with Tom. It would be cool if they updated it to load spawn points on certain links, though. Something that lets you "navigate" the website for more playability, instead of a single page.

Finally, a game that will run competently on my Mac :eek:
 
Reminds me of a digital version of that old, wooden marble game "Labyrinth". Not that movie with David Bowie...that handheld board game where you roll the marble around, and try to avoid the holes using an X-Y axis? Wow! That was some great fun, there... :)
 
I got stuck at the last bit going down to the big area, the gap wasn't big enough to fit the ball
 
I didn't have any problem playing a couple sites (their test site and nintendo.com) with a 2.13Ghz C2D (e6400) with an AMD 5830. The video card isn't horrible, but the processor is almost 7 years old.
 
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