Google Chrome’s World Wide Maze Experiment Turns Websites into Platforms for Playing a Digital Pinball Game

Google unveils its latest Chrome Experiment that gives any online destination a gaming touch. With World Wide Maze, any website in the Chrome browser can be turned into a 3D pinball maze, which pops-up on the screen of a desktop or a laptop. To navigate a virtual ball through the maze, one is asked to use a mobile device that works as a controller.

The new game has come from Japan, and it is reviewed in a video set to a catchy Asian tune (watch the spot above). Here’s how it works: one is required to download an app (there are both Android and iOS versions), make sure the computer and the mobile device are running Google Chrome, and connect the two—by visiting the dedicated website, by scanning a QR codeor via Tab Sync. The goal is quite traditional—to drive the ball towards the finish. To add points, collect blue spheres on the way to the finish line. Created rather for fun than for building brain muscles, the new game offers a nice technology demonstration.

The game can be also played on the desktop without a mobile device—just enter the URL and use the arrow keys to control the ball. But of course, the experience is best enjoyed with a mobile controller in your hands.

World Wide Maze follows a range of previous Chrome Experiments, which include the promotion for the new Oz The Great and Powerful, Google and Cirque du Soleil’s Monti.Kanti.Revo experience, and the recent Peanut Gallery that invites users to create silent film clips with their voice using the Web Speech API.