Chrome World Wide Maze turns websites into a 3D game

If you’ve ever had someone ask you to demonstrate how the modern browser has changed how we use the Internet, Google’s latest Chrome Experiment should absolutely be your go to answer. It’s called Chrome World Wide Maze and lets you play a 3D tilt maze game using websites as levels.

The ability to sync your browser experience from one machine to another may not be new to most of us, but it is by far the most useful feature in your arsenal if you are constantly switching between machines. Especially on Chrome, where a Google login will keep your active browser experience across every device you are logged into.

To be able to reach into my existing browser session on my desktop and interact with it, and to have the machine where I started that session be aware of my interactions, is a powerful tool to have. How do you take that experience one step further? If you’re Google, you make a video game where your smartphone is a controller and the other Chrome instance is the display.

Gaming on a smartphone allows you to interact using accelerometers, gyroscopes, and of course the touch screen. This is why racing games and table tilt games on smartphones are so much fun — you turn your phone and the game responds instantly, as though you were at the arcade.

Chrome World Wide Maze is a fun table tilt game with an unmistakably Google twist. The game starts by using the Tab Sync tool in Chrome, so your desktop browser is the display and your phone is the controller. You tilt your phone, and the ball rolls around on the screen.

Each of the levels in the game is a website that has been turned into a twisting 3D maze and filled with gems to collect for points. If you make it to the end of the maze before the timer runs out, you’ll receive a score that can be shared. If you jump off the ledge, or fail to reach the objective in time, you’ll be able to try again two more times before getting a game over.

In testing the game out, using a Galaxy Nexus and then an LG Optimus G as a controller, I found that the more powerful your phone is the less lag there will be between your handset and the display. Even with the Galaxy Nexus, the lag between the two devices is barely noticeable, but on the Optimus G the experience was flawless.