Carom — shapes in flight

Carom is a contemplative dance of polygons. Each shape is made of vertices moving with their own velocity ; they bounce off the canvas edges like billiard balls (a "carom" is a billiard shot that rebounds off cushions). The polygon deforms as its corners drift apart, and it drags behind itself a long fading trail in rainbow colors. The result is a hypnotic loop, a screensaver you can play with.

How to play

Click empty space to add another polygon — up to four of them can coexist. Click on an existing shape to recolor it (its hue cycle resets randomly). Drag a vertex to grab it ; on release the vertex keeps the velocity of your drag, so you can fling it across the canvas. Drag in empty space to push every nearby vertex along your motion. Open the toolbar to tune the number of vertices per polygon (3 to 9), the global speed, the length of the rainbow trail, and pick from four palettes — full rainbow, warm sunset, aurora, or single-hue amber. Reset clears everything ; PNG saves the current frame.

Why it's satisfying

Carom is the platonic ideal of a contemplative screensaver: simple physics (vertices bouncing off walls), a long memory (trail of past shapes), a steadily shifting color, and direct manipulation when you feel like intervening. Watching the polygon deform as its vertices reach the edges at different times triggers the same pleasure as a kinetic sculpture.

About

Carom is part of Alcy, thirty-two free contemplative micro-games on the web. Also try Orbit, Spirograph, Kaleidoscope.