Fireworks

What it is

Fireworks is a dark purple night sky drawn in a grainy, dithered pixel style, with a treeline, a scatter of stars and a strip of lit windows along the bottom like a small town after dark. CLICK THE SKY, it says at the top, and when you do, a thin trail climbs from the ground and bursts into a big speckled chrysanthemum of red, white and blue at the height you clicked, then slowly dissolves.

How to play

Click, or tap, anywhere above the horizon. The trail takes a moment to rise, so clicking three times quickly gives you three bursts overlapping. Three round palette buttons at the bottom center show three color sets, and a menu button at the bottom right opens three sliders: burst size, more bursts and sky. A sound toggle sits top right and is on by default, and an autoplay toggle sits at the bottom left, off by default, which we left alone. That, and a link back to the playground, is everything on the page.

What makes it different

Browser fireworks are usually smooth particle systems. This one is rough on purpose: the bursts are made of coarse dithered dots, the sky has visible grain, and the result looks like a photograph of fireworks printed in a newspaper rather than a simulation. The delay between click and burst makes you plan a volley rather than just tapping. It comes from the same playground as Charm Bracelet, which is also on Bored.

Why it is on Bored

Of all the pages in Visual toys this is the one that asks the least of you and looks the best doing it. One click, one burst, and a sky you can turn into a finale with a slider. It is for the ten seconds before a meeting.

Tips

• Click low and high in the same volley, the bursts stack
• Turn more bursts up and burst size down for a dense finale
• Try each palette button, the icons show three different color sets
• Switch autoplay on, which we did not try, and leave the tab open
• Sound on, if you are somewhere you can

FAQ