Google is running yet another big budget and gorgeous Chrome experiment

Feb 5, 2013 18:01 GMT  ·  By

The Chrome Experiments website is where Google and developers go to showcase their skills and what the modern web can do. Google has some of the most interesting or at least the most complex experiments there, but that would make sense since it's also the one building Chrome.

The latest such experiment is dubbed Find Your Way to Oz and, as you might imagine, it ties in with the upcoming Disney flick Oz the Great and Powerful.

"Developed by UNIT9, this experiment brings together Disney’s unique storytelling tradition and the power of the web platform, allowing users to interact with the web in a completely new way," Google boasts.

The experiment is more a game than a tech demo. You're in the circus camp and you get to explore it. You can take a photo, powered by getUserMedia, part of WebRTC, listen to some music, powered by the Web Audio API, or just enjoy the 3D scenery, powered by WebGL.

It was built with Chrome in mind, quite obviously, but it should work in Firefox as well, apart from the Web Audio API which is only supported by Chrome.

If you want the best performance, you should stick to the Google browser, the game allows you to choose between standard and HD graphics at the start.

You don't need the very latest gaming rig to run this, but if you're using an old laptop or even most Chromebooks, it's probably best to choose the standard graphics option.

As has been the case recently, the experiment also works on mobile devices, though it's a different version of the app.

For one, there's no WebGL, the technology is still experimental in Chrome for Android, the only mobile browser to support it at all. You can access the camera and do several other interesting things.