At the time of its release, Ball Pool was a technical marvel. It didn't rely on Flash—which was the standard for web animation then—but instead used and the then-new HTML5 Canvas API .
Ball Pool, created around 2010, was a side project that perfectly encapsulated his design philosophy: mr doob ball pool
In the early days of HTML5, many experiments were laggy. Ball Pool was optimized. Even on older laptops, you could fill the screen with hundreds of balls and the simulation would rarely stutter. It proved that the browser was a legitimate platform for gaming, not just viewing documents. At the time of its release, Ball Pool was a technical marvel
For a decade, it has been a reference demo for Three.js capabilities — lightweight, cross-platform, touch-ready. Ball Pool was optimized
Built with Three.js’s Raycaster for picking, Cannon.js or custom lightweight physics for collision detection. Optimized for 60fps even with hundreds of balls.
Before Unpacking or PowerWash Simulator , Mr doob Ball Pool offered low-stakes digital fidgeting.