Blue Ball Machine
November 16, 2005
Although not a game, this is just too much fun not to share. File this one under "art."
Behold the magic of the Blue Ball Machine. Watch the tiny blue balls make their way around the huge machine. And the music that goes along with it is perfect. Rube Goldberg would be very pleased. I could watch it for hours.
The image is actually an animated GIF (2.4MB), and it is tiled so that balls that fall off the left side appear on the right, and bottom to top as well. Amazing.
Via Anne's equally amazing Amplesanity.
Originally created by the goons at the something awful forums
Ah, the story behind the amazing work. Thanks empath! =)
I definitely agree with filing it under "art". Indeedly it was mesmerizing trying to watch all the goings on at once!
whoaaa hahahaha... trippy... ~luv~ it's hard as heck to follow the balls, though, especially when they switch sides.
Cool, art work jay
Thought it looked cool, but even better with sound on, nice sound track very good compliment
OH MAN.... that's incredible. and when the balls vanished from one side of the screen, they reappeared on the opposite side asteroids style. Just unbeleiveable.
Could watch that for hours on end...
Came to play, then noticed the linkylove. Thanks Jay! You're the best.
I challenge anyone to count how many balls there are =P
Wow, that rules. It's better than a hypnotist for serious zone-out.
Wow ... i stared @ that for soooo long till i got what every machine did...
I love this thing soo much!!!
The music is from one of PeeWee Hermans movies, I think the one when he loses his bike haha. My brother used to love those movies.
I making one of these in flash. If anyone has a flash program (5 or higher) and wants to participate, goto ball.pvac.2ya.com
JAY! That is SOOOOOO cute! I like it when the little stick-guy's head gets plucked off by the machine!
i;ve set it as background!
i LOVE IT
There were two threads that led to that. The image on YTMND is actually a working file that was compiled in the middle of the last thread, november-december 05. It contains maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the total tiles.
There are java based versions you can view that display all tiles, although there are syncing issues with Mozilla browsers.
There is currently a THIRD annual Blue Ball Machine thread going on right now.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2151596
Expect the new ones to be even better, as standardization has improved, as have the skills of many of the participants. It might be bigger, too, since more people are aware of it.
Hahaha, I love it! My favorite is the ball growing out of a single cell of laser-blasted ball in the agar treated petri dish (it says AGAR on it =P). I love how it seems every ball eventually travels all over the screen, but they are really stuck in infinte loops. Great find, Jay!
Where's the beginning of the machine?
Harry, I stared at that device for 15 minutes and figured out 5 machines and 2 left to right and top to bottom loops.
LOVE the music. 5/5.
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