Top 5 Playful Web Experiences

Who says websites can’t be functional AND fun? In recent years, there has been a surge of fantastic websites that feature—or cleverly hide—interactive games, allowing visitors to play and engage in fun and interesting ways. 

Web-based interactive games are an excellent method to encourage visitors to respond to your designs and deepen their engagement. A common theme among these web games is their simplicity, often inspired by nostalgic arcade classics such as Snake, Tetris and Pac-Man, which have universal appeal. Many websites use HTML5, React and WebGL to enhance interactivity.

Here are five websites that combine design and gameplay in delightfully creative ways:

Cherri Hartigan by Cherri Hartigan and Belen Tenorio

There are few things more iconic than Pac-Man in arcade games, and Cherri’s portfolio website capitalizes on that recognizable symbol to make a memorable website experience. Cherri expertly combines her name with a classic graphics element from Pac-Man to create a fun interactive homepage using React. Visitors are encouraged to use their arrow keys to gobble up the headline on the site, power up with “Cherri” and eliminate "code bugs," "syntax errors" and "bad logic" (representing the ghosts). The simplicity and vibrant graphics make this website a delightful experience showcasing Cherri’s skills and creativity. For those interested in the technical side, the website’s code is available on Cherri’s GitHub.

Analogue by Analogue Studio

Not only is Analogue’s website incredibly vibrant and full of toy-like holographic artifacts, but visitors who spot the “playful” button at the top of the site can experience a fun point-and-click shooting game. Accompanied by retro music and sound effects, this game adds a unique twist to the company's branding. After 30 seconds, your score ends up on their leaderboard (my personal best remains 96). The rest of the website embraces a child-like theme, using 3D toy-inspired graphics to showcase top clients, with which visitors can interact by grabbing and throwing around the site.

Bruno Simon by Bruno Simon

If you’ve ever wanted to navigate a portfolio like you’re racing in Mario Kart, check out Bruno Simon’s site. As soon as you arrive, you receive straightforward instructions on using the arrow keys to explore (or a joystick on mobile devices) and you're off to the races. To the right are the projects that visitors can drive by and dive into by parking over a hotspot and hitting the enter key, straight ahead is the information and to the left we have the playground where visitors can do some bowling, smack down some very satisfying brick walls or jump and land a field goal. The standout feature of this site is its blurring effect at the edges, creating the illusion of a miniature world where visitors can play. The sound design is also very well done, which makes for a very satisfying experience.

Typefinder by bigbump

While there are many interactive matching pairs card games on the web, the most beautiful one has to be French design agency Bigbump’s Typefinder. This website is a type-lover’s dream, where users play a memory game to find pairs of typefaces within a certain number of rounds. Visitors may also learn more about the history of these typefaces, who designed them and view the glyph set in a nicely ordered fashion. This website does a great job with a mini tutorial screen where you can learn how the game works before diving into the website. Overall the colours, graphic style and designer-forward theme make this website a delight to play in.

StripeDotDev by Stripe

Stripe has some of the most unique and engaging web experiences and this site is no exception. Born out of a desire to bring joy and delight to a list of type-driven articles, StripeDotDev’s design is what happens when you go from having to work out of necessity to “having to” work because it is fun. At first glance, this website doesn’t appear to host any fun games, but keen visitors might notice the “console” button hidden in the top right of the screen. From there, you can enter commands into the console and discover a fun game called Snake, play around with the site's theming and put on a little music. What could have been a straightforward site filled with dense content has become an enjoyable and interactive space. If you scroll down far enough, a playful footer appears with echoing text you can control, turning the concept of infinite scrolling into an endless footer. Watch for a clever Ferris Bueller reference if you scroll long enough!