“Using CSS3 transforms and HTML5 canvas, the Katamari Hack for Google Chrome (and other compatible browsers) allows you to turn any website into a game of Katamari Damacy! The script was created by Alex Leone, [UW CSE undergrad] David Nufer, and [UW CSE undergrad] David Truong, and won the 2011 Yahoo HackU contest at University of Washington.”
The Yahoo! HackU contest give 3-person undergraduate teams 24 hours to come up with interesting web applications. “Katamari Hack” turns any web page into a game reminiscent of the video game Katamari Damacy. It allows the user to roll a ball around the page, picking up words, images, and other content off of the page and sticking it to the ball. Everything rolls around on the ball in full 3-D. It’s amazing that Alex, David and David were able to do this, especially in just 24 hours; they had to compute all of the 3-D graphical transformations themselves from scratch. You’ve gotta try this thing. It can be found at: http://kathack.com/.
This is the third year running that members of this team have taken the prize. Congratulations to the team!
Katamari Hack site here. Slashdot post here. The Stranger reports on its test here. Woot! blogs about it here. Engadget here. Digg here. Gossipgamers here. IngieGames here. More information on Yahoo! HackU here.