🧪 Google Tricks · Mr.doob · Experiments
Google Mr.doob Experiments List
(Gravity, Space, Sphere and More)
Drop the Google logo to the floor, fling the search box across the screen, watch the whole homepage drift off into space. A lot of people call these “Google tricks,” and a lot of them came from one developer working on his own time.
This is the list: what he made, what he didn’t, and where to try each one. It’s part of our Google gravity and underwater tricks guide.
Quick answer: Mr.doob is the nickname of developer Ricardo Cabello, who built Google Gravity, Google Sphere (both 2009) and Google Space (2012) as browser experiments. Google showcased them in Chrome Experiments, but they aren’t official Google Easter eggs. Underwater Search is often lumped in, though the record credits Google China’s 2012 April Fools prank.
Who is Mr.doob?
Mr.doob is Ricardo Cabello, a Spanish creative coder. You may know his other project, three.js, the 3D library that powers a huge number of interactive websites. He first released it in April 2010, and Wikipedia lists him as its original author.
The Google toys were earlier, and smaller. In a Canonical interview, Cabello said Google Gravity wouldn’t exist without Box2DJS, a JavaScript port of the Box2D physics engine. That’s the whole trick: a familiar page, handed to a physics engine, then handed to you.
The Google experiments list
“Official” here means made by Google itself. None of Mr.doob’s Google experiments are, even though Google featured them.
| Experiment | What it does | Year | Made by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Gravity | Page elements fall to the bottom; you drag and throw them | 2009 | Mr.doob | Chrome Experiment, not a Google Easter egg |
| Google Sphere | Elements whirl around, then settle into a spinning sphere that follows your mouse | 2009 | Mr.doob | Chrome Experiment |
| Google Space (Floating Google) | Elements float and collide in zero gravity | October 2012 | Mr.doob | Also called zero gravity mode |
| Underwater Search | The homepage bobs on water while fish swim underneath | April 1, 2012 | Google China | An April Fools prank, not Mr.doob. See the April Fools history |
| Google Oneko, Google Pendulum | A cat chasing your cursor; a swinging page | Unknown | Unknown | No reliable source found. See our Oneko write-up |
Credited to him by mistake
Underwater is the big one. Many guides file it with Mr.doob’s experiments because it floats the same page elements around. The detailed history on the elgooG restoration says Google China ran it as an April Fools joke on April 1, 2012, and it was gone from Google by 2015. We found no primary Google statement, so treat that as the best available record rather than a certainty.
Variants such as “Lava” or “Slime” circulate on fan sites. We found no sign that Mr.doob made them. Treat them as unofficial, and skip any copy that asks you to install something. Google’s April Fools pranks have their own timeline in our Google April Fools pranks history.
One more correction worth making: some roundups credit Google Gravity to a design studio. The creator behind it, in his own words and in the other sources we checked, is Cabello.
Where to try them
- The originals: Mr.doob’s own site, mrdoob.com, hosts them, and Google’s Experiments with Google site lists Google Space.
- Restorations: elgooG rebuilds many of them with touch controls and a dark theme. It says plainly that it isn’t affiliated with Google.
- Old search tips: older guides say to type “Google Gravity” into Google and press I’m Feeling Lucky. That is unreliable now, so go to the experiment pages directly.
If you like the nostalgic side of all this, our April Fools history and the games in our complete list of Google Easter eggs are good next stops.
Why the search box is dead
In the original Google Space, the search box ran real queries through the Google Web Search API. Google shut that API down on September 29, 2014, so typing a search into these experiments no longer returns results. That’s why guides from the early 2010s sometimes say the button “did nothing.” The fun now is dragging and throwing, not searching.
Frequently asked questions
Google Gravity was made by developer Ricardo Cabello, known as Mr.doob, in 2009. Google showcased it in Chrome Experiments, but it is not an official Google Easter egg.
No. It is an independent browser experiment that Google featured in Chrome Experiments. That is why you can’t trigger it from a normal Google search.
The elgooG history credits Google China’s April Fools’ Day 2012 prank. Many guides group it with Mr.doob’s experiments, but we found no source showing he made it.
No. The original experiments used the Google Web Search API, which Google retired on September 29, 2014. You can still drag and throw the page elements.
Use the originals on mrdoob.com and the Experiments with Google listing, or the elgooG restorations. Avoid copies that ask you to download a file, install an extension or allow notifications.
Sources checked
Facts here were checked against these sources on November 2, 2026. Gameplay and settings were not tested for this article, so try anything yourself before relying on it.
- Canonical Design blog, interview with Mr.doob — Box2DJS and the origins of Google Gravity.
- Wikipedia, Three.js — Cabello as author and the April 2010 release.
- elgooG Google Space and Underwater Search pages — creators, dates and the Web Search API shutdown.
- Experiments with Google, as linked from elgooG — the Google Space listing.
More on Google Gravity: NeuraPlus’s step-by-step Google Gravity guide, for the hands-on version.