Ball Droppings is “an addicting and noisy play-toy” designed by Josh Nimoy. It has been around for 4 or 5 years and received a lot attention when it first came out. I was surprised that I had not heard it mentioned in DMI circle’s as it is the kind of thing we DMI folks go crazy for. It requires a download and install to get it going but it is totally worth it. Basically you drop several balls from the top of the screen and draw lines that the balls interact with using simulated gravity and collision. The catch is that each time a ball hits a line a sound is produced based on the length and position of the line. For the serious Ball Dropper, you can even program your own custom sounds and use it as a live performance tool!
In terms of new media, I think Ball Droppings fits nicely with other apps like Phun, Line Rider and even things like Draw Ball and Swarm Sketch. I am not sure that we really have a name for these types of apps, I would not really call them games, nor are they really tools. I guess toy is more accurate but I feel like that in some way diminishes how interesting they are in terms of digital media.
There are several things I find interesting about these apps. For one thing, they have an ability to quickly engage and hold our attention. I think designers often take for granted that people would want to interact with whatever it is they are designing. This gets amplified when ideas never reach the a stage where interaction can happen. Without engaging the user there is no interaction.
The apps also share a minimal learning curve but allow for increasingly complex operations with out a substantial time commitment. They are open ended and facilitate the users creativity. It also seems like they are frequently created by a single person or small group. I am curious as to what others think about this group of apps. Are you familiar with others that I did not list? What would be examples of analog predecessors? How would you classify them relative to other digital media?