Golf Fan Drives Ball

Ever alert for evidence of intelligent playfulness on the web, I find this virtual-mini-golf-on-a-blanket-with-a fan-like game. And I rejoice.

Created by a person who goes by the name "Andreas," the game is as silly as it is brilliant. It's not easy to blow a ball across a bunched-up blanket. Especially when the ball falls off the edges so easily. And the light that the fan casts - yes, it's a light-casting, air-blowing fan - is a brilliant touch of player-support technology.

Andreas offers us a collection of remarkably dissimilar, yet clearly playful virtual toys. Even the interface to Andreas' generous list is playfully enticing, not just another pretty interface, but an interface that works, that makes things easier, clearer, more beautiful, and definitely more fun. This is characteristic of almost all the experiences Andreas has for you to play with.

The art of fun, especially in the virtual world, has a great deal to do with interface. The ideal interface is one that facilitates as much as it entertains, that makes things easier to understand as well as more accessible to play with, that makes the player feel at ease, competent, invited. Andreas gives us a chance to feel what that's like.