Hype Stream a block-built streamer live on camera, with chat scrolling beside him
A block-built streamer is live on your New Tab page, seen face-on as if through his webcam. He talks, yells, laughs and spins his chair while made-up chat scrolls beside him and sub alerts drop in, and every so often he runs to the back of the room to dance, dunk or raid the fridge.
Free to install. Hype Stream unlocks with Pro, $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Cancel anytime.
What you see on every new tab
Hype Stream fills the New Tab page with a live stream that is not real. A streamer built from small cubes sits at his desk close to the camera in a white-walled voxel room: hexagon light panels on the left, a bookshelf and a pink neon sign with his channel name at the back, an orange couch, a striped rug, and an arcade cabinet, a mini fridge and a basketball hoop on the right. He is an original character made for this theme, in a mustard hoodie and a white headset with glowing ear rings. Chat runs down the right side, a LIVE badge, viewer count and stream time sit top left, and he picks what to do next on his own.
At the desk: he talks with his hands, turns toward the chat to read it, then laughs, nods, leans in or jumps up to yell, and the view pushes in on his face when he leans close. He whispers with a finger to his lips before shouting CHAAAT, slaps the desk laughing, spins his chair, stretches and sips from the can by his keyboard. Big outlined words such as NO WAY or LMAOOO pop up beside his head.
Trips to the back: now and then his chair rolls aside and he sprints, jogs or walks off, never to the same spot twice running: a dance on the rug, a bounce and a flop on the couch, a dunk at the hoop, a game at the arcade cabinet ending in NEW HIGH SCORE, a can from the fridge, or a lap of the room that sometimes ends in a knee slide back to his desk. Furniture nearer the camera hides him as he passes.
The chat: made-up viewers with names like crispy_otter or lilpickle42 say hello, ask about his setup and react to what he is doing. Lines come slowly while he chats and flood in when he yells, laughs or runs, with walls of W and pixel emotes after each alert. Mods wear a sword badge, VIPs a pink gem and subscribers a gold star.
Subs and the goal: a sub or resub arrives every 9 to 26 seconds and a gift bomb of 5 to 50 subs every 80 to 170 seconds, each with an alert card. A gift bomb makes him grab his head, then yell or run off. When the bar fills, the room flashes, about 500 cubes of confetti rain down and settle on the floor, and he jumps, dances and yells THANK YOU CHAT. Then the goal moves up.
The lights: the ceiling strip is cool white while things are calm and slides into colour as the hype builds, with nine seconds of fast rainbow and strobe after a goal. The hexagon panels and shelf lights drift through colours, the neon sign flickers now and then, and his keyboard and headset rings cycle through the rainbow.
Nothing is a video and nothing is streamed. The room was rendered once and ships as a set of pictures that your graphics card re-lights every frame, so its lights can change colour. The streamer, his chair, desk and drink, the ball and the confetti are drawn live as small cubes with WebGL, and the chat, counters and alerts are page text your browser writes as it goes.
What it reacts to
Mouse and click: nothing. He runs the stream by himself, and the chat, alerts and sub goal take no input.
Music: with music sync on, bass makes the ceiling strip up to a quarter brighter and the neon sign up to about a third brighter. That is all: his dancing keeps its own pace rather than following the beat, and chat takes no notice of the music.
Night: after dusk the general light in the room drops by about a third, the floor lamps, ceiling spotlights and ceiling strip grow brighter, and the light on his face turns slightly bluer. The page is not dimmed as a whole, and he keeps the same energy at any hour.
Free or Pro?Pro
Ambient New Tab is free to install, with three free themes. Hype Stream is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Hype Stream full screen before you buy: open the Themes panel and rest your mouse on it. Changed your mind? 14-day refund, no questions.
Open a new tab and click the Themes pill in the bottom-right corner.
Pick Hype Stream. Done.
Hype Stream on a 1280×800 New Tab page.
Questions
Does it turn on my webcam?
No. The theme never asks for your camera or microphone, and it makes no sound. The webcam look is only the angle: the room is drawn as if from a camera just in front of his desk, which pushes in when he leans close or whispers.
Is Hype Stream free?
It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released. Cancel anytime.
Is the chat real?
No. The streamer, viewers, subs and gift bombs are all made up in your browser, and nothing connects to a streaming site. The viewer count starts between 18,000 and 78,000 and the stream clock between one and five hours in. The first sub goal is 25 to 120 subs away, so it usually falls within about ten minutes. Windows narrower than about 620 pixels hide the chat panel.
Does it work on my phone?
No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome and Edge on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.
