Lunch Rush a block-built school cafeteria on costume day
A school cafeteria built from blocks and seen from one corner. Twenty-seven kids, nine of them in costumes, queue for trays, eat, swap treats and play, while two teachers patrol, the cook serves and the janitor mops. Now and then a food fight breaks out.
Free to install. Lunch Rush unlocks with Pro, $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Cancel anytime.
What you see on every new tab
Lunch Rush shows a school cafeteria with two walls cut away: a blue and cream tiled floor, six long tables with red, green, blue and yellow benches, lamp posts between them, and a serving counter with a stove and a sink along the back wall. Jack-o'-lanterns, hay bales and a purple vending machine fill one corner, string lights and bats hang along the walls, and hopscotch and a big four-colour square are painted on the floor. Thirty-one people share the room and each decides what to do next. Every tab opens on a lunch already under way.
The line and the tables: kids queue for a tray while the cook ladles out pizza, nuggets or spaghetti, then pick up peas, carrots or mash, milk or chocolate milk, and an apple, a cookie or a jelly. Seated, they eat, chat, swap treats, flick a pea at another table or launch a paper plane, and one sleepy kid nods off.
Playtime: kids run laps, play hopscotch, tell jokes in little groups, pinch a friend's treat and run, splash at the fountain, kick a stuck vending machine, or go out through the doors and come back hungry. One kid skateboards loops of the aisles, another does yo-yo tricks, and the costumed kids show off: the ghost shouts boo, the robot does a robot dance, and everyone near claps.
The grown-ups: two teachers patrol, hands on hips, and stop any kid they see running or skating close by with a whistle or a pointed finger. The cook stirs, chops and washes up between servings. The janitor mops up spilled food and leaves a wet-floor sign, and a kid who runs across the wet patch slips flat on their back.
Food fight: one kid throws food at another table and gets some back, then the room joins in: kids climb onto the benches, lob whatever is on their trays and duck, two trays flip into the air, and the shy ones hide. Food that hits stays on clothes for a while. The teachers come running, the coach blows his whistle, and the two who started it stand facing the wall.
Other scenes: 8 to 20 seconds after one scene ends, the next begins: tag, a dropped tray, drumming that spreads from table to table, a ghost sneaking up to shout boo and getting chased, a costume parade ending in confetti, a paper plane landing on a teacher's head, or a dance the coach sometimes joins.
Nothing is a video. The cafeteria was rendered once from blocks and ships as a set of pictures that your graphics card lights again every frame, so lamps, string lights and pumpkins can brighten, flicker or change colour. The people, trays, flying food and mop bucket are small cubes drawn live with WebGL.
What it reacts to
Mouse and click: nothing. Nobody in the cafeteria notices the pointer.
Music: with music sync on, the kids get up and dance one after another, some by their bench, some on the painted squares. The beat is taken from the bass hits, and each kid switches between nine dances every eight or sixteen beats, now and then with a jump and a spin. Kids in line dance on the spot and the grown-ups nod in time. The string lights pulse with the bass and cycle through party colours. After 40 to 80 seconds a kid takes a short break, and food fights still happen. About three and a half seconds of silence sends everyone back to lunch.
Clock: the clock on the left wall shows the real time. Lunch itself runs at any hour.
Night: after dusk the windows turn deep blue and the daylight in the room drops to under half, while the lamps on the posts come up to almost four times their daytime brightness and the string lights and pumpkins glow stronger. Lunch carries on as usual.
Free or Pro?Pro
Ambient New Tab is free to install, with three free themes. Lunch Rush 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 Lunch Rush 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 Lunch Rush. Done.
Lunch Rush on a 1280×800 New Tab page.
Questions
Can I start a food fight?
No. The mouse and clicks do nothing here. The theme picks its own scenes, and a food fight needs at least five kids eating at the tables, so it comes most often when the tables are full.
Is Lunch Rush 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.
Why is it lunchtime at midnight?
Lunch never ends here: kids eat, play, go out through the doors and come back hungry. The wall clock keeps the real time and the windows go dark after dusk, but the meal goes on whatever the hour. Each new tab starts its own lunch.
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.
