Seal Play ringed seals play and hunt in clear Arctic shallows
Clear, cold Arctic shallows seen from straight above: worn cobbles, pink-crusted boulders, kelp and a drifting ice floe. Ringed seals and a fluffy pup swim, play, breathe at the surface and chase the fish.
Free to install. Seal Play unlocks with Pro: $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever.
What you see on every new tab
Seal Play looks straight down into clear, cold Arctic shallows. The water works the same way as in Eagle Ray Flats, tuned for a low polar sun: breeze ripples on the surface, nets of light on the bottom and a cold blue cast that grows with depth. The floor is a bed of worn cobbles in grey silt: speckled granite, white quartzite, blue-grey slate and tan sandstone, some crusted with pink coralline, with green sea urchins on the stones. Big rounded boulders stand on it, and a white plumose anemone. At the surface an ice floe and a few chunks of broken ice float and bob, throwing blue shadows on the stones below.
The seals: ringed seals, two or three on the screen at once, each staying for a minute or two before it swims off and another comes in. They cruise above the stones, steering and braking with their front flippers, and pause to look round. Alone they roll, corkscrew and nudge the ice; together they play tag, twirl round each other and meet nose to nose. They never pass through each other or through the floe: a seal swings round its edge, and a moving seal gives way to one that is resting.
At the surface: every half minute to a minute a seal goes up. It may take a quick breath, float flat at the top for a rest, or glide along the surface. Its face comes up out of the water and its breath frosts in the cold air. Often it dives again steeply with its hind flippers lifting out of the water, and a trail of bubbles follows it down.
The pup: a fluffy pup with a white, black-spotted coat, a grey face and big dark eyes. It comes with its mother and keeps near her, turns late, overshoots and wobbles off its line. Now and then it goes off after a school on its own, or noses about in the kelp.
The chase: most seals arrive hungry. A seal picks out a polar cod from a school, or a bigger Arctic char or Greenland cod, and runs it down. The fish zigzags, bolts and tires; the first snap always misses, and most fish get away. Frightened fish dash for the kelp to hide.
Kelp: a few clumps of sugar kelp grow beside the boulders and along the edges. The blades sway with the swell and flutter, and part when a seal swims through.
On the bottom: sea stars of four Arctic kinds lie on the stones: red-orange sun stars, common sea stars, slender blood stars and six-rayed stars. They crawl, curl and lift their arm tips, and head for scraps a seal drops. Eelpouts slide in and out of dens under the boulders, sculpins lie still on the stones, and hermit crabs creep about.
Drifting by: comb jellies and sea angels drift through the water. The comb jellies' rows of plates ripple with travelling rainbows, each row out of step with the next.
Nothing is a video and there are no pictures in it. Your graphics card works out every frame with WebGL2: the ripples, the light they focus onto the stones, the way they bend your view of the bottom, the ice and its shadow, and the sky reflected on top. The floor is painted once when the page opens, and again if the window changes size. The seals, fish, jellies, kelp and sea stars are drawn fresh in every frame.
What it reacts to
Mouse: the pointer acts like a fingertip trailed through the water, leaving rings behind it, bigger the faster you move. Move it near a school of polar cod and the fish gather round it, circle it and dart up to nip at the surface.
Click: nothing. Clicks have no effect on the scene.
Music: nothing. This theme does not use music sync.
Sound: small waves lapping on a shore with gulls, and terns calling as they pass every so often; after dark, gentle lake waves lapping on stone. Sound starts soft on a new install, and you can turn it down or off right on the New Tab.
Night: after dusk the sun gives way to the moon and the light turns cool and dim. The snow on the ice still reads pale blue-white under the moon. The small silver fish glow softly and light the stones under them, they sink deeper and slow down, and the comb jellies' rainbow rows still show against the dark water.
Free or Pro?Pro
Ambient New Tab is free to install, with five free themes. Seal Play is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Seal Play 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 Seal Play. Done.
Seal Play on a 1280×800 New Tab page.
Questions
Do the seals ever catch a fish?
Sometimes. A hungry seal picks out a fish and runs it down in a real chase: the fish zigzags and bolts, and the first snap always misses. Most fish get away; now and then a seal gets one. The pup chases too, but it never catches anything.
Is Seal Play free?
It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released.
How often does the pup show up?
Often. It arrives with its mother, stays close to her, and leaves when she does. Over a long stretch it is on the screen about three minutes in every four.
Does it work on my phone?
No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.
