Google Brings the Ramayana Story to Life in Amazing New ‘Chrome Experiment’

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has created a new and pretty sweet ‘Chrome Experiment’ – an interactive visualization designed to showcase its Chrome web browser – that tells the Ramayana ancient Sanskrit epic story in the Indonesian language.

It can be found at Ramaya.na and does indeed require using Chrome – I did try it on Firefox, which I prefer, but it was a no-go. It uses a combination of HTML5, Javascript, and WebGL to make the Ramayana – perhaps Southeast Asia’s most important early story, which has spread from India and been adapted by many cultures – into a modern-day work of living, digital theatre. As if the visuals aren’t clever and gorgeous enough, there’s also some truly splendid gamelan music playing throughout, which sounds best turned right up and with a bit of bass to hear the full percussive range.

When you start the story you might be surprised to find new Chrome windows popping up as characters such as Rama and his wife Shinta use Google products like Talk, G+, Blogger, product search, and Google Maps to communicate, find info, and begin their journey to beat the evil Ravana. This isn’t just a straight-up animation, and you’ll be required to follow along, and sometimes click, scroll, and think. So far, I’m up to episode two and have just aimed and clicked my mouse to shoot the Golden Deer (pictured below). I’m not sure where in the Google empire it was made, but we could guess that it came out of the web giant’s new country office in Jakarta. It’s one more question we can ask the boss, Rudy Ramawy, when he’s our guest at the Startup Asia Jakarta event next week.

Enough of my explaining. Head to Ramaya.na to try it yourself, and then perhaps check out more on the Chrome Experiments homepage. They’re all pretty mengagumkan!