Hallucinate: A Massively Multiplayer Online Rave That Runs in the Browser

A new browser experiment turns a nightclub into a shared 3D space: the site Hallucinate calls itself a “Massively Multiplayer Online Rave” and opens with nothing more than a start button and a few styling options.

What you get

Players pick one of twelve hair colours, a hairstyle, top and bottom wear, then walk into the venue with the arrow keys or the i, j, k and l keys. Space makes your avatar speak; h brings up the help overlay. Dance moves are mapped to d and f, and the wardrobe can be changed on the fly with q, w, a, s, z and x.

The club is more than a dance floor. There are rooms with names and passwords, some of which can be claimed or rented, and lofts where whoever is inside can set the room's music and skip tracks. A chat panel carries messages and emoji reactions, an arcade screen sits against one wall, and a photo wall lets visitors post pictures — capped at five per hour — and like or delete them from a viewer.

Built in the browser

Nothing has to be installed. The client is a custom WebGL2 renderer written for the site, with its own shaders, character animation rigs and lighting, and it ships as an installable web app with a black theme. Visitors are kept in sync over a WebSocket connection, while rooms, photos, the venue's video schedule and moderation are served from a small HTTP API.

Mobile visitors get touch controls, and the whole thing runs at the same address: the landing page warns only that if the video does not start, you should press play on it. Hallucinate was posted to Hacker News as a Show HN entry.