Do Grant Kot's Web Demos Work on Mobile, and What Are the Requirements?

Updated

Most of Grant Kot's browser demos work on mobile, but not all of them. Liquid Layers, Pencil Physics, and the Synthesizer are explicitly described as mobile-friendly, with support for touch, accelerometer, and pen input. The heavier 3D demos — particularly the Tokyo point cloud viewer — carry high memory requirements and are better suited to a desktop with a capable GPU. All demos run in the browser and rely on modern web technologies such as WebAssembly and WebGL, so a current browser is the baseline requirement.

Mobile-friendly demos

These are the demos the site explicitly flags for phones and tablets:

Demo What it is Mobile-specific notes
Liquid Layers Real-time interactive liquid simulator Mobile-friendly; try it on a phone or tablet and enable the accelerometer
Pencil Physics Draw and simulate any shape Mobile-friendly with full support for multi-touch and pen input
Synthesizer Web Audio synthesizer with highly customizable, multi-layered sounds Mobile-friendly; try it on a phone or tablet
Million Checkboxes Multiplayer checkbox game (remake of One Million Checkboxes by Nolen Royalty) Multiplayer; no stated device restriction

For Liquid Layers and Pencil Physics, the interaction model is built around touch: multi-touch and pen input are supported, and Liquid Layers can respond to device tilt once you enable the accelerometer. On a phone or tablet, that means the demos are playable without a mouse or keyboard.

Demos that need more horsepower

The 3D section is where device limits matter most:

  • Tokyo 3D point cloud viewer — a detailed 3D point cloud reconstruction of Tokyo with two modes, Points and Points + Mesh. The site warns that memory requirements are high, especially for Points + Mesh. A desktop-class machine is the safer choice.
  • Liquid 3D — early-stage fluid simulation tests (MPM and SPH). The site itself notes performance is not the best yet, so expect a rough experience regardless of device.
  • VoxelMash — a multiplayer voxel sandbox synchronized with all visitors; a new version is in development.

Tutti Space Program is described as pushing the limits of WebAssembly (multithreading and SIMD) and WebGL — a signal that it targets capable hardware rather than phones.

What the demos are built on, and why it matters

The site states the demos use WebAssembly and WebGL, and that the web platform's growing power (WebAssembly, WebGPU) is part of why Kot now focuses on browser-based work. In practice:

  • WebAssembly with multithreading and SIMD (as in Tutti Space Program) benefits from browsers and devices that support these features; older or low-end mobile browsers may struggle.
  • WebGL rendering is required across the 3D demos; a device with weak GPU support will show poor frame rates.
  • Memory is the binding constraint for the Tokyo viewer, per the site's own warning.

Practical checklist before you try

  1. Use a current, up-to-date browser on the device.
  2. For Liquid Layers or Pencil Physics on a phone or tablet, allow motion/accelerometer access if prompted, and use touch or a stylus.
  3. For Tokyo 3D, prefer a desktop with ample RAM; start with the Points mode before trying Points + Mesh.
  4. Treat Liquid 3D as an early experiment — performance issues are acknowledged by the author.

Related context

Kot notes that Liquid Layers will be combined with his other physics systems (line physics, blobs, smoke) into a combined 2D sandbox, with a site for sharing creations in the works — a "Liquid Layers Maker" is listed as coming soon. He also mentions that a 3D voxel project, Liquid Crystal, is available for download on his itch.io page (kotsoft.itch.io) for those with a powerful computer who want to test their hardware.