A Penny Falls While You Wait

Instead of those spinning balls, pathetic turning hourglasses, and thermometers that appear whenever your computer is spending its time doing whatever it needs to do, I'd like something else. The something else I would like is a digital version of the old amusement arcade game The Penny Falls.

For those who don't know of this device, it's best to look it up for a better description than one I can be bothered writing here. Suffice to say a moving wall slides backwards and forwards with piled up coins teetering along the edge of a drop. The player adds coins in the usually forlorn hope that a substantial amount will become unstable and tumble off into a collection tray.

The digital version is no different, except you must accumulate some virtual coins via a pre-purchasing system. This is like money in the bank that you can never actually loose, but can win back for instant gratitude. The game shuts down as soon as any processing task completes, or you have the option to idle away even more of your time by pressing the extend button.