I wanted a video player that felt like it belonged in a museum, so I designed IWATO as a display case where every part of the case is a control.

It's part of a fictional Japanese game I came up with, built around the myth of Ama-no-Iwato, the rock door the sun goddess hid behind. So before the film plays, it waits behind that door. You press the bronze mirror and the door slides open.

The seek bar is a handscroll that unrolls as the film plays, with a painting for each chapter. The seals above it stamp red as you reach each chapter, and you can tap them to jump. The volume is a crest you turn like a dial, the captions button traces 字 in brushstrokes, and every press lets off a little fox-fire.

I made sure it works for everyone too: it's fully usable with a keyboard, passes accessibility checks, and tones down the animations if you have reduced motion on.

I painted the scrolls in Recraft, rendered the museum film manually in Blender, aided with Claude on Video.js v10.

Live: https://iwato-two.vercel.app