Pumpkin countdown timer

At a glance

Why the pumpkin pours instead of ticking

The origin story of the pumpkin skin, from the people who drew it.

Every other timer.cool scene keeps a polite distance from its theme — sand, water, wax. The pumpkin commits. It was drawn for one Halloween and never retired, because a jack-o'-lantern on the projector turns an ordinary ten-minute block into an event: the room darkens, the carved face glows, the brew inside shines brighter as the night goes on, and the whole month arrives on screen without a single word.

The brew itself is the clock, and it behaves like a potion, not a liquid — deliberately. One early prototype treated it like bathwater and the pumpkin read as a tub with a face; the shipped version is a gauge: the lantern starts full, with the brew sitting just below the carved eyes, and the level sinks with the countdown. A candle-glow behind it is brightest near the base, a dark meniscus rim marks where the surface meets the shell, and small bubbles rise through the light as it sinks. When the last minute passes, the final drop evaporates off the surface rather than leaving a puddle — the measure poured out exactly as the timer ends.

The world around it carries the season without saying the word. A night sky of slow stars. A moon that can be full, blood-red, or absent. Bats — the slider runs from none to eight — each flying its own altitude and speed, flapping on a sine wave, occasionally crossing the moon exactly where your eye already is. Fog drifts low. And at zero, the pumpkin ignites: sparks burst from the stem, half of them tiny bats scattering into the dark, while a funeral bell tolls in A minor and a theremin slides in underneath. Halloween deserved a sound, and that is the sound.

The faces are the last piece of character. Classic is the triangle-eyed original. Grin grins wider. Silly goes cross-eyed. And Random re-picks a face every round, because a classroom projector running the pumpkin all October deserves a reason to check the screen each morning.

How the scene moves

• Idle. The lantern starts full — brew sitting just under the carved eyes — with candlelight flickering behind the shell, bats crossing the sky, fog drifting low.
• Running. The brew sinks with the countdown — candle-bright at the base, bubbling, meniscus dark at the rim — while the moon and stars hold the night steady behind it.
• The last stretch. The brew is a shallow puddle at the bottom of the lantern and its light gutters — the flicker quickens as the lamp runs low, and the night does the talking.
• Zero. The last drop evaporates, sparks and tiny bats burst from the stem, the funeral bell tolls with its theremin glide, and the readout counts up +mm:ss overtime until you reset.

Make it yours

The sliders button in the bottom control row opens Scene settings. Choices are stored in your browser and survive reloads; nothing is sent anywhere.

Two shared panels live in the same place for every skin. Sound picks the finish chime (or “match the skin”), sets the volume, and adds an optional tick for each of the last ten seconds. Display moves the countdown readout — bottom, top, centre, bottom-left or bottom-right — and recolours it: follow theme, warm white, white, gold, ice blue or coral.

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The sound it makes

Zero is marked by three low bell tolls in A minor — a funeral bell for the session — followed by a theremin-style glide that wobbles off into the night. Like everything in timer.cool, the sound is synthesized by the browser at the moment it plays: no audio files, nothing to download. The Sound panel can swap in a bell, digital beep, wood block or alarm, add a tick to each of the last ten seconds, or you can mute with M.

On a projector or TV

For an October classroom party, the pumpkin on the projector is the decorations: a sinking brew, bats crossing the moon, and a roomful of kids yelling at the last minute. Press F and every control disappears. While a timer runs, the page holds a wake lock so the display does not dim before the bell.

The keyboard map: Space start/pause, F fullscreen, R reset, M mute, +/− give or take a minute while running, L repeat. Two honest limits: on an iPhone the ringer switch silences web audio, and aggressive battery-saver modes can override the wake lock on some devices.

Who the pumpkin is for

Questions