Home▸Physics & Mechanics▸Domino Cascade

2D Domino Cascade: Winding-Path Toppling Physics

Interactive 2D top-down domino cascade along a fixed winding path: click any domino to start the chain reaction from that point, tune spacing and domino size, and watch a real rigid-body toppling model (torque, angular acceleration, footprint growth) propagate forward — or stall when the spacing outreaches the domino's height.

Physics & Mechanics2DEasy60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version
2d-3d-domino-cascade ↗ Open standalone

Most domino simulators only let you push the very first piece. This 2D top-down cascade instead lays dominoes along a fixed winding path and lets you click any standing domino to set off the chain reaction from that exact point, propagating forward along the curve. Each domino is modeled as a rigid rod pivoting about its base, driven by the real falling-rod torque equation α = (3g)/(2H)·sinθ, and only topples its neighbor once its top edge — reaching forward a horizontal distance H·sinθ along the path's own tangent direction — physically closes the spacing gap ahead of it. Because the view is from above, a standing domino renders as a thin rectangle crossing the path and a fallen one as a full-length rectangle lying flat along it, so the footprint growth you see on screen is the same sinθ term driving the physics underneath. Push the spacing slider past the domino's own height and the cascade stalls partway down that stretch of path, exactly like the physics predicts, while the size slider trades off toppling speed against the energy each domino releases as it falls.

⚙ Under the hood

Click any domino along a fixed winding path to trigger a real rigid-body toppling cascade, with spacing and size sliders driving the same torque physics from above.

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install

What did you find?

Add reproduction steps (optional)