Press kit

About Wonderfall

Wonderfall brings snow, rain, falling leaves, petals, fireflies and string lights to your Mac desktop, over your own wallpaper.

Snow, leaves and petals pile up at the bottom of the screen and on top of open windows, and raindrops form on the glass. A shovel, broom or squeegee clears them away, and you can roll the snow into snowballs and a snowman. Clicks pass through the effects, so you keep working normally.

The story

Two winters ago it didn't snow in Kraków at all. Andrew Sereda missed it and wrote a tiny utility that let snow fall along the top of the screen, just to lift the mood. It was never meant to go anywhere, until someone on a work call noticed the snow and asked where they could get one. So it got finished and went on the Mac App Store as SnowMyScreen.

The next ideas came from nostalgia for the PC games Andrew played as a kid. Snow started piling up at the bottom of the screen, and then it needed a shovel. Version 1.2 adds rain, leaves, petals and fireflies, and a new name: Wonderfall. Version 1.3 lets snow settle on your windows and turns the snow bank into something you can play with.

What's new in 1.3

• Snow settles on top of open windows and moves with them; leaves and petals gather there too, and rain splashes on window edges
• Play in the snow: roll snowballs, build a snowman with a beanie and scarf, or throw a snowball at the screen
• A snowplow clears all snow and a leaf sweeper clears all leaves
• Icons in the menu bar menu and improvements for several displays
• From 1.2: rain, leaves, petals, fireflies, string lights with eight scenes, your own images and a new name

From the developer

The name is about the small magic of the seasons: “wonder” for that feeling, “fall” for things that fall.