"Due to a bug in modern versions of Chrome, this website only works with Firefox, Safari and Chrome 52 or earlier."
Upgrading to a better browser ;-)
Thanks to everyone who reported their experiences and helped to track down the issue!
On a more general level, the argument about all the eggs and a single basket still stands. (Knowing why a particular basket fails doesn't help the eggs.)
(And for a description of Computer Space, see https://www.masswerk.at/rc2017/04/02.html)
Nonetheless, it runs smoothly on Chrome 76.0.3807.0 (Canary) on a Late 2013 iMac.
I.e., I just tried on an old MacPro (late 2008) with hardware acceleration disabled (Settings -> Advanced -> System -> Hardware acceleration + restart) and it runs smoothly.
Edit: Just updated the page accordingly. Thanks to everyone who helped in focusing on the matter of hardware acceleration!