Life is somewhat fine.

Michelle | Meaning of my username (Filipino): regret-change

[shinyhappygoth]

The Least Specific Movie Night Ever

The Thing

The Stuff

The Substance

The Entity

It

The Others

[spanishskulduggery]

Spanish Joke of the Day

¿Qué hace Shakira cuando recibe un mensaje? Lo lee lo lee lo lee

[lit. "What does Shakira do when she receives a message?" "She reads it she reads it she reads it"]

[bigo-bago]

i finally get it

[everyday-cutephoto]

[drops-of-universe]

sorry for acting weird. that was me following my heart

[technofeudalism]

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

[technofeudalism]

since this post blew up, i've been wanting to do an addition with all of the recommendations from the comments and tags. but there's a lot of them. some people might be crazy enough to sit down and seriously put them all in one post with descriptions. those people are honestly sick in the head.

anyway, here's all of the recommendations from the reblogs. not all of them are text-based, but it's a great mixture of styles. also don't forget the links in the second paragraph of the OP which will take you to FMHY where there are a bunch more games listed.

Games

A Dark Room - text-based science fiction role-playing game.

corru.observer - science fiction adventure web game.

Improbable Island - old-school text adventure game.

Candy Box 2 - incremental clicker game that evolves into RPG.

Arcanum - open source wizard clicker game.

sandspiel, Powder Game, Powder Game 2, The Powder Toy - more sand physics games.

Orb.Farm - fishtank simulator.

Façade - experimental game with a real-time interactive narrative where you try to fix a failing marriage.

The Catacombs of Solaris - trippy art game.

Yume Nikki Online - online version of the surreal classic plus fangames.

The Barncle Goose Experiment - combine element/alchemy game based on antique theories of abiogenesis.

Fallen London - free-to-play text-based open world RPG.

Nested - very unique text-based universe expanding game. described as possibly @orteil42's favorite thing he's ever made.

The Process of Elimination - interactive web novel (by @hypertextdog)

Discworld MUD - multiplayer, text-based, online game (a MUD, or text MMORPG) based on the Discworld books.

Horse Master - surreal text game about training a horse.

EYEZMAZE - flash (RIP) or HTML5-based puzzle games.

You Are Jeff Bezos - text game. spend Jeff Bezos' fortune.

The Password Game - challenging puzzle game where you have to meet password requirements (by neal)

Universal Paperclips - incremental paperclip making game.

Half-Earth - planetary disaster planning game where you try to save the world using socialism.

ChooseYourStory - community-driven website centered on CYOA style story games.

PhD Simulator - random event based text game. make your choice each month and see if you can graduate on time.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - open source roguelike.

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - turn-based survival roguelike set in the modern day.

Nethack - open source roguelike originally released in 1987.

FarmRPG - simple, mobile-friendly, text-based farming RPG.

Kingdom of Loathing - browser-based community MMORPG.

PokeRogue - browser-based Pokemon roguelike

Tools

Text Game Builder - works in your browser, with just a little bit of Python (by @grumpygandalf)

Twine - great (free!) tool for making text-based games quickly.

Ink - scripting language for interactive fiction (also free)

Flashpoint Archive - a community effort to preserve games and animations from the web.

PICO-8 - fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs.

Non-Games

Library of Babel - interactive illustration which attempts to simulate what it might be like to browse The Library of Babel.

Superbad - technically not a game, sprawling website full of secrets.

17776 - serialized speculative fiction multimedia narrative about football in the far-future. beautiful, creative, legendary. created by Jon Bois, a legend and one of my favorite writers of all time.

Choice of Games - text-based, choose-your-own-adventure games (interactive fiction). some free-to-play, others can be bought like an ebook.

The Deep Sea - scroll to the bottom of the ocean. encounter the humble squid and his friends (by neal)

Space Elevator - like The Deep Sea, but up instead of down. you can equip your avatar with a scarf (by neal)

Internet Artifacts - an interactive history of the early internet (by neal)

If The Moon Were Only One Pixel - scroll through an accurately scaled model of the universe.

r/incremental_games - reddit community for incremental games.

r/WebGames - reddit community for web games in general.

thank you to everyone who contributed and the creators. please be sure to show them some love where possible.

[mydeaddaddashdot]

[cosmicretreat]

[strawberry-crocodile]

the thing about capitalism is that at a certain point a product reaches its maximum audience and cant really be improved (at least not while remaining profitable), but capitalism requires a product provide infinite growth, and at that point the only way to increase profits is to raise prices, cut corners, and in the case of services start adding advertisements. this is just how the system works.

[charyou-tree]

Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality,[2][3] risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline.

The actual economic term for this parasitic behavior is "Rent Seeking", as in "charging you rent for things that didn't used to cost money just because we can."

[paintedpolarbear]

"The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector, nor do passing boats get anything in return. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for themselves. All they are doing is finding a way to obtain money from something that used to be free." obtain money links to the wikipedia article for Parasitism which might be the most brutal diss I've ever seen on wikipedia ever

[headspace-hotel]

Hey, that's unfair, parasites at least play an important role in the ecosystem

[2peachy]

[papayajuan2019]

how could it have gone wrong, my approach was data-driven and trauma-informed

[tgirl-thucydides]

this is an incredible map

[vent-art-af]

"I CAN'T UNKNOW EVERYTHING I HAVE KNOWN"

(1/11/25)

Made with this Kid Pix Simulator

[bpdohwhatajoy]

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

progress can come in so many forms.

forming a routine. getting more sleep. showering more often. eating more than one meal a day. finishing an assignment on time. allowing yourself to take breaks when you need them. drinking more water. going outside more. spending more time socializing. not going to events that are draining. cleaning the dishes before they pile up.

some things seem like little steps that we barely acknowledge, but every one of them is a part of progress.

[somerabbitholes]

gap in literature where are u

[slivincptsd]

[herdarkandquietspace]

[shallowcrypts]

Avoidants are unfairly demonized.

And you know what? I’m sick of seeing anxious-attached folks being treated as if they’re fully the victim and totally blameless.

They just cannot ever admit that they might make mistakes, especially serious ones. Can’t apologize. Self righteous as hell, and so, so blaming. It’s such bullshit. It’s so often that the avoidant partner is forced to take “accountability” for whatever the issue and the AP gets to be relieved that its “not them” and they don’t have to look at their own outrageous behavior that may have contributed to the original issue.

AP’s get all the sympathy because they are usually the loudest, therefore we all have to center around their feelings. It’s not that the avoidants DON’T want help, it’s avoidants are more likely to avoid and if someone doesn’t like conflict and the AP is constantly having a temper tantrum… so who is going to get heard? Have the most attention to their problems?

I was recently talking to a friend about couples therapy with her avoidant partner & even in listening I could tell that she didn’t realize how much she dominated the therapy sessions, while simultaneously complaining he wasn’t there enough. When he finally broke down and cried about something she had said, her response? You’ve never cried about that before but it bothers you NOW?

And that’s the thing, it’s never good enough for APs. It is hard to be a person when an AP is suffocating the room, and it’s easier for them to blame avoidants because we are the only people who will continually put up with their shit, because we ignore it and somehow they are the victims in that too. The goal post is forever changing with them, and nothing is ever good enough. They complain and put pressure on to be, think, feel a certain way and when you manage to come close, you’re still somehow in the wrong. I would rather shove everything down and suffer silently than possibly trigger an AP into an episode because THAT is pure psychological torture.

And don’t even get me started about how they then proceed to be the “humble brags” of self-work:

“I just have too big of a heart and I over-give because I’m too generous.”

If all the APs I’ve known ACTUALLY took accountability it’d sound like:

"I make comments with the intention of making you feel ashamed and guilty so that in your diminished self-worth you might be insecure enough to come to me. Maybe if you’re upset we can have a conversation or emote at each other, which is a form of connection, so I force that since I can’t force you do do whatever I want at any given moment. I push and push and push and push you so that when you break A) again, I can feel the connection that comes with conflict, at least, and B) I can feel victimized by how ‘mean’ you are by finally breaking at my prodding. I do not ever stop to consider how this might be tanking your life and our relationship… because I always find a way to blame you for that. I have the audacity to purport to know what your problems are and your inner work should be, and though I’m begging you to open up to me, I don’t listen when you do. I just cry because whatever you say scares me, and my fear is still ultimately more important than any of your experiences.” APs don’t “care” anymore than Avoidants as a default, though they may try too hard, sure.

The issue is that the “I care too much" gets recognized as “and that causes problems for ME” and they’re like "oh look I’m taking accountability!” But they never get to the part about how them “caring too much” caused problems for OTHERS and they never want to earnestly apologize. Their behavior can be seriously, seriously, damaging to be on the other end of.

“I’m impatient, have unrealistic expectations, and I over-perform for love. I’m going to work on this with my therapist because I’m realizing now how this is backfiring and causing me pain.”

^That would be accountability.