hello world

all in all, I haven't the faintest idea

[broken-academia]

i read CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed one time years ago and i’m still not recovered from it

[broken-academia]

— A Grief Observed: part i-ii, C.S. Lewis x

[giffingthingsss]

I need y'all to understand that he wrote this famous passage in the middle of her brief remission -

'Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.' 'Don’t put your goods in a leaky vessel.' 'Don’t spend too much on a house you may be turned out of.' There is no man alive who responds more naturally than I to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering”. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

[retroactivebakeries]

[failbettergames]

Sunless Skies (2019)

[catgirl-catboy]

I think polyamory should be used to make romance subplots even more convoluted, actually. Sure, it could theoretically solve a love triangle- but it could also make things infinitely more chaotic and that's way better.

[missile47-5]

"don't perform self-surgery! only medical professionals should do that!" appeal to authority. "no one does that!" bandwagon fallacy. "you're crazy!" ad hominem

[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.

[coolfrogdude]

original thread by @pukicho and several other users

[m86-deactivated20171116]

while you studied the blade i studied the forge so i could make you the very best blade in the world! love you baby

[ruu-minate]

Rook/Lucanis/Neve cruel pining triangle where Lucanis is like “man they’re like cute little detective partners they’re always finishing each others observations and theories. I wish I could have that”, Neve going “UGH Lucanis cooked Rook’s favourite dinner. That’s such a good idea. I can’t even take Rook for one dinner without work coming up ” or Rook going “god dammit why would either of them want me when they’re the two coolest hottest people I’ve ever met” because they’re all hot losers really

[trench-knife]

one of my worst writing sins is abusing my power to create compound words. i cannot write the sentence "The sun shone as bright as honey that afternoon." no. that's boring. "The sun was honey-bright that afternoon" however? yes. that sentence is dope as fuck. i do not care if "honey-bright" is a word in the english dictionary. i do not care if the sentence is grammatically correct. i will not change. i will not correct my erred ways. the laws of the english language are mine.

[quasi-normalcy]

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Foreshadowing

vs.

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Just Something That They Opted Not to Spoon-feed You Because It Would Be Obvious If You Thought About It For 20 Seconds

vs.

It May Be a Plot Hole, But It Still Works In Terms of the Story’s Themes and Character Logic

vs.

Okay, It Is a Plot Hole, What Are You Going to Do, Cry about It?

[quasi-normalcy]

vs.

All Works of Fiction Represent Constructed Realities and by Demanding a Lack of Plot Holes, You Are Improperly Importing the Rules of Objective Reality into a Subjective Creation that Must Be Judged Primarily on Its Aesthetic Merits

vs.

Dude, Just Come-up With a Headcanon Like A Normal Human Being

[lostsometime]

vs.

Is It Really a Plot Hole, or Are the Characters Just Not Making the Choices You Want Them To?

[primarybufferpanel]

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the fanfic gets in

[dduane]

(Smiling at that last one)

Leave a little space

for the previously unthinkable

to save you.

[mind-altering-bugs]

The best part about turning 30 was, legitimately, unlocking the ability to use this image

[crackavellian]

[louisegluckpdf]

scantily is basically the most classic way to be clad

[prettyaveragewhiteshark]

How quickly we forget the noble and impenetrable iron

[ilynpilled]

i love characters who do the “i worship the myth i make of you” and in turn dehumanize and get wrong the object of their devotion and love. yes project a thing that does not exist onto a pedestal and kneel at it like it is your altar. this will surely not blow up in both of your faces eventually

[spicyraeman]

Lae'zel of Crèche K'liir my beloved

[mathew]

[so-much-for-subtlety]

[chopnuts]

SHE THINKS HER LAUGH IS A SONG SO SHE SINGS BACK

[nyezemnoy-deactivated20250401]

New this or that just dropped