You Just Got A New Job. Choose Your Boss

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.

You may call me evil monster, if you insist

the high geologist,.,..

There is nothing more precious to me as a writer than the comments left on AO3. Whenever I get that email notification, I wonder what kind of comment was left. To have a little fun, I'm going to sort the typical comments into a few different categories and share my reactions to them as a writer.

If you feel I missed a comment type, please let me know. I'm curious to learn what other classifications you think exist (positive comment types only please - let's not make this negative). Also, if you wanted to tag yourself, I'd love you know what type of commenter you think you are.

The Polite Conversationalist - Your comment confirms that you read and enjoyed the fic or chapter. You offer praise for the author's efforts and encouragement for them to continue. - If this is you, please know that I'm imagining us holding a book club together. I brought us snacks.

The All Caps Reaction - You left the most unhinged comment. - You were screaming as you read it? I was screaming as I wrote it. Let's be friends.

The How Dare You - The angst is real. And painful. And I'm sorry but the story needed it. - This is a compliment of the highest order and I'm so glad you left it.

The Conspiracy Theorist - You are so invested that you are trying to figure out what comes next. - I'm so excited to read your ideas. They let me know the story tracks for you. And I'm either smiling because you guessed right and I'm excited for you to read what comes next, or I'm grinning because I know the plot twist is going to blow your mind.

The Catch-Up - You haven't commented in a while and are letting me know you are catching up. - I'm so glad you are back! I missed you. I know life gets busy and it means a lot to me that you took the time to read my story.

The Giggle - You laughed at my jokes and let me know. - Did we just become best friends? I'm already making you a bracelet.

The Callout - You found my favorite line in the chapter or fic. - I love you so much. You just made my day, my week, my month. Seriously, all the love for the reader. xoxo

i love listening to MUSIC!!!!!! and imagining things happening

Oh my Gosh... October :o)! Happy October! (I tuck myself into the soil and Begin to sink pleasantly into the ground)

Actually playing my Mantis Lords arrangement in one take

It took too many takes to get it right..(there still are some mistakes though)

ask me whatever (within reason) it’ll be funny!

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

Makes this noise at mutuals

BLADES FORGED IN BLIND FAITH