Zarf's List of Interactive Games on the Web

[last update: 2/20/96] [maintainer: erkyrath@cmu.edu]

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A helpful hint: Many games these days require you to choose a name and password, to distinguish you from other users. There is nothing wrong with this. However, other weasel-sponsored games ask you for other incriminating information such as addresses, phone numbers, favorite cheese food products, etc. If you feel an urgent need to be anonymous to this sort of thing, feel free to try name "zarf", password "zarf". (All in lower-case, if applicable.) I always use those, and I never include any real data, so it's safe.

I recommend this only to take a quick look at a game. If you're really interested in playing, you wouldn't want to use an account which thousands of other people know the password to.

I have divided the list into four sections:

Interactive Games

Multi-player games, user-versus-computer games, adventure games, anything else which sounds like a game.

Older Games

The older links from the Games section have been moved to a separate page, to save bandwidth.

Interactive Toys

Things you can fool around with, that don't necessarily have a real goal.

Older Toys

The older links from the Toys section.

Feel free to send me suggestions for more links to add. See the instructions for submission. I am interested in games that are actually carried out through the Web, not Web pages about games. (The latter can be found in the Games Domain, maintained by someone else.) Nor am I interested in pages that you can download games from.

Some games require particular features in your Web browser. I have tagged them with the following icons:

: Your browser must support fill-out forms.
: Your browser must support in-line display of images.
: Your browser must support requests made by clicking on image maps.
: A color display is required.
: You must be able to play audio data on your system.
: Your browser must support some HTML3 features, such as tables or named "submit" buttons.
: Your browser must support auto-refreshing pages (yecch).

: This icon indicates a page which, in my opinion, is primarily advertisement rather than game. Not every promotional page is given the Sign of the Weasel (after all, this List will itself soon carry advertising.) This icon simply means that I think that the creator thought of money first and fun second. This is only my opinion. It is in no way influenced by what the creator tells me, so I have no actual source of information. And it is no way a judgement on the quality of the game.

Sander Kessels has discerned a puzzle-capacity within HTML itself: mazes of radio buttons. I'm impressed.

• The Vain Game
• Crejaculabyrinth

Obviously, the Universe was in desperate need of more Tic Tac Toe. By Eero Aleksander Pikat (e-pikat@bio-3.bsd.uchicago.edu).

One more 15 Puzzle, for heaven's sake. By David Shaw (dshaw@cs.jhu.edu).

Political Puzzle, a rebus based on the upcoming American elections and the art of the author, Bill Spear (bill@wmspear.com).

Adventure, the classic Colossal Caves text game, implemented on the Web by Tom Wu (tjw@leland.Stanford.EDU). Story games have never needed graphics, period.

The Useless Game by Steve Berlin (stev0@zuni.chaco.com). A logic puzzle.

Tic Tac Toe by Jeff Boulter (boulter@bucknell.edu). Customizable board size.

Manic Maze, a rendered 3-D maze presented by Legend Entertainment. Real prizes. The images are fairly confusing, though.

Guessing Game, by Marc Novakowski (novakow@ee.ualberta.ca). Pick a number; the computer guesses it.

A Puzzle Gallery presented by Triangle Street Diversions (contact@best.com). A motley bunch of visual, wordplay, and logic puzzles. needed to see some puzzles; usually needed to see the answers.

The Vineyard Challenge, a farming simulation presented by the McCarty Company (farmer@mccarty.com). Try to grow grapes and produce lemonade. Er, I mean wine. looks nicer with .

The Options Game by Bert & Associates (bert@netrunner.net). Buy and sell stock options using play money. There is an entry fee and prizes (in non-play money.)

The Christmas Quiz, by Aha Software. (The lateness is my fault.) (Links may not work in some browsers -- this is their fault.)

Rock Mall Trivia; trivia about rock music, and other stuff. Real prizes, or so they say.

Steve Belczyk (seb3@gte.com) has produced:

• WebMineSweeper
• WebCube de la Rubik
• WebBattleship
• WYSH, a small maze
• The 16 puzzle, with a nice image

Pegs, the classic one-dimensional jumping puzzle. By Scott Reynen

Sports things from Downtown Digital. Actual prizes available.

• Bullpen Ace, a baseball trivia game.
• Two Minute Warning, an NFL trivia game.

Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom. A demo of an upcoming CD-ROM game, but the pictures are nice.

Test Your Knowledge of Auto Insurance, by Progressive Insurance (Correspondence.Progressive@auto-insurance.com). Strange but true.

General Media's Lost Dog Contest. Find their dog in their big list of URLs. Win actual prizes.

Trivia Ink, a trivia server by Adam Miller (miller@minerva.cis.yale.edu). Players can submit answers and new questions.

Mike Curtis (mcurtis@smart.net) has produced

• Slider Puzzle, the 16-puzzle again.
• Lights Puzzle, another pattern puzzle.

A Fun Crossword by Carl Vincent (C.A.Vincent@ncl.ac.uk). Updated every two weeks or so.

The Search for Teos Abadia's Web Site, an interactive story by one Teos Abadia (tsa1@acpub.duke.edu).

Marko's WWW Cube, a Rubik construct which supports animated rotations. By Marko Riedel (riedel@cs.toronto.edu). needed; uses if you want.

Touchstone Games has produced:

• Mankala.
• The Tower of Brahma (Hanoi, in private life).

Houghton Mifflin has produced

• The GeoNet Game, a trivia game on geography.
• Fake Out!, a dictionary guessing game. Try to figure out the correct definitions of words, or submit definitions for upcoming games.

El juego más difícil del GSyC, a quiz about Internet navigation. At least, that's what the authors say it is. Since you need to know Spanish to play, and I don't, I'm taking their word for it.

Paranoia, an old Unix interactive story based on the Paranoia role-playing game. Implemented for the Web by Drow (drow@winternet.com).

The Tower Fiend, an interactive story based on the Tunnels and Trolls role-playing game. Written and implemented for the Web by Mose Wingert.

BlackJack Emporium, by Matt Judson (mjudson@hooked.net) and George Hockley (goh@garnet.berkeley.edu).

Connect Four, by John D. Strunk (gt4417c@prism.gatech.edu). The "gravity" version of four-in-a-row.

Reinventing America, a political game -- or simulation, or experiment -- from Crossover Technologies. Players act independently or in groups to influence a simulated Congress; together they run America. At the end of a year, the results will be presented to the actual Congress of the United States, in a press conference. A damn fine idea.

Dread, an interactive role-playing game from Anarchy Entertainment. Turns to at the very end.

Roll Your Own, a... something... from VIBEonline. You invent a fictional musician, complete with musical (and hair) styles. Anyone can then vote, and there are prizes for rising to the top of the virtual charts.

Ghost, a word game by John Chuang (jchuang@mendel.Berkeley.EDU). You play against another person somewhere out on the Web.

ArchaeoSETI, a first-contact puzzle at the Lunar Institute of Technology. Strange artifacts are being discovered on Mars; what can we determine about them? By the creator of "The Contact Project." to view images; to leave messages in the ongoing discussion.

TV Land contains a few games, including

• Escape the TV Land Stalag
• Find the Genie in the Bottle
• Be-A-Witch
• TV Land of the Giants

NetPoker, by David Diano (consult@libertynet.org).

Lemonade, by Jason Mayans (jmayans@fn.net). Everyone knows what Lemonade is. needed; looks nicer with .

Netropolis, a corporate management game at Delphi UK. .

Six Degrees of Separation, a promotional thing by Yoyodyne Entertainment. It's a contest in Web navigation, so I'm listing it, even though the game is not Web-based per se. (You have to email in entries.) Deeply .

Caissa's Web, an Internet chess server on the Web. Allows you to play against anyone else who is currently connected.

The Puzzle Gallery, a collection of abstract puzzles by Eric Harshbarger. Puzzles require various of .

Destination:Cyberspace, a small interactive story by Mark Van Buren (vanburen@blvl.igs.net). needed; Looks better with

Once again, Tic Tac Toe, with nice-looking pieces this time. By Christan Jung (cjung@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de). The C source is available.

WinFive, a five-in-a-row game by Leonid Charny (leon@bu.edu).

A Name That Tune contest by Catzee Starbuckle (catzee@tnp.com).

ChessWeb, by Marc de Bruyne (mjdbruyn@eduserv.rug.ac.be). An open chess game; anyone can make a move.

Dots, the game where you try to complete boxes on a grid. By John Chuang (jchuang@mendel.berkeley.edu). ; looks better with

Another extendable Interactive Story by Darren Bleuel (gav@nuc.berkeley.edu) and Chris Peloso (peloso@nuc.berkeley.edu). This one is moderated, so it actually might not collapse into total absurdity like most of them do, though.

Small World Hoops and Baseball, a pair of fantasy sport team games. (Other games are upcoming soon.) You make up teams using actual players; your players' records will be tracked from real life. Note: This is a commercial site, and they want real money to play, although there is a free demo.

The Rift, another ripoff of our old egg-hunt idea. A promotional weasel game, with real prizes (but no entry fee.)

The Labyrinth. A 2-D maze game.

Stubbed Toe, which is, well, Tic-Tac-Toe. Looks nice though. By Luke Mitchell Seemann (lukeseem@oregon.uoregon.edu)

The older games in my List.

The Live Artificial Life Page, a large collection of animated simulations. Maintained by Robert Silverman (cb@fusebox.com).

Mood Detector, by Rod Paulson (oeno@frugal.com). Notably mostly for utter abuse of title animation; may not work on arbitrary browsers.

The Oracle can distinguish good from evil. Really. Would we lie? By Jeff Breidenbach (jbreiden@mit.edu)

Wacky Web Tales, a Mad Libs implementation by Houghton Mifflin.

Mozart's Musikalisches Wurfelspiel, a stochastic game which generates minuets and trios. By Wolfie Mozart; implemented for the Web by John Chuang (jchuang@mendel.berkeley.edu). Requires , and capable of playing MIDI files.

Brendan's Amazing Anagram Generator, another anagram server. By Brendan Connell. Allows you to block out words below a given length, to avoid the "An a g Ra MS" problem.

The Graphic Scanning System, a miraculous extension of Web technology by Ilia Zilberman.

A Heretical Rhyme Generator by Chris Seidel (seidel@zenith.Berkeley.EDU). You give it a opening line; it gives you a verse.

Web Screen Saver, by Adam Miller (miller@minerva.cis.yale.edu). Pretty color fades. Requires to view sequences, to create your own.

Andrew Fire's Bad Advice, by Andrew Fire (sjsst32+@pitt.edu). This is bad advice you give to him, not vice versa. He rates your submissions and reposts the most impressive.

Dr. Werner Wilhelm Webowitz, an on-line quack shrink. Go ahead and speak your mind. By Jeff Harrington (idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org).

Virtual Break, a stroll in the woods.

Mood Ringo. Emotional democracy, or, the humour of the masses.

NetBaby by Kimberley Love and Glen Drummond. Design the Baby of the Future. , and the results will be more readable with .

Build-a-Monster, by renoir@rahul.net.

The older toys in my List.

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