Fun Stuff That Spring Thinks Is Cool

Just links to stuff I think is worth knowing about! As with anywhere else on my site, I try to avoid YouTube links but in places where I can't, they'll be denoted with a [YT] symbol. For other NeoCities pages, see ./links!

Video Games

--Free--

• Cave Story - A historic (and fun!) landmark in the history of indie games
• ESC - A reasonable-length novel with some thoughts about identity and the progression of the internet
• Flashpoint - You remember Flash games, right? What if Flash hadn't been summarily executed?
• Mahjong Soul - Little known fact: mahjong is fun! Gacha mechanics less so, but you can't really make mahjong P2W
• nonograms.org - It's Picross nonograms, in your browser! Who doesn't love Picross nonograms?
• Space Station 13 - This game's engine is barely holding together which is probably the only condition a roleplay game this complex could survive
• Yume Nikki - Despite having a legacy of being classic horror, Yume Nikki is really just cozy, moody exploration
• VRChat - The future of internet interconnection is not moving everything into the virtual, but creating memories and finding new forms of expression in virtual spaces, and VRChat is the only "metaverse" (gag) that understands that

--Paid--

• Final Fantasy XIV - Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? No really it's good though
• Night in the Woods - Mid-20s furries come to grips with the existential void of the midwest
• Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale - It's a fun little management sim with a scrappy story behind it, and it really nails the 2000s slice of life anime feel
• Sayonara Wild Hearts (flashing lights warning) - Possibly the single greatest hour of video games. Fast-paced, pop-drenched emotions on motorbikes.
• Tetris Effect - They made Tetris into a killer rave set and it made me cry
• Umurangi Generation - A bit more sullen than the others here, but Umurangi has some serious things on its mind, like the average person's place in moments of seeming hopelessness

Music

• WACUP - The modern WinAmp brand is owned by terrible people, but this community update is still a phenomenal music player even by modern standards
• Winamp Skin Museum - And half the fun of WinAmp is how openly customizable it is. This site is a monument to that, as well as a starting point
• Antonymph by Vylet Pony [YT] (flashing lights warning) - Can an MLP fansong give you a spiritual revelation? Yeah. Throw in CUTIEMARKS, the full album it's from, for good measure
• Bloodstains by 100gecs AMV [YT] - A lite-AMV that understands what 100gecs is
• KHinsider - Download some video game music! Go wild!
• Seal the 3rd.mp4 [YT] - Seal!

Anime / Vocaloid

• Katte Ni Shinryakusha Trance Mix [YT] - A remix of an end theme from the first anime I ever watched (Sgt. Frog)
• Moriya Shrine - If you've ever wanted anything at all connected to the Touhou series, here you go
• Nico Nico Kumikyoku [YT] - Genuinely, this is the song I listened to the most in 2013, I'm sure of it
• Ochame Kinou [YT] - Why yes, it was worth listening to this song on loop for 10 hours at a time
• Raspberry Heaven [YT] - I never actually watched Azumanga's anime adaptation, but this song is just so soothing
• Strobe Light by Powapowa-P [YT] - Nothing actually very flashy in this one despite the name! Just some great Vocaloid tunes
• Triple Baka by LamazeP [YT] - *cell phone noises*

Written Works

• 17776 / 20020 - It's about football. It's got very little to do with football. It has a lot to do with the terrifying directionlessness of existencing forever. I could sit here and suggest just about anything by Jon Bois [YT], but these are a great start
• The Fandom [YT] - Learn a bit about furries and their history straight from the fox's mouth
• Gamers Against Weed - An SCP collection following a bunch of gay dorks' internet-fueled anomaly shenanigans. I'm especially fond of 5470, which replaces SCP's usual "horror monster" gimmick with the quiet, mournful entity that is a dying MMO
• Jacob Geller [YT] - Another blanket recc, rambling but passionate analysis of media, mostly about video games
• Red Bard [YT] - A bunch of well-researched, short videos about mid-2000s anime fans and the absurdity of merchandising

Design

• EzGIF - A super useful website for quickly editing .gifs in browser
• Future Express - Some of my personal favorite "Y2K" designs
• picoCAD - A 3D modeling program made entirely in pico-8, a minimalist programming language. More than just a really cool tech demo, picoCAD is also a pretty good limited environment to start 3D modeling!
• WAVE - Another super useful tool, especially on here, WAVE automatically checks a page's HTML and suggests best practices and accessibility improvements, and gives some direction on how to implement them
• Web Design Museum - A gallery showcasing a wide swath of web designs from '91-'06. Both an interesting curio and a great way to brainstorm ideas for site layouts and designs

Other

• The Internet Archive - An invaluable resource, tragically not everything is here but some amazing things can be found with a little digging
• Crouton - You know it! You love it! It's crouton!
• yt-dlp - YouTube is a fickle and inconsistent platform, downloading videos is essential preservation