dimden's hotel

a very nice website made by a Ukrainian programmer with a lot of neat stuff on it (i love the photo gallery). dimden also creates a lot of cool projects, most notable OldTwitter... the dimden discord also has a nice sense of community. i don't chat there much, but i like it :)

Zenmai Studio

honestly one of the best sites i've ever seen. the creator, 5102, changed the layout obbsessively often but they were all pretty good. they are also a very skilled artist with a very distinctive style!! they were also the world's #1 AI hater, which i totally get, but it also makes it sometimes difficult to see their amazing artwork... they're site has gone through many phases of requiring a password or even going offline for a little, and currently the art is not available on the site which makes me :'( but i like i said, i understand.
please respect their wishes; do NOT reupload their artwork on social media!

phrogee

this site makes me :) idk i just love the vibe so much <3

melankorin

not much content, but it has a really nice monochrome style. also has some interesting blogs

RUNEGOD

a comic artist. i quite like their comic PAENDEMIC despite RUNEGOD's warnings that "THIS IS CRINGE!" - and i have to agree with them that it is extremely slopy in many aspects, espeically in the later half. it kinda gets worse the more you think about it, but still think it some very strong qualities, and i can't deny that i got pretty sucked in reading it. although, i'd imagine RUNEGOD would hope they are better known for anything but PAENDEMIC, heheh. so maybe, for their sake, you should check out some of their other stuff.

Twelve Men

this site is really weird and unconventional, but i like it alot. has a lot of interesting / bizarre content on it

LOBOKONI

has super cute and cool and good comics and games and stuff aaaaaa i love tihs

amapy.cc

!!!!!!!!!!! really nice looking layout. their between pools comic only has 1 chapter but it seems interesting..... i will be keeping an eye on it

site from the creator of I Wanna Be The Guy !!!!!!!!!!

has some really good writing, i especially like they're article on yesterweb

madeinv

aNOTHER fgc person (wowie!!!!) but also this is i think the only site that uses pink as the primary color that i actually like. i also enjoy the blog on this site... pretty good!!

14.4mL

wow blue!!! i've probably browsed several thousand sites and this point and i have to admit a lot of them kinda blend together... but this one stands out as unique! tons of sites go for a kinda "dark mode" colorscheme (me), so seeing a site that pretty much does the opposite is cool. also.... a tracker musician?!?! on neocities?!?!? no way

CharlieWorld

cute lil' website. i love the blogs and stuff

an extremely good artist seriously holly molly. their site has a habbit of appearing as blank for the first 10 or so seconds, just wait it out (or if it's been a while, try refreshing the page).

fantasy(?) background artist..... woah. very impressive.

Cloverbell

the comfiest website on neocities :3

freelance illustrator and tattoo artist that you can commission???? crazy. sadly doesn't seem like they have updated their site in a little while but it's still cool

omoulo

i really relate to this person's struggle with social media addiction, and i found her blog really insightful.

Saikyo Central for R&D!

fighting game enthusiast (:o) and generally nice looking site. coolio! i really like the [Info Dump] section

NENRIKIDO

i usually don't like sites that are styled after a desktop OS, but this one manages to stand out enough to look good. it also has a lot of really good info about web development.

Phantasmagorial

really not much here but it's super chilled out, very good looking site
NOTE: currently 'under construction' as of july 28th, 2024. not sure what happened but i hope it comes back!
NOTE II: pwwweeeease it's been almost a year i miss it :')

NinAcTi0N's Lab

there's not much, but what is there is extremely stylish

the slickest site of all time.

Super Durdge-o Land

the site itself looks kinda bad in my opinion, but the content is AMAZING. the front page used to say they are a "full time winner" and they mean it -- they are an artist, game dev, fighting game enthusiast, what more could you want!?!?

incessantpain

writing. most interesting in my opinion was they're writing about japan

amfmadio's art archive

a very skilled artist. also, their site is in english and indonesian.

NEKROMANT

their site doens't have much content, but it's extremely stylish. also they are a very skilled artist, especially with MS paint...

kwaamfan

cute

fleepy

cool programmer person. makes some nice music as well

doqmeat

pretty flowery and cute site

derrek

honestly what made this site stick in my head is just that intro video hehe. the creator isn't super active but it's got some cool stuff and resources for artists.

kidwiththechemicalz

has a cool retro aesthetic. algunas partes son en español. i liked their article on lain and the trans experience lol

lolwut?

the personal website of an old 4chan user, with all the pros and cons that brings. still, i kinda like this site, it's certainly interesting. WARNING: offensive language (slurs)

Koyo

the minimalist design isn't my favorite, but this has some cool content (they're game "viral" actually looks quite good!) and the best manifesto of all time

KRIS-SCAPES

red :)
in all seriousness though, it looks REALLY GOOD but there's not much content

exactly what it says on the tin. offers some really good insight, i think.

definitely not me

title

I don't have anything to prove. I am a human being, and I'm hypocritical.

NOTE: i can't link directly to the specific blog, click the bottom-most blog entry on the right panel.
i really resonated with this. like, to a painful degree.

fr. cool article

tbh not sure i agree with this really, but it was an interesting fresh perspective.

i've grappled around with this question a lot -- is the influence of outside cultures (particularly via the internet) making people disconnected to their own, and is that a problem? i myself don't really have much of a connection to my heritage at all, and so i found the perspective of melankorin (someone who does) to be very insightful.

an interesting contrarian (at least, i think?) take. if you want my opinion on it: i don't think i agree with it, as i felt the author was kind of making a strawman argument. "fail faster" does not claim that failure is good, it claims that failure should come sooner rather than later so that it happens when it's cheap and easy to correct, which is actually exactly inline with "taking intelligent risks," not opposing it. still an interesting read though.

Alfie Kohn is like the world's #1 grade hater, and personally, i can say that his views have really resonated with me. i was one of those kids who always got good grades growing up, but i remember feeling very strongly that was not very smart or knowledgable dispite that, i was just "good at school." this article (and others) helps to put into words and research this feeling i have experienced for so long.

it's mod for deltarune chapter 1, but it's so transformative that it's essentially an original game. it's a very interesting combination of memes and an actual serious narative. the story definitely isn't perfect, but the game is very well made, and absolutely hilarious.

a traditional roguelike that's very easy to get into and has a good amount of depth in it's combat.

a traditional roguelike with ascii graphics (though there is a tileset you can use). while it is certainly accessible in comparison to it's contemporaries, it's still pretty daunting if you are only used to the modern genre-mashup roguelikes. however, some of the emergent story telling that can happen is pretty impressive. if you want to get into old school roguelikes, this is the game i would point you to.
the final version from the original creator is 1.7.5, but the community has continued with bug fixes and improvements through the community edition, which is what i recomend you play.

an rpg maker game by Temmie Chang (the artist of undertale). the story and characters are quite engaging and the soundtrack, composed by Camellia, Toby Fox, and Temmie, is amazing. the art is pretty good to.

a charming, highly polished arcade twin stick shooter. there's two versions, the free itch version and the deluxe version on steam which i admitedly haven't played.

a visual novel about a shutin who tries to sever off his negative emotions into a clone of himself. it's not exactly high art, but the scenario is interesting and the writing was pretty funny.

a really good 2d top down souls like. i'm suprised it's free.

a jam game about escaping a maze with the "help" of a minotaur

a jam game. it's a pretty generic auto runner, but executed extremely well.

mastapiece.

not a game, but a minecraft modpack. however, it's so transformative that it really feels like it's own game. the stand out feature is the invasions: waves of mobs will show up and literally break into your base, forcing you to actually consider defense when constructing your home. this pack is considered fairly difficult - i didn't get far in it myself.

[$5 USD]
it's a turn based fighting game that produces extremely stylish replays. it boasts a great deal of depth, expressive and flashy combos, and a big modding scene to boot. there's a free beta on itch, but it's 2+ years out of date so i recomend you just buy the steam version.

this is a very good, but very incomplete single player fighting game. i'd always wanted to make a game like this, so when i found it i was like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yes! that! it is, however, indevelopment. story / progression / whatever isn't really there yet, so it feels kind of aimless. the optimization is also quite bad. but it's really cool trust me!!!! also gets updated every friday. very good dev lol

a very good scratch game made by Gokanaru's little brother for a highschool project.

a really tight platformer -- small, but extremely good for what it is

an extremely tightly designed RPG maker game. the art is obviously lacking, but the gameplay and narrative are pristine and it is brave enough not to waste your time.

book on programming, primarily intended for game developers but really anyone. it's available completely for free. i haven't read it YET

a math textbook aimed at game developers, though it has a much more human and entertaining tone than the typical no-nonsense prose of a typical math text, which i personally like. it's free. i haven't read it YET

a entire free book on writing GLSL fragment shaders. i also haven't read it YET

a free online "book" on... y'know. i also also haven't read it YET

code executed in sequence should be written in sequence

this is a book that explains how to set up and use the """"ideal"""" editor: vscode with a neovim plugin. i don't actually use vscode, just neovim, but i think the explanations on how to use vim is very well put.

a incredibly extensive, sorted plugin list. seriously yutkat, you're insane..... i used to use vimawesome but this is way better.

indepth information about how you can get started in game development, created by Pirate Software

the most comprehensive collection of game development wisdom, ever. it does have a ludecriously expensive yearly subscription to access all of the content ($650 USD!?!?!), but there's also a lot of it that's available for free.

this offers a really unique perspective on non-commercial game development that i think is really overlooked.

* i haven't read through this YET a brief but comprehensive overview of the main mathematical topics applicable to game development.

best overview of game dev with a custom engine in my opinion. written by actual accomplished developer Tyler Glariel, who worked on The End is Nigh, among many others

some things are out of date now (this was made on Godot 3.2; 5+ years ago), but for what it's worth, this was the first tutorial for a game engine that i could comprehend and actually complete.

* i haven't read this yet

very good article that details how extrinsic rewards are often a crutch in game design. specifically, it details what klei entertainment discovered when prototyping don't starve.

another (much briefer) article by Chris Hecker (the creator of Spy Party) about instrinsic vs extrinsic motivation.

on the intrinsic reward of making games

the author basically argues that we tend to conflate good architecture with good level design, and that this is to reductive and excludes many types of ways to design spaces that work better for many games.

almost all documentation is not helpful when you are first learning, and the MDN docs are no exception. however, i do think that this is the best overall resource to consult for HTML / CSS / JS reference.

a small-ish (~1000 people) neocities-centered community. it has a monthly newsletter, forums, events... i haven't really participated much at all personally, but i think it's pretty neat.

not a good starting point if you have no idea how to make a website, but if you're got the basics down and want to learn some more advanced tips and stuff, there's a lot of great stuff here.

a bunch of textures, some of which i used for this site.

a site where anyone can upload sounds. the quality can varry greatly, but there's some good stuff on here and it's where i get most of the sounds for my games.

another site for sound effects, though this one is curated. as a result, the average quality is much higher, but there's less variety.

pros: much easier to learn IMO; open source; completely free; much more lean than Unity/Unreal
cons: generally poorer preformance vs Unity/UE (especially regarding GDScript); not industry standard if you're interested in professional work; worse platform support than the big 3 (Godot 4 doesn't support WebGL for 3D!); games are extremely easy to decompile, and there aren't many countermeasures you can take

i'd say all browsers kinda suck right now, but firefox stands out due to the customizability. it's the only browser to my knowledge that lets you insert custom CSS, which i think is really cool.

a great, mostly free video editor. note however that it is NOT lightweight at all, so if you are only interested in simple edits and you don't have a good computer, you should probably look elsewhere.

it's just notes (written in markdown format). unfortunately it's an electron app so it eats up probably 10x the memory that it should, but it's still not that bad, and most importantly, it works great. it also has a mobile version (though you'll have you use a different program to sync it for free), and i was extremely impressed at how seemless the experience was. desktop themes and plugins work exactly the same on mobile and look great. you can definitely go down a rabit hole configuring this thing, but you honestly don't need to that much — it works pretty dang good out of the box. also notable is that it has very good support for math notation through MathJax, so it's quite good for that purpose if you're willing to get past the learning curve.

speaking of syncing, this is what i use to automatically sync my notes and music between my laptop and phone. it's definitely a little tricky to set up though.

my favorite general purpose text editor. notable for being extremely preformant.

the best text editor for programming. a fork of the ancient text editor vim. it runs in the terminal, has a quite steep learning curve, and is borderline unusable without configuration and plugins (whcih i found exceptionally difficult to learn, especially on Windows). however, there's a reason people are still using it: after several years, i have seen a major increase in editting speed (specifically for programming). if you want, you could check out my config to help get you started.

allows you to search all your files extremely quickly. an absolute necessity because the search function on windows is borderline useless.

gives a visualization of what is taking up the most space on your system, or in a specific directory.

i'm a weirdo because i download all the music i listen to instead of streaming it. the problem with this is that you have to manually tag your music, which kinda sucks. this program helps you out with that by scanning a big database to try and autotag your audio files for you. it's far from 100% accurate but it works most of the time and has saved me a ton of grudgework.

a video downloader, very useful for downloading youtube videos (works with almost any SMS site)

(─‿‿─)

make animated text gifs, like the funny burning text

¡tengo muy hambre!

really good if you're getting into fighting games. contains definitions for FGC terms and slang for all the major games

a MASSIVE collection of neocities buttons and sites, all of them tagged.

a tool to make earthbound style battle backgrounds.

a rating site for guilty gear strive!! basically it scans all replays from public matches and uses them to give you an accurate numerical rating using glicko-2, which is a lot more accurate than tower placements...

a site to practice quick maths

your milage may vary.

a great 3D level editor, espeically for more blocky retrostyle environments. it was originally made to make Quake .map files, but the format actually quite useful even for modern game development, with Godot engine in particular (see Qodot)

a great 3D level editor, espeically for more blocky retrostyle environments. it was originally made to make Quake .map files, but the format actually quite useful even for modern game development, with Godot engine in particular (see Qodot)

free anthropology textbook lol

a tool for previewing your nekoweb site box.

those funny cat emotes that you see everywhere on the indie web

LOVEWEB

i LOVE LOVEWEB. it's not just a website - the main draw is the animated series of the same name. the AI voices NOW THERE'S VOICE ACTORS!! can be a bit off putting i will admit, but it's SO GOOD. a very lovable disection of various internet things

perfect programming language :)

*RAVE TRASH SOUNDS 24 FUCKING 7*. they also have a discord group............. quite the characters lol, but i get good vibes

spamton themed website

like /r/place, but with text. you can access different 'worlds' by going to yourworldoftext.com/[put anything here]. go to /~NonGMOTrash and put something funny :)
WARNING: not moderated, you will probably see offensive stuff (although most places aren't too bad in my experience)

an ongoing /r/place clone. it's much bigger and takes place on a map of the earth
WARNING: not moderated, you WILL see offensive stuff

a strange site filled with surreal imagery. i think it has some deeper meaning behind it but i honestly don't really get it. still, i can appreciate the experience of just exploring the site.

shows a random video every refresh. it's very... interesting
WARNING: it is random, so some stuff is going to be offensive

the site for a revival of a very old (15+ years?) TF2 server that runs a 4chan map called harbl_hotel i was actually able to catch one of their meetups (on accident)... it was certainly an experience
feb 11 2024: the site seems to be down? might come back up, idk
WARNING: heavily influenced by 4chan, some offensive stuff

cool internet radio (mostly vaporwave)

neco arc

i try to limit it to 1 video per channel maximum

2kilksphilip's experience making games throughout his childhood. i find the experiences he shares to be extremely relatable and insightful. this series is a fantastic glimpse into what game development really feels like.