Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to A short dystopian game I build last weekend
FYI, I try to release something random on the 1st and 15th of every month, this was my latest. you can see my full list of projects on my twitter: https://twitter.com/lisperati/status/1543003744161484800
A short dystopian game is a playable game with a dystopian theme, created by its maker as part of a regular release schedule. The game is designed for players interested in exploring darker, fictional worlds. It was… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. A short dystopian game I build last weekend launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1IG
I was at FB/Meta from late 2013 to early 2023, mostly working in the compiler/runtime spaces. I got hit in the spring 2023 layoff wave. I immediately started making games in my newfound free time (a lifelong interest, and I even worked in AA(A?) back ca. ~2000), and in October 2023 I stumbled upon the idea of a roguelike pachinko/plinko game inspired by Luck Be A Landlord. Things snowballed quickly, I started talking to publishers, then worked like crazy through all of 2024, almost the hardest I've ever worked in my career, and launched the game in December 2024. It's sold…
2025 · its alternatives →
- 2
Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!
2022 · jason.today · its alternatives →
- 3
It all started as an experiment to see if I could build a game making heavy use of Deno and its SQLite driver. After sharing an early build in the „What are you working on?“ thread here, I got the encouragement I needed to polish it and make a version 1.0 for Steam. So here it is, Microlandia, a SimCity Classic-inspired game with parameters from real-life datasets, statistics and research. It also introduces aspects that are conveniently hidden in other games (like homelessness), and my plan is to continue updating, expanding and perfecting the models for an indefinite amount of time.
Dec 2025 · microlandia.city · its alternatives →
- 4
Reflections on an epic Kickstarter campaign for a tiny game
2016 · happymittengames.com · its alternatives →
- 5IS
Hey everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I've just reached beta in my game BoxByte Lyte. -What is it- It's a free 3d arcade game for hardcore players that uses color matching in interesting ways. Also it's a one button game, well movement and one button. Cool huh? The final release will be free too. -What I need- This is a very challenging game, so I really need to balance the difficulty so that it's still hard but not impossible. It would be great just to hear your experiences of the game and how far in it you got. -Where can I report bugs?-…
2015 · its alternatives →
- 6
Hi HN, I built a small game in just 24 hours for a 64x64 pixel art lowrez game jam. The result is soko64, a tiny Sokoban game written in Dart. This project was primarily a first test for a new web game library I've been developing for Dart (Bullseye2D). I wanted to see how quickly I could build a complete, playable game with it. You can play soko64 directly in your browser: https://joemanaco.itch.io/soko64 The source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/JochenHeizmann/soko64 Happy to answer any questions! :)
2019 · joemanaco.itch.io · its alternatives →
- 7MP
I have been working on this game somewhat sparsely for the past three years or so. However, it is still in a very early stage, and there is a lot of work to do. One of my friends encouraged me to post about it here, since he felt people might find interesting how I don’t use any libraries for it. The game can be played on a browser by virtue of WebAssembly. There are native ports using either MiniFB or SDL2, but you have to build those yourself. I decided to write the game in C because I feel like it is a simple language that a lot of people can understand well enough, and I didn’t think I…
2023 · zamfofex.neocities.org · its alternatives →
- 8
Dear Hacker News, I'm kindly asking for your participation in the open beta for my AI-managed mini-games website. Thank you in advance! For a limited time window, I'm setting the all-free feature flag to true. I hope you have a lot of fun exploring the AI's sense for games! Here and there, I tweaked it to help with visual consistency. I would be deeply grateful if you opted into analytics. $2,300 in API tokens... Cheers!
Jun 2026 · minigames.world · its alternatives →
- 9
An RPG with random generated elements.
2015 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 10PA
I've been working for a while on trying to curate a game that has the emergence of procedurally generated computer games but that can be played with only pen and paper. Here I present the best version I've been able to come up with that is simple and emergent. I've really enjoyed being able to engage with this sort of game while not feeling like my brain in rotting. I recon my numeracy improves while playing it.
Jun 2026 · jameshylands.co.uk · its alternatives →
- 11
I had a dream on Nov 21, 2019 of a game. I woke up at 4:00pm that day, started programming it then, and 7 and 1/2 hours later, it was done. It's about you and a pink square going exploring. - otdav33/spelunko
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12
Hi everyone, I’m an indie developer learning Next.js and a big fan of the NYT game Pips. Inspired by it, I built https://pipsgamer.com — a responsive web version of Pips with smooth gameplay on both desktop and mobile. What makes this project different from NYT’s version is that you can play it infinitely under three difficulty levels: Easy / Medium / Hard. This is the first time I’ve built a game. Along the way I ran into many difficulties: implementing the game logic, configuring the UI, matching layouts for small and large screens, etc. I spent many lonely nights and…
2025 · pipsgamer.com · its alternatives →
- 13MF
I know everyone is a bit burned out on blockchain and cryptocurrency related stuff around these parts, but I've been working on as a side project for the last few months and thought you guys might be interested: https://cryptoempire.io/ It's still a bit buggy and incomplete (the mobile ux needs a lot of work, the leaderboard isn't functional yet, etc.), but I've reached a point where I'm not totally ashamed of sharing it :) Any feedback would be most welcome!
2018 · its alternatives →
- 14MW
Link: http://xoxo.cm The idea here was to build a multiplayer game with the lowest possible barrier to entry to get started. That is, no registration, no game setup, as few steps as possible to actually start playing. There's not much substance here right now and there's still a few bugs that need to be hammered out. I'm also thinking of expanding on the idea with some other simple games down the road. Any feedback or suggestions on the concept in general would be much appreciated.
2011 · xoxo.cm · its alternatives →
- 15
Well HN, I've finally produced something I think is worthy of sharing, but I didn't do it "in a weekend". Yeah, it's an iOS puzzle game. And yeah, it's a game I built because I wanted to play it rather than based on market research, so all this sort of makes it the antithesis of a popular HN post. But whatever. Still hoping for some of that patented (har har) expert HN feedback. Critique any part of it except the music. Also, PM me for upgrade codes, or I can post some here if there's any interest. Download (it's free):…
2012 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Hey HN, I built Bisecto (https://bisecto.com), a minimalist browser game with one simple mechanic, cutting (bisecting) a procedural 2D shape into two exact 50/50 halves with a single straight line. Confession: I got completely hooked watching those viral reels of people trying to cut fruits and vegetables into perfectly equal halves, and that was my inspiration for this game :D I've been writing code for 12+ years, but for this project I leaned heavily on LLMs to quickly spin up this game, I thought it's going to be quick, but it took me some time (around 2 weeks) to make the…
Aug 2026 · bisecto.com · its alternatives →
- 17
Hey everyone, I'm Fabio, a very long time lurker here. Today I want to celebrate and share with you, again, a game that I conceived more than 8 years ago. I shared it last week with all its history (if you're curious) [1], but it just stayed in the "shownew" and never reached the main "show" page, hopefully this time it'll do better (:crossed_fingers:)! What changed since last week? Today I've also published the mobile apps for both iOS and Android (last week it was just web), which are also my first mobile apps ever. So I believe it's still a worthwhile post and something to show :) I'd…
2024 · fiftygame.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Howdy, long time HN'er. Spent ~20 years in FAANG and startups, got the pink slip during a big layoff wave in spring 2023. That's ok, I was about to quit anyway :) Finally got back to a lifelong goal of mine, making an "indie" game. (Indie is subjective, but you get the drift.) So, here it is: Ballionaire, a "fast-paced pachinko roguelike where strategy meets physics to create outrageous wealth!" My influences were: Plinko(TM), Luck Be A Landlord, and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. I was really fortunate because localthunk, the dev behind Balatro, noticed my game during its first month of…
2024 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Hello everyone! I've finally finished my latest side project - a RPG game made in Blazor. It started as a small project to learn some Blazor (I'm .NET dev but kept mainly to backend and ASP.NET). I had such a good time coding it that at some point I decided to make a full featured game out of it. I might've have bitten off more that I could chew as RPGs have so many systems and elements but overall I think it worked out well, especially for a single person project. I want to hop on the next project soon so any comments/questions/tips than can make me better really appreciated!
2024 · whimsicalwyrm.itch.io · its alternatives →
- 20
I’m nervous, announcing this, as it isn’t ready to ship out to the general public yet, and I haven’t had any feedback at all from anyone, I’m out on my own here. I think this concept itself is kind of dismissed outright a lot too, and I understand why, I wouldn’t believe me either actually. But, I do believe this is very much worth your time to check out, I am not aware of anything else very much like it. I won’t repeat what is already written on the github README here, but some info: I am a successful semi-retired solo game developer, I have been making my own bespoke game engines since…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 21IM
Thank you https://opengameart.org for your service. People like me who can't draw or compose music are in your debt. The game, "Glitch and Rush" has been made in a few hours here and there. I've been tinkering in GameDev for years, if not decades, but I never released anything. The goal here was simple: - come up with a core mechanic - implement a single level - add some polishing - RELEASE I hope you'll enjoy it. BTW, my best time is 2min23s (yes, I'm bad at my own game, it's ok, I'm ok).
2022 · linkdd.itch.io · its alternatives →
- 22
Hello HN: I love the randomness of the universe. I've been spending some time creating a Craps simulator to help experience this love without having to shell out like a real degenerate. For others similarly fascinated: I would love to hear any and all feedback you've got on this. It's meant to be unique in the sense that it's a community-oriented, infinite simulation.
Feb 2026 · infinitecraps.com · its alternatives →
- 23IM
Hey there HN, I took a page from Wordle's mechanisms and made this game for fun for some friends and I. Check out Wheredle and let me know what you think of it! ↙ ↗ ↘ https://wheredle.xyz
2022 · wheredle.xyz · its alternatives →
- 24
I'm working on the Survival Crafting RPG that you would have played on your Apple II back in the '80s. You can think of it as Valheim's gameplay crammed into the tile-based UI of the old Ultima games. It has a procedurally-generated open world with towns and NPCs to talk to, all the resource gathering, mining, crafting stuff you'd expect in a modern survival game, and some good old fashioned dungeon crawling to boot. I've been working on it off and on for the last several months. It's complete up through the Bronze Age (in Valheim terms). Let me know what you think!…
May 2026 · stravaeger.com · its alternatives →
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