Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to CaveRibbon (SFCave Remake)
Hi HN! I made this project to indulge in some nostalgia for the Palm OS era. One of the hardest technical problems was fitting an entire replay’s worth of state into the URL fragment so games could be shared. I wrote up some of the details here: https://memalign.github.io/p/caveribbon.html
CaveRibbon is a remake of SFCave, the classic Palm OS game, built as a web browser experience. It recreates the nostalgic gameplay of navigating through an obstacle course in a narrow cave. A notable technical feature… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. CaveRibbon (SFCave Remake) launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
I sometimes pick up random projects just because I can, this was one of those times. I made it as a week long project a while back this year but never shared here, so thought to go for it haha. I created a game inspired by Doom and the backrooms called The Backdooms under 2.4kb in minified html. (for reference, this entire post would be around 1.8kB haha) I had to use a not popular way of using GZip with Zlib headers (had to write my own script for compressing it, also in the repo) to eventually convert it a size 40 QR code that works right in your browser using Decompressionstream API. This…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2IM
Hi, As a 8-bit C64 game coder in eaarly 90ties and currently mostly FE-focused dev, decided to give a go to a simple retro game archive. This is purely fun project - so i decided to post it to HN, mayne it'll resonate :)
2023 · polishpixels.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Extracted Maps of the DOS Game Test Drive 3. Contribute to s-macke/Test-Drive-3-Maps development by creating an account on GitHub.
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4
A whole free daily game served in under 100kb with no ads, lags or logins. The URL will serve a new track every day, forever. And I've added setting sliders so players have full control over their experience. Would love to know your thoughts guys. This was just me working with Claude Opus 5. Cheers, Nathan
Jul 2026 · hurtle.site · its alternatives →
- 5
RetroTick parses PE/NE/MZ binaries, emulates an x86 CPU, and stubs enough Win32/Win16/DOS APIs to run classics like FreeCell, Minesweeper, Solitaire and QBasic, entirely in the browser. Built with Preact + Vite + TypeScript. Demo: https://retrotick.com GitHub: https://github.com/lqs/retrotick
Feb 2026 · retrotick.com · its alternatives →
- 6
SanctuaryRPG▲72A humorous and strategic turn-based ASCII dungeon crawler.
2015 · sanctuaryrpg.com · its alternatives →
- 7
- 8AR
My background project for the last two years has been re-implementing my 2004 C++ shoot'em up game in TypeScript + WebGL, and it's finally done (just in time for the 20th anniversary!) Play the game online: https://nicollet.net/blog/darklaga/darklaga.html Technical article about the remake: https://nicollet.net/blog/darklaga/remake.html I have tested Firefox, Chrome and Edge on desktop and mobile (no access to a device capable of running Safari). It's amazing how much difference 20 years makes: the hardware is so much more powerful, the web…
2024 · nicollet.net · its alternatives →
- 9
The blobs are back! Do you have what it takes?
2015 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 10
A charming pixel art platform adventure, reminiscent of the good old 16-bit days. Served as the foundation for the retro-platformer Tiny Thor.
2023 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Emily is Away▲104A retro AIM simulator. Chat with Emily.
2015 · kyleseeley23.itch.io · its alternatives →
- 12
Hello HN, I'm sharing a little open-source utility I wrote recently. I'm a huge fan of Brendan Gregg's "BPF Performance Tools" book. However, every time I SSH into a fresh server, most of the diagnostic tools aren't installed there and installing them can be really annoying. I decided to use Nix package manager and LLMs to make this process straightforward. My utility first downloads a "toolbox" of Linux utilities (built with Nix), runs Brendan Gregg's famous "60-second Linux analysis" playbook and then summarizes the results with an LLM. So "60-second Linux analysis" now becomes a single…
Mar 2026 · quesma.com · its alternatives →
- 13
Leap of Fate▲67Hack 'n slash rogue-like in a cyberpunk setting
2015 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 14
A cheerful free platformer with intuitive one touch-controls
2015 · immobilegames.com · its alternatives →
- 15
- 16
Cave Story + ▲61Easily the best game I've ever played on a computer
2015 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 17
Retro solitaire with multiplayer support
2016 · pasjans-online.pl · its alternatives →
- 18AW
Hi all! I was recently doing a live stream session at Build and created the start of a tool called Flashback. I wanted a way for agents to look through the history of popular design so you could reference different trends throughout time. I didn’t finish on the stream, but I kept coming back to the idea so ended up shipping it as a GitHub pages powered Skill and human browsable web site. I think it’s really interesting to see how design has evolved since 1900, and I learned a lot in this process. The repo is here: https://github.com/toby/flashback And the original stream…
Jul 2026 · toby.github.io · its alternatives →
- 19
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 →
- 20BC
Hey HN, I am Niko. I've built this 3D Dino Game In browser using tech like three.js and MoveNet (tensorflow). Basically, it's a normal 3D dinosaur game with a twist: you need to actually perform actions irl to avoid obstacles. Duck to crouch, jump to jump, raise left hand - go left, raise right hand - go right. Game is using your phone/laptop camera to track your body movements and perform in-game actions. PS. Game is 100% client side and I don't record/track/use/save any of your data Hope you find it worth playing. (better play on PC) It's a 100% FREE browser game with…
2025 · nicknaskida.github.io · its alternatives →
- 21
Sprig is a tile based game engine made by Hack Club that's like Scratch's older brother but has it's own set of unique limitations. All sprites need to be made in Bitmap and uses a midi like event sequencer to get any music into it, since it's meant for a different set of hardware, you can only use very basic controls too. I made a version of PacMan inside it that has randomly generated mazes every time and mostly works well!
2025 · sprig.hackclub.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Made this during COVID. I was into PICO-8 at the time and saw someone ported DOOM to it. I'm more of a text adventure guy, so I decided to port ADVENT. Basically I wrote a FORTRAN-to-Lua transpiler. The hardest part was figuring out what version of FORTRAN the source code was written in, finding a manual, cramming it into the limited cartridge space, but most of all, wrapping my mind around the data file format. Always admired Will Crowther for making this. Very fun project. I recorded myself during the whole process but I never posted a video. Future work maybe.
2024 · lexaloffle.com · its alternatives →
- 23
Almost a year ago I started building A Dark Cave, a dark text-based browser game. The game intentionally avoids visuals and embraces minimalism. I use only text, symbols, and sounds to create atmosphere and spark the player's imagination. From time to time, I think about adding graphics to my game, since it is one of the most common requests I get from players. I even made a post about what I call the AI Slop Temptation: https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games/comments/1tcs8ou/... From the comments, it seems that players prefer no graphics at all over…
May 2026 · a-dark-cave.com · its alternatives →
- 24
In 2024 Google Labs released GenDino: a version of the Chrome Dinosaur Game that let users turn prompts into skins. GenDino is dead. The Dino Game happens to be OS, so I forked it and created Vibedino to let your prompts change the actual game. Make the dino front-flip every time it jumps. Add a hard mode after 1000m. Break my backend by implementing the full PageRank algorithm. Give it the dumbest feature idea you can think of and then approve it yourself to deploy to the main site!
Jul 2026 · vibedino.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- I made a Doom-like game fit inside a QR code alternatives
- I made a retro game archive for Polish games alternatives
- I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game) alternatives
- Slope remade in HTML5 to load instantly on any browser, any device alternatives
- RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser alternatives
- SanctuaryRPG alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →