06 July,2024 08:10 AM IST | Mumbai | Junisha Dama
One Million Check Boxes has Internet users racing to check all boxes. So far, users have successfully checked a little over eight lakh boxes
What's entertaining about check-marking boxes on a website? A simple game, One Million Check Boxes has over five lakh people hooked to checking and unchecking boxes, setting off a war on the Internet.
The game has one million boxes on screen, which you can check and uncheck. It is perhaps the most pointless game, but has people racing to check the one-millionth box, while several others race to undo their work, unchecking the boxes. The website saw over four lakh users in less than one week since its launch.
As the number of visits continues to climb, no one is more surprised than game creator Nolen Royalty, a software programmer based in New York. He had expected only a couple of 100 players. He says he's now spending a lot of late nights to just keep it online. Speaking of why he made it, he says, "I like making games that let strangers interact on the Internet. I think when I was a kid, that was a very cool part of the Internet to me - the ability to interact with strangers."
Royalty used to work as a programmer in a quantitative trading firm before quitting his job almost two years ago. But he has always had an affinity towards the creative use of software. While his colleagues wrote software to execute trades, he preferred to talk to people and address their problems with his code. To him, building software that helps people tackle problems felt a lot like making games.
Royalty now works as a consultant, and makes games under the banner Eieio.games. The quick, unique game One Million Check Boxes is Royalty's most popular one yet, and took only two days to develop and publish, he says. "I thought the idea was really funny and I hadn't made something public for the Internet in a couple of months. I just want to make something silly and fun. I don't need to get very many players, I can get 200 players and I'll be happy," he adds.
He says that it took him a week to figure out the technical details to build it. He got to work on a Monday and a Tuesday, and by Friday, he had launched the game.
Some other games that Royalty has created include Breaktime, a brick-breaker that is a Google Chrome extension which allows you to break the brick-like shapes indicating meetings on your Google calendar. Then there is a version of Wordle that runs on Firefox's address bar, and a few other games that usually run as an extension on different applications. But he says that he is most proud of Stranger Video, where you and a stranger on the Internet just stare at each other over live video. There is no chat or call feature, so it keeps the creeps at bay.
What's unique about Royalty's games is that the design reminds you of the early days of the Internet. Most of Eieio Games are easy to play, and are just what you need if you are looking to idle away time. There's no strategy, purpose, or even combat. And, the 1 lakh visitors that Royalty's website saw in 24 hours prove that despite advanced websites and games, we are all still drawn to a simpler time.
In the world of mobile apps, games with freemiums and PC games, is there a place for single-purpose websites? Royalty says, "We have developed a better understanding of what it could look like to monetise and scale an application on the Internet. We didn't have that when people were making flash games 20 years ago. I am in a position where I can afford to do it without worrying about money for a bit. Not forever. But I do think that gives me a little bit of creative freedom."
Will Royalty ever monetise the games he creates? "Probably in some form, but I would want to do it on my own terms. I'm not going to sell ads on one of my own chat boxes. Were I to do that to make money, I think that would probably feel worse to me than just going back to being a software engineer for a few years. I did this to have fun," he says.
For One Million Check Boxes, users donated enough to cover his costs. For now, the Internet war that Royalty has unknowingly set off continues. Will the site ever hit a million? Log on to find out and, perhaps, help.
