The old internet is not completely dead
Yesterday night, I realised that I've spent all week surrounding myself of parts of what I call "the old internet". What I mean by that is the pre-social medias internet.
It started when I was playing Equideow (Howrse in English), an online simulation game dedicated to horse lovers. As I was playing, I realised that I first started playing back in 2006, right as I was starting middle school. Unfortunately, I no longer have my original account - in fact, this is my third account (that I can recall) that I created back in 2020. I've been playing on and off since then.
The game evolved but it overall stayed true to itself, and that's what I love about it. There's comfort, there's stability and reliability in there. It's click based, so it's not overwhelming by any means. There's no real right way to play it. And it's pretty customizable too, so you can truly make it your own. It brings me just as much joy as it did back then!
Later on this week, I remembered a French website/platform that I had found probably around 2008, that allowed you to create your own simulation game. Essentially you would create an account, then create a name for your game, you would set up the type of characters, the game dynamics and points system, what would be in your "shop". You could create a mini forum and landing page where other users could then go to and create their own accounts to play your game. It was pretty rad! And completely free. I remember trying to create a game, and despite being a young teen, it was fairly easy.
Unfortunately, it looks like this platform no longer exists. However, it also reminded me that around that time, I was spending hours upon hours on various types of forums.
The main one was an arts/design forum called Make your horse - originally created by players of Howrse, it then became a much larger forum and you could find so many resources about web design, Photoshop, The Gimp, Illustrator, photography tutorials, etc etc. At its peak, it had more than 2000 members, most of which were very active. I have so many good memories about this forum. I even got to meet one of the admin in person!
Then you had a huge amount of RPG forums that were entirely text based. I was in several of them, mostly horse-related (hmm, you see a theme here right?) but I also recall one that was about the royal court of Louis XIV. It was absolutely amazing. People were writing detailed stories that would intertwine for months and months on end. As most members where pretty serious about it, it was also somewhat historically accurate and you'd end up learning more about history as well.
When I think about it, what a lucky girl I was to be spending time in such creative online spaces, at an age where my mind was still so easily molded and influenced.
As I was going down memory lane, I wondered if such forums still existed... and looked for a Yellowstone inspired forum. To my surprised, I did find one that is 2 years old and still active! I have not registered yet, but I'm thinking about it :)
Finally, another night this week, I stumbled upon Numuki and immediately got bombarded with memories. I spent a few hours on the website, looking for old games I used to play as a young teen and played Cake Mania, Charger Escape, Singing Horses, Stay the Distance, Zuma, The Impossible Quiz, Superstar Makeovers...to name a few.
For a moment, life felt good again. Or rather, it felt right. Nostalgia is definitely my Achilles heel. If you're anything like me, maybe you'll find some joy in knowing that not everything we used to love about the internet back then is gone. It's up to you to search for it and keep it alive in some way or another.
Much love to you all,