Two field notes · September 2026
Free browser games with an actual idea behind them — and where novel mechanics come from when you go looking. Every licence read off the repository, every ruleset read from source.
Browser games worth playing, grouped by the kind of idea behind them rather than by genre: the mechanic is the medium, simulation as a toy, cockpit and throttle, a whole system in one tab.
Every licence was read off the project's own repository, which is why several entries carry caveats their write-ups elsewhere don't mention — a famous racing rewrite with no licence at all, an incremental carrying a Commons Clause, a factory game whose repo has been left behind.
Where genuinely novel mechanics come from, organised by the constraint that produces them: js13k's own Innovation ranking across three years, fantasy consoles, byte limits past the point of reason, and jams that require the source.
Then the part no other list has: the ruleset for all 114 games in the PuzzleScript gallery, pulled from their gists and read, with the twelve best ranked by how much they change about Sokoban per rule spent — and the rule that does the work quoted so you can check it.