Alex - Projects

Chat: type your last name, then your code

The login used to work out who you were from the code by itself, which meant the codes had to be sixteen random characters nobody could remember. Now you say who you are, and the new codes are three words and a number. There are two Verdelises, so that one needs a first name as well.

Lane Dodger: it never stops getting harder

The car used to stop speeding up at 3,250 m, so a long run was just the same difficulty over and over. It now gets up to pace more than twice as quickly and then keeps accelerating for the whole run. Traffic is spaced by distance rather than by time, so the faster you go the less time you get to deal with each car. Every run ends eventually.

Lane Dodger: reckless drivers swerve far more often

They waited 3 to 15 seconds between lane changes but only live about 11, so most of them never actually swerved at all. Down to 2 to 8 seconds, which gets a couple of changes out of each one. The indicator still lies.

Lane Dodger: every crash is avoidable now

One lane is always kept clear, but it could move right across the road in one go, and the lanes it skipped over were free to fill up behind you. So you could end up watching the only gap from two lanes away with nowhere to go. It only shifts one lane at a time now.

Lane Dodger: traffic stops driving through itself

Cars come at you at a range of speeds, so a quick one would catch a slow one in the same lane and the two would just merge and come apart again. They queue up behind each other now, and a swerving car waits for a gap instead of crossing straight through whoever's in it.

Lane Dodger: reckless drivers are much rarer

They were one car in five, which is a lot of menaces for one motorway. Now it's about one in twenty-five, and the ones you do get hang around longer, so you'll actually see them swerve rather than watching them vanish off the bottom first.

Lane Dodger: parking isn't a strategy any more

One lane is always kept clear so the road stays passable, and it used to be the far left one at the start of every single run. Sit there without touching the slider and you'd get twice as far as anywhere else. Which lane gets the free pass is picked fresh each run now.

Lane Dodger: the badge on the reckless cars is fixed

A quarter of it was see-through, so you could spot the car's paint through the bottom-left of the roundel. It got flooded away when the artwork was shrunk down to the size it draws at.

Lane Dodger: pixel art, and reckless drivers

The whole game is drawn on a chunky pixel grid now, and cars have proper fronts with headlights and a bonnet. Watch for the badged cars. They swerve between lanes every few seconds, they leave skidmarks doing it, and their indicator always shows the opposite way to the lane they're actually taking.

Lane Dodger added

Four lanes of motorway, and a slider the colour of your car that you drag to steer. Traffic speeds up the longer you last. Lorries only ever use the inside lane, they're rare, and they're long enough that you'll want to be somewhere else.

You can install this as an app

On an iPhone or iPad, hit Share then Add to Home Screen. It gets its own icon, opens full screen with no browser bar, and every game works offline once you've opened the homepage. It stays up to date on its own.

Pip (Placeholder) notices things now

It used to just do its own thing on a timer. Now it shrugs when a search finds nothing, wears a nightcap if you're here after 11pm, stretches with the sunrise, and holds up a name badge once you've voted in the poll.

New achievement: Jumping Jack

Tap Pip (Placeholder) to make it jump. Do it 100 times and you'll earn a badge.

Feedback button

New link in the footer, next to Changelog. Send feedback or report a bug straight to Alex, up to 3 a day.

Name Pip (Placeholder)!

New poll, top-left of the page. Vote on the mascot's real name and colour. Once one is clearly ahead, it takes effect for everyone.

Quiz: sparkle badge for perfect scores

100% a quiz and its card gets a small sparkle badge from then on.

Falling Blocks: rainbow line clears

Clear four lines at once and they flash rainbow on the way out instead of the usual fade.

Mini Golf: obstacles can push you

Sit still too close to a moving obstacle and it'll knock your ball out of the way. Time your putt around it.

Mini Golf: moving obstacles

A few holes now have obstacles that actually move. Time your putt around them.

Sky Hopper: the sky changes

Climb past 5,000 m and the sky slowly fades into space. Stars, a moon, all of it. Keep climbing to see it happen.

Slice It: the blade follows your cursor

On a computer you no longer need to click and hold. Just move your mouse across the fruit and the blade slices as it goes.

Filter & sort your projects

New control next to the search box. Show just games or just tools, and sort by date, alphabetically, or by popularity. Your choice is remembered next time you visit.

Bigger seasonal themes

The 10 seasonal dates do more than a little icon now. The background and glow blobs shift colour too. Christmas goes red, green, and gold, for example, easing in gently instead of snapping.

Meet Pip (Placeholder)

There's a little mascot standing on the search bar now. Leave it alone for a bit and it'll do something: dance, read, yawn, blow bubbles, that sort of thing. Give it a tap and see what happens.

Daily Challenge

13 games now have a Daily Challenge under the ⋮ menu. Everyone gets the exact same maze, word, or tile order that day, since it's generated from the date instead of at random. One shot per game, and playing any of them keeps your streak alive - check Your Stats for the numbers, or share your result without spoiling the answer.

Maze Escape added

15 mazes, from a small 7×7 up to a sprawling 29×29, freshly generated every run so no two playthroughs match. You auto-run down each corridor and only stop where it actually branches, so even the huge one only takes about 20 moves. Fastest full run gets saved.

Road Hopper: rivers & trains

Road Hopper has water to cross now - hop across floating logs or lilypads, but fall in and it's over. Watch for railway crossings too: flashing lights and a bell mean a train's about to fly through.

Slice It added

A swipe-to-slice fruit game. Chain slices for combos, and watch for bombs - one wrong slice and it's over.

Mini Golf added

A 9-hole putting course. Pull back to aim, let go to putt, and see how few strokes you can manage per hole - hole-in-ones are extra sweet.

Road Hopper added

Hop a chicken across traffic, one square at a time, dodging cars as you go. See how far you can get.

Your Stats

New stats button next to the achievements medal - shows how many projects you've visited, games played, achievements earned, and your best score in each game, all in one spot.

Alien Attack added

A Space Invaders-style shooter. Your cannon fires on its own - you just dodge and aim - and each wave gets faster as the aliens thin out.

Sky Hopper added

A vertical climber - a bouncy blob keeps hopping on its own, you just steer it. Fall off one side and you pop out the other. See how high you can get before you fall.

Flying Bird added

One-tap arcade game - tap, click, or hit space to flap through the gaps between pipes. Try to beat your own high score before things speed up.

Hangman added

The classic word guesser, with a category hint to help, a tappable on-screen keyboard, and a win streak to chase.

Secret achievements

There are hidden achievements now - they show up as a mystery "???" until you stumble onto whatever unlocks them. A late-night visit, a certain button combo, an unusually good run... good luck.

Reset achievements

Want a clean slate? There's a Reset achievements button at the bottom of the panel now - wipes your progress so you can earn everything all over again.

Achievements

Achievements are here - little milestones for beating Chess, hitting 2048, visiting a bunch of projects, that sort of thing. Tap the medal top-right to see them, and watch for the badge that slides in when you earn one (it won't interrupt whatever you're playing).

Letter Ladder: on-screen keyboard

Letter Ladder now has a tappable on-screen keyboard that colours in as you guess, so it's actually playable on a phone. The ⋮ menu no longer hides behind the board either.

Paddle Ball: AI moves faster

The AI paddle is quicker off the mark now on Easy and Medium - less standing around waiting for it to react.

Paddle Ball: fixed a phantom-hit bug

Fast balls could occasionally slip straight through your paddle. Fixed - every hit is checked properly now, no matter the speed.

Paddle Ball: AI no longer freezes

The AI paddle used to lock onto one spot and just sit there. It tracks the ball properly now, moving the whole time.

Paddle Ball: no more accidental match starts

Moving your mouse over the table used to start a match on its own. Now it only starts when you actually click, tap, or hit Play.

Text inputs no longer zoom the page

Tapping a text box in Chat, the project search, Countdown, Habit Tracker, Lucky Spin, or the website builder used to zoom the whole page in on phones. Fixed everywhere.

Make A Website: sign-up window fits on phones

The sign-up window was getting cut off on small screens. It scrolls properly now.

Mole Bash: no more zoom on fast taps

Tapping moles quickly used to trigger the phone's double-tap zoom. Fixed.

Search your projects

A search box on the homepage now filters the cards as you type - matches names, descriptions, tags, and even old names (try "tetris" or "pong").

Make A Website: undo, redo & autosave

The builder now has undo/redo (and Ctrl+Z), plus it quietly autosaves what you're building. Close the tab, get logged out, whatever - it's there when you're back.

Make A Website: style every block

Fixed themes are gone. You get real control now - your own page background and font, plus a style panel per block for font, size, colour, background, and alignment.

Make A Website: cleaner sign-in

The log in / sign up window got a tidier look, and you can now make a new account without logging out of the old one first.

Make A Website: never lose your work

Hit Publish while logged out and your page used to just vanish. Now you're prompted to make a free account, and your page is saved as a private draft the second you sign up.

Make A Website: drafts added

Save a page as a private draft while you're still working on it, or take a live page offline without deleting it.

Make A Website: theme presets

A few background/font theme presets to pick from, beyond just an accent colour.

Make A Website: QR codes

Every published page now gets an auto-generated QR code - handy for flyers, business cards, that sort of thing.

Make A Website added

A tiny website builder. Drag in blocks - headings, text, images, buttons, quotes, lists, videos, and more - arrange them, pick a colour, and publish to a shareable link. Free account needed to publish, so you can come back and edit later.

Habit Tracker added

Build habits and check them off daily. Each one gets its own icon, colour, a streak count, and a GitHub-style heatmap you can click into to fill in past days.

Quiz: smarter search

Quizzes now have hidden search tags, so related words can find a quiz even if none of them are in its actual name.

Seasonal touches added

On 10 dates through the year - Christmas, New Year's, Lunar New Year, Valentine's, St Patrick's, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving - the "A" in Alex gets a small themed icon and a greeting shows up under the tagline. Runs off your device's date, no site update needed.

Quiz: no more blank cards

If a quiz couldn't find a live photo, it used to show a blank panel. Now it falls back to a hand-picked image instead.

Quiz: live photos added

Every quiz card now pulls a live topic photo straight from Wikipedia.

Quiz: high scores added

Your best score per quiz is now saved and shown right on the card.

Quiz: tap anywhere to play

You can tap anywhere on a quiz card to start it now, not just the Play button - and cards show four per row instead of fewer.

Quiz added

25 quizzes across science, history, movies, sports, and more. Multiple choice, one question at a time, instant feedback, shuffled every play.

Mole Bash added

Whack-a-mole. Moles pop up one at a time across a 3×3 grid - bash them before they duck back down. Three misses and you're done, and they get faster the higher your score climbs.

GIF sharing in Chat

A 🎬 button next to the message box opens a GIF picker (powered by GIPHY) - search, browse trending, tap to send.

Letter Ladder added

A Wordle-style word game - guess the five-letter word in six tries, with colour clues after each guess.

Countdown added

Count down to any date you like - birthdays, launches, whatever. Add as many as you want, set one to repeat yearly, and get a little confetti and a chime when it hits zero.

This Day in History added

Notable events and births for today's date, pulled live from Wikipedia. Expands with a Show more button, and everything links back to the source article.

Calculator added

A simple everyday calculator - click the buttons or just use your keyboard.

Drawing: Dropper tool added

Drawing now has a Dropper tool - click anywhere on the canvas to pick up whatever colour's already there.

Drawing & Pixel Art: better icons

Redesigned the Pencil and Dropper icons to look more like the real thing, in both Drawing and Pixel Art.

Drawing & Pixel Art: a cursor for every tool

Every tool has its own cursor shape now, so it's always obvious what a click will do. The Dropper also has a little "?" badge you can tap for a quick explainer.

Falling Blocks added

The classic falling-block puzzle. 7-bag piece order, a ghost piece, a next-piece preview, and it speeds up as your score climbs.

Pixel Art added

A 32×32 pixel canvas with pencil, eraser, and eyedropper tools, undo/redo, and a Download PNG that exports true to size.

Drawing added

A drawing pad - pencil, brush, marker, eraser, and shape tools, undo/redo, and a Download PNG button.

Paddle Ball added

Classic paddle-vs-paddle against an AI, with three difficulty levels.

Chess added

Full chess against an AI, three difficulty levels, with legal move highlights and checkmate detection.

Tower of Hanoi added

Move a stack of disks to the goal peg in as few moves as you can.

Direct messages added

Chat now has a sidebar - open a 1-on-1 DM with any friend alongside the group chat, with the same reactions and replies as before.

Chat added

A private real-time chat for you and your friends, synced instantly across devices.

Four in a Row added

The classic disc-dropping game against an AI, three difficulty levels.

2048 added

The tile-merging puzzle - arrow keys, swipe, or the on-screen D-pad.

Snake added

A classic grid snake game, playable with keyboard or an on-screen D-pad on touch.

Changelog added

This popup, right here - a running list of updates.

Surprise Me button

One click sends you to a random project. It won't repeat the one you just saw.

Typewriter intro

The "Hi, I'm Alex" heading types itself out on load now.

Drifting background blobs

The glow blobs behind the page drift around on their own now instead of sitting still.

Virtual Piano added

A playable 2-octave piano - mouse or keyboard, sustain pedal, click-and-drag glissando.

Lucky Spin added

A spin-the-wheel game with custom options and adjustable odds.

Site launched

Started this little corner of the internet to share things I build for fun.