One Million Checkboxes
| One Million Checkboxes | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Nolen Royalty |
| Platform(s) | Browser |
| Release | June 2024 |
| Genre(s) | Incremental game |
One Million Checkboxes is a free web-based incremental game created and developed by American software engineer Nolen Royalty in 2024. The game consists of a web page containing one million checkboxes, which visitors can check or uncheck. All visitors see the same state of the checkboxes, leading them to interact with each other by checking and unchecking the same boxes.
Gameplay[edit]
One Million Checkboxes is a simple website that contains only one million checkboxes, with users able to check or uncheck the boxes by clicking or tapping. Players see the same checkboxes and can watch as boxes they checked or unchecked change from the interactions of other players. Some of the boxes have different colored outlines, which serve no particular purpose. The page displays the overall number of checked boxes and the specific player's own count of boxes they have checked and unchecked.[1][2]
As thousands of players began to participate, different behaviors emerged. Some players checked as many boxes as they could, while others behaved competitively to uncheck as many boxes as they could. Players also used the checkboxes to write messages or make creative designs. Bots were developed to check and uncheck boxes at high speed.[2][3]
Development[edit]
Royalty developed One Million Checkboxes over two days after a conversation with friend Neal Agarwal, inspired by frivolous websites from the early days of the Internet. He bought the URL for $10 and coded the site in Python.[2] Royalty first shared the game on social network X on June 26, 2024, and it quickly went viral through social networks X and Mastodon, and through website Hacker News. Because of the game's rapid uptake, Royalty had to quickly and repeatedly add server capacity and dealt with multiple website crashes.[4]
Reception[edit]
As of July 3, 2024, Royalty estimated that 400,000 unique people have visited One Million Checkboxes.[2] Writing for The Washington Post, Shira Ovide called it "fantastic" and referred to it as "the most pointless website on the planet."[4] Writing for The New York Times, Callie Holtermann said that it became "an unintentional case study in internet behavior" and that it "cycled rapidly through the stages of internet maturity, serving as something of a microcosm of the joys and horrors of digital life."[2]
References[edit]
- ^ Rockson, Gabrielle (2024-07-03). "One Million Checkboxes Creator Dubs It 'Dumbest Website of All Time' – and Proof the Internet Can Still Be Fun". People. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
- ^ a b c d e Holtermann, Callie (2024-07-03). "One Million Checkboxes Is Exactly What It Sounds Like". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
- ^ Curtis, Charles (2024-07-03). "One Million Checkboxes, the addictive internet game that will make you so mad, explained". USA Today. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
- ^ a b Ovide, Shira (2024-07-02). "This is the most pointless website on the planet. It's fantastic". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
