👩‍🌾🌾 Salty's Link Farm 🌻🐄

Alt Social Media

{COUNT: 6} Below you'll find some alternative social media I've been using as of late. These are nice changes of pace from big tech, algorithmic social media.

• Album Whale // A platform that enables you to make personalized lists of albums; it pulls artwork and links to the albums based on multiple platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp. The company behind the project is pretty cool, too.
• Backloggd // A virtual backlog to track your video game hoard that doubles as social media! Hold yourself accountable for that egregiously large Steam library and finish a damn game. 😉
• Newgrounds // A mid-2000s classic site that's still kicking. A great place to share music, art, and writing!
• Record.Club // Another release-based music sharing social media site. I don't personally use this site, as it's a bit more socially-oriented than Album Whale. I still think it's a cool platform, so I'm putting it here for others to discover!
• piclog // A neat little (web embeddable) "social feed" of highly compressed JPEG files. I love this janky shit.
• Price Charting // This isn't necessarily social media, but I didn't know where else to put it... I use Price Charting to keep track of my personal collection of old PC and PS2 games! It's very handy.

Archives

This is my favorite category in the entire link farm. I have spent years bookmarking digital archives and directories of various flavors, as you'll find in the myriad of subcategories below:

Adobe Flash

• Armor Games // This was my favorite place to play Flash games back in the day (mid-2000s). The Dark Cut series was my shit.
• Flashpoint // My preferred method of interacting with Flash games and animations outside of a web browser. Their archive is vast, and I like how the underlying data structure for the program is relatively future-forward and agnostic.
• Flash Arch // If I can't find a game or animation on Flashpoint, then I head over to Flash Arch to try and track it down. Their search feature also works way better than Flashpoint's.
• Flash Museum // A great way to play Flash animations and games in your browser if you're low on time or disk space!
• Neopets Game Graveyard // While not really a vast archive, this page houses all of the games no longer exist in the Neopets meta. The nice staff members have made them available on this page for download, but you'll need a Flash Player to get them going.
• Newgrounds // Where it all started... better start reading up on your Flash animation history!

Assortments

None of these links fit into my other categories, so I've put them here to save my own sanity.

• Archiveteam // These mfers are out here doing the lord's work when it comes to archiving mass quantities of digital information. Want to get involved with this type of work? This is a good place to start.
• FilesFound! // This is an interesting log of truly random information; all their uploads are pulled from obsolete data storage mediums acquired by the site's author.
• Library of Congress // The Library of Congress holds all sorts of online collections like maps, audio interviews, newspapers, and many other things. This is an awesome resource for some true, sociological American history.
• Lost Media Wiki // This community-driven wiki makes tracking down lost and rare media, as well as documenting the process along the way. Get involved and start digging!
• The Pop History Dig // This site houses excellent write-ups about pop culture history, mostly in the 20th century. I particularly love their music history stores. The research done for these articles is top notch!
• Trade-Free Directory // A crowdsourced directory of "trade-free" goods and services. The site exists on the premise of trade being the source of the world's problems, and I wouldn't entirely disagree with them! Their directory includes categories such as open-source software, entertainment, multimedia, and community resources.

Art & Design

• 16 Colors // A super cool online archive for ANSI and ASCII artpacks ranging from the early 1990s to now.
• AestheticsWiki // The de facto community-driven wiki for reading about any "Internet Culture" aesthetic you could dream of.
• ASCII Art Archive // A large archive of ASCII (text-based) art and design.
• Busy Beaver Button Museum // A really great archive of American pin-back buttons (like the ones you wear on your clothing).
• Fonts In Use // An excellent typographical archive of, you guessed it, fonts (typefaces) in use. Want to know what zany font is used in the Malcolm in the Middle title card? They have it.
• Frutiger Aero Archive // A site dedicated to the Frutiger Aero design aesthetic. This archive is fucking AWESOME!!!!
• GUIdebook // An excellent gallery of Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) used throughout computer history. There have not been any updates to this site since 2006.
• Hidden Architecture // A very cool blog-slash-archive dedicated to architecture that dissects it in an anti-establishment, anti-Western way. Interesting stuff!
• Open Drawing Books // A site filled with (downloadable) drawing reference books that are either open-source or in the public domain. This is an excellent resource for artists looking to do some classical study!
• People's Graphic Design Archive // An excellent, crowd-sourced digital archive of graphic design materials. I like this archive because it contains process materials, development history, and related correspondence to a project rather than only showcasing the finished product.
• PSXUI // An excellent archive on Tumblr which documents the user interface (UI) design of the original PlayStation.
• Rave Preservation Project // An extensive catalog of rave and underground EDM flyer, as well as other related ephemera. This project spans the 1980s to present!
• Smarthistory // A public art history space curated by a network of art historians, curators, artists, and other researchers. They claim to be the most visited art history resource in the world, and I wouldn't doubt that. You'll find all sorts of interesting, museum-type-beat stuff here.
• The Vault of the Atomic Space Age // A Tumblr archive devoted to midcentury, Space Age design most associated with the US/Soviet Space Race and Cold War era.
• Toasty Tech's GUI Gallery // A retro computing enthusiast's dream gallery! Toasty keeps a nice archive of truly retro GUIs hailing from the early 1980s to the late 1990s.
• USModernist Archives // An expansive archive of major US architecture magazines which are all downloadable. They'll even take in your old architecture magazines for uploading to the archive; they even pay for shipping!
• Version Museum // An incredible museum devoted to showcasing the visual evolution of digital spaces like websites, operating system GUIs, and applications.
• Web Design Museum // An archive similar to the Version Museum, the Web Design Museum is one of my favorite places to find inspiration when making a new web project. They document the evolution of websites, mobile apps, and software through screenshots and brief write-ups.
• Winamp Skin Museum // An overwhelmingly vast archive of skins for the de facto music player of the 2000s, Winamp. You can even use these skins in Webamp, which is the modern, web-embeddable version of the program.
• Windows Media Player Skins Archive // An almost-comprehensive archive (with downloadable .ZIP!) of skins for Windows Media Player. These skins are still mostly functional on modern versions of Windows, surprisingly enough!

Audio/Visual

• Lomax Digital Archive // An archive devoted to the work of folklorists Alan Lomax and his dad, John A. Lomax. Their field recordings and videos of American life span seven decades!
• Prelinger Archives // If you haven't heard of Rick Prelinger then just know that this dude is a complete madman. He had a collection of 60,000 self-described "ephemeral films" by 2002... and then he added another 40,000 in the years since.
• Sound Effects Wiki // This wiki is dedicated to documenting the various sound effects and sound libraries used in movies, TV shows, commercials, and other visual media. Really interesting stuff here, and you'll be surprised how many sound effects come from the same handful of libraries.

Movies & Television

• Audiovisual Identity Database // An incredibly detailed wiki of identifiers related to audiovisual branding and related metadata. Dive into channel- and company-specific production logos, bumpers, emergency broadcast screens, and all sorts of other deliciously specific categories!
• bump worthy // A streamable collection of Adult Swim bumpers spanning the channel's entire history.
• Cinema Cats // An archive celebrating the humble house cat in popular media! What's not to love?
• HOW MANY CIGARETTES? // Ever wanted to know the CPM (cigarettes smoked per minute) of your favorite movie or TV show? The author of this site is a complete maniac who is documenting this exact statistic with relentless fury.
• myRetroTVs // A really cool project that leverages the YouTube API to "stream" a particular decade of American television. The project spans each decade from the 1950s to the 2000s. You can even set filters on the "virtual TV" if you wanted to only see specific items like commercials, movie trailers, or news.
• PlayPhrase // PlayPhrase markets itself as a, "Site for Cinema Archaeologists," and it's an interesting premise. Simply type a phrase into the search and the engine scrapes their video database for any movies which contain that phrase. Then it spits out a video playlist of those exact moments. Crazy stuff!
• Studio Ghibli Archive // Studio Ghibli's official archive of movie stills. You won't find higher resolution images from these movies anywhere else, unless they stole 'em from here!

Music

• Album Liner Notes // The self-proclaimed largest library of album liner notes in the world! Not sure if that claim is true, but they do have a hell of a lot of 'em.
• COV - Cover Search Engine // Looking for album covers of your favorite records? The buck stops here. COV is an aggregated database scraping every music service you could possibly think of to harvest album cover variants.
• Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) // DAHR is an ongoing archive of master recordings dating from the era of 78rpm records. There's information on 420,000+ master recordings here!
• Dogs on Acid (DOA) // One of the longest-running EDM forums on the Web! While still an active forum, DOA is a vast archive of conversations around Drum'n'Bass (and other genres of EDM) dating back to the early 2000s.
• Encyclopaedia Metallum // The de facto archive for metalheads. I'm super into most subgenres of metal, but I figure this would be helpful to many of you. And damn if this site isn't thorough as hell!
• Every Noise At Once // This project was devoted to archiving every single genre on Spotify in an accessible, detailed format. The author was canned from their job at Spotify HQ, so they no longer maintain it, but it's still a very cool and ambitious project.
• Free Music Archive // An excellent source of royalty-free music. It's not just dumb 2009-era YouTube ukulele outro music either... there's good stuff on here!
• Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music // Ishkur's guide is somewhat of an urban legend at this point. While I disagree with some of his organization and opinions, this is still an incredible resource in discovering the myriad of subgenres in EDM.
• KHInsider // An archive of 80,000+ lossy AND lossless video game soundtracks and in-game music ripped straight from the original game discs. I'm not sure how legal this is, but have at it!
• Knurek's Music Archive "Thread of Awesome" // A very comprehensive thread of music archive links, mostly dedicated to video game consoles. If you can't find a video game soundtrack anywhere else, chances are you'll find it on one of these archives!
• LiveMixtapes // A vast collection of hip-hop mixtapes that's been online since 2006! A lot of major artists have tapes here that you won't find on streaming services.
• MusicBrainz // The Wikipedia of music metadata. Your favorite music streaming services and apps probably rely on its API for all that juicy information like production credits, cover art, and more!
• VGMdb // An archive holding the lofty goal of cataloguing every single video game music album ever released. They're doing a pretty good job so far!
• VGMRips // A niche archive dedicated to the .vgm file format used to store the music data on various gaming platforms, namely retro Sega systems.
• VGMusic // Another archive in the vein of KHInsider which houses video game music ripped directly from the original media.
• WhoSampled // One of my most-frequented sites as someone who loves to make sample-based music. This site allows you to look up a song with samples and compare the sampled part to the original via the YouTube API. You'll be blown away at how much music samples multiple other songs even if it doesn't sound like it. Sampling is truly my favorite artform!

Fansites, Novelties, Oddities

Wanna get weird? Let's get weird.

• Corrupted Kibbles' Petz Site // A Neocities resident's archive/fanpage for PF.Magic's unsettling "Petz" software.
• FROGLAND! // A website devoted entirely to frogs. What's not to love?
• Goth Twin Cities // This late '90s Geocities site only lives on the Wayback Machine, but it's filled with links to "goth lifestyle" websites, mostly based in the Midwestern United States. Truly fascinating stuff!
• Homes of Heroes // A collection on the Heroism wiki which contains a myriad of subpages dedicated to a particular hero's dwelling.
• Homies.TV // Another Wayback Machine link to the (now-defunct) official Homies website. I was enamored with these vending machine trinkets as a kid, and I still love the whole brand aesthetic going on here.
• Iceberg Charts // Ever wonder where the fuck those 3 hour long "Niche Topic Iceberg" YouTube videos come from? Here's your source.
• It's Not Stupid, It's Advanced! // A beautifully-crafted Invader Zim fansite made by Neocities notable Key's Klubhouse.
• Snack Data // The definitive snack resource for snack data. I love the illustrations on this website so much.
• Subterranea Britannica // A webpage run by a society which is, "devoted to the study and investigation of man-made (including Nuclear Bunkers) and man-used underground places." Those poor British people barely get enough sun as it is; no wonder they're so weird.
• Sunshine Factory // A fansite and comprehensive archive dedicated to 1960s pop group, The Monkees.
• T E X T F I L E S D O T C O M // A deliciously hacker-esque archive of text files dating from the '80s and early '90s era of online Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).
• Underground Ozarks // An archive and blog devoted to urban exploration (urbex) in the Ozarks, the geological region in which I reside. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but they make it look real creepy!

Old Web Mirrors

• FortuneCity // A long-abandoned but still online archive of the now-defunct FortuneCity web host, which hosted personal websites in the 2000s.
• GeoCities Special Collection 2009 // This Internet Archive-sponsored grab contains web crawls of personal GeoCities pages from July to October of 2009, before it was shutdown by Yahoo.
• restorativland // A collective dedicated to excavating the data of long-abandoned websites. Their two active projects include a fully-functional GeoCities archive, as well as a project dedicated to MySpace music.
• OoCities // Another seemingly-abandoned GeoCities mirror. This one is very slow and probably on its last leg, so get digging and saving before it's too late!

Print Media

• ⭐ Abcedarian⭐ // This is one of my absolute favorite websites out there. Craig has been documenting of all sorts of old paper ephemera since 2006 and sorting it into bizarre, esoteric of categories like, "Do-Re-Midi" and "I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought." And you know what? Every single title makes perfect sense once you start browsing.
• ARCHIVE.pdf // An excellent fashion archive devoted to scans of rare fashion publications from brands like Chrome Hearts, Issey Miyake, and Dior Homme. The collection ranges from the 1980s to the 2010s.
• Department Store Catalogs // An Internet Archive collection of department store catalog scans from the 20th century. An incredible look into fashion and interior design from many different eras!
• High Times // An archive of every single High Times magazine ever! This is a paid-for archive, but it's just such an interesting insight into marijuana counterculture well worth the price of admission.
• National Park Service Handbooks // An archive of official handbooks created by/for the National Parks Service in the United States. Publishing dates range from the early 1910s all the way to the present!
• The Peculiar Manicule // An excellent archive dedicated to the groovy, psychedelic design of the 1960s and 1970s. One of my favorite design archives out there!
• The Public Domain Review // A curated gallery of imagery residing in the Public Domain. This is another one of my favorite archives, and I highly recommend signing up for their newsletter. Their articles and deep-dives are so interesting.
• Vintage Aerial // A photographic database of historic aerial photos of rural America, which a criminally underserved foundation of this godforsaken country's history. If you know of more archives in this vein, please send them to me!
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Database // A database of all the Yu-Gi-Oh cards in existence. The scans are super high quality. Super cool stuff!

Queer Media

I keep mostly lesbian-specific stuff here, for obvious reasons, but there are some things for you other queers/gays/theys as well...

• Bee Ottinger Lesbian House Photograph Archive // A special collection of Bee Ottinger's thesis project at CalArts in the early 1970s, where she documented the women of the Los Angeles Gay Community Service Center's (GCSC) so-called, "Lesbian House." SO cute!
• GayHeroes.com // A fabulously unhinged website dedicated to famous gays and lesbians in human history.
• Lesbian Herstery Archives // The best lesbian archive on the 'Net! This is a great source for research, graphics, and all sorts of collections.
• Lesbian Poetry Archive // An awesome collection of lesbian poetry curated by Dr. Julie R. Enszer, who is also an accomplished poet AND lesbian.
• Lesbian Tide // A page dedicated to the Lesbian Tide, a publication started in 1971 that would grow to become America's first nationally-distributed lesbian magazine. Very, very neat scans here.
• Lesbian Vampire Movies // Neocities denizen "Solflo" tackles an important topic here in her archive of lesbian vampire movies. Well done!
• Lesbians of Color // A Wayback Machine link to a 1990s website devoted to documenting lesbians of color and their stories! This is a great jumping-off point for research.
• LGBTQ Experience Research Guide from SHSMO // This is a lovely research guide for materials related to LGBTQ history within the state of Missouri. The archive is funded and maintained by the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO), who've done a great job of laying out this information.
• Notable Lesbians // A Wayback archive of an old plaintext list from 1998 that contains a number of famous lesbians throughout history.
• Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project // An excellent digital collection from Duke University's Women's History & Culture Center. It contains 130+ oral interviews with lesbian activists who were active in the South from 1968-1994.
• Strange Sisters // A small-but-mighty archive of sapphic pulp novel covers.
• The Queer Zine Archive Project // A longstanding archive of queer zines that's been around since 2003! The database is fully searchable and you can download digital copies of any zine on the site.

Science & Medicine

• Anna's Archive // The largest open-source archive of scientific data on Earth. Anna's Archive mirrors behemoth databases like LibGen and Sci-Hub. Please use a VPN to download from this site, if possible!
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists // A complete list of issues and articles from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists dating all the way back to the first issue in 1945.
• OpenStax // An archive filled with free textbooks, interactive learning apps, and instructional materials! A truly rare service these days.
• The Burns Archive // NSFW (Graphic Imagery) // A large, photographic archive documenting the history of modern medicine. A very grotesque and macabre history, but interesting nonetheless. Not for the faint of heart!

Skateboarding

• 411 VM Skateboarding Videos // A nice collection of 411 VM (video magazine) skateboarding videos from various VHS and DVD issues. I used to have a bunch of these tapes as a kid, and they're just as entertaining now.
• Skate Video Library // A mirror of @skatevideolibrary (on YouTube)'s library of early 2000s skateboarding videos. There are some legendary tapes uploaded here!
• Skateboard Video Archive // A sizeable collection of readily-streamable skate videos from the mid-1980s to mid-2010s. Very cool.
• SkateVideoSite // A lovely companion to those digging into skate video lore. This is a crowdsourced log of skate videos where each one's featured skaters, audio tracks, filmmakers, and companies are tagged appropriately.
• Thrasher Mag // Thrasher Magazine has graciously provided us with an archive of all their covers from 1981 to present. All of the '80s issues are fully scanned, as well. According to their site, they're working towards an archive of all their issues from front to back. Exciting stuff!

Software

Looking for freeware, old versions of software, or otherwise forgotten drivers? You're in the right place.

• ACME Laboratories // A classic archive of freeware that's been online since 1991. Real oldheads know!
• MajorGeeks // Can't find a driver for your long-forgotten widget? Chances are, MajorGeeks has you covered.
• Phil's Computer Lab // A homegrown collection of abandonware, software, hardware documentation, and drivers. Phil also has some really nice modding guides!
• w2krepo // A software preservation project dedicated to hosting programs originally made for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This archive is also accessible via the Gopher protocol!
• ⭐WinWorld⭐ // A vital archive in the realm of software preservation. WinWorld houses a variety of operating systems, applications, and other related utilities in a metric fuck ton of different versions. Not only is this a comprehensive Windows archive, but they also serve older flavors of *nix, as well as DOS, MacOS, and OS/2. This is my favorite software archive on the Web! Please give them your money if you're able.

Video Games

The following links probably could've been filed away in the categories above, but I decided to keep all the video game-related links together simply because it's my largest subset of links.

• Abandonware DOS // This is an excellent archive of classic PC games and applications from the 1980s and 1990s. Includes titles released for DOS, as well as early versions of Windows and Macintosh!
• BigBoxDB // ⭐ BigBoxDB ⭐ is one of my favorite archives out there, but probably because I contribute to it AND the dudes running it are some of the nicest bros I've ever met. This archive contains 3D models of big box PC games from the 1980s to the 2000s, all generated by scanning our personal collections! If you also collect physical editions of computer games, we'd love to have you. We have a pretty active Discord, and we play games together sometimes.
• Brutalist Games & More // This is one of my favorite niche-topic archives out there! This excellent Neocities site documents brutalism (a style of design) in popular media with a focus on video games. If you love that concrete, eastern block shit, then this is a website for you.
• Co-Optimus // An excellent site operated by the Video Game History Foundation which maintains a list of known co-op games across various consoles. You can get really granular with the filters here, such as filtering by couch co-op only, or by filtering out games that don't feature a co-op campaign.
• Core Design // Core Design is a quite extensive archive dedicated to the Tomb Raider series. My favorite area of this site is the "Goodies" section, which features all sorts of fun digital/physical ephemera for each title in the series, like desktop wallpaper and concept art.
• DOS Games Archive // This is another "old PC games" archive site, but specifically dedicated to games released for MS-DOS. It's apparently been online since 1998, which is quite the feat. They also allow you to play the games right inside your browser, instead of requiring you to setup your own emulation environment, which is nice if you're limited on resources and/or bandwidth.
• dungeoncrawlers.org // This is an online database dedicated to all eras of first-person, grid-based dungeon crawler games. If you're into those whacky mid-90s, "only turn at right angles" gameplay, then you'll probably find a ton of new games to play here.
• Free Radical Archive // The Free Radical Archive is a pretty interesting place. This Wiki is devoted to documenting a handful of unreleased/cancelled games that are often misreported on in gaming video essays on YouTube. These include Star Wars: Battlefront III and IV, TimeSplitters 4, and Haze.
• GameCopyWorld // This archive has been kicking since 1998, and while it may look sketchy at first glance, it's actually a valuable resource for anyone interested in late 2000s/early 2010s PC gaming. Many physical editions of games from this time are completely worthless due to the implementation of DRM, which usually requires a connection to a long-dead verification server in order to actually start up the game. The cracks on GameCopyWorld enable a way around this so you can start playing BioShock, GTA IV, or whatever late 2000s banger you can think of on your retro setup!
• Hidden Palace // This open contribution archive is dedicated to finding and preserving video game development media. There's lots of source code and hardware information here, as well as prototypes and concept art. I found this site via the excellent soundtrack for the unreleased AKIRA game for the Sega Genesis, which was uploaded to YouTube, and only possible because a contributor uncovered a demo cartridge and ROMdumped it!
• IGDB // It's like IMDB except for video games... and damn, they really have a lot of information on so many games. If you can't find a piece of information about a video game here, try MobyGames below. They're both my go-to!
• MobyGames // A very similar idea to IGDB. There is all sorts of game metadata stored here, and it's all generated by community members. Want to know who published a game or the exact date a game released? It's probably logged here.
• My Abandonware // This is probably my favorite place to download copies of long-abandoned PC games. Most of their collection is from the 1990s, but there are some gems from the 2000s in here too. Keep in mind you'll need an emulator to get these games running!
• Old-Games.RU // An excellent archive of old computer games that's based in Russia. Don't let that scare you! This site is legitimate, and I've used it many times.
• Old Games Download // Another service of the holy Internet Archive similar in function to "My Abandonware" above. They house a ton of old games that have long been abandoned spanning from the 1970s to the present day. They also include patches, manuals, screenshots, and artwork where available! Don't try to download more than one thing at a time from here or your IP will get put in timeout.
• Open Source Games List // The Open Source Games List (OGSL) is a best-effort aggregate of all the open source games and game engines/tools on all of Github. It has all sorts of filtering options, too. Remember, just because it's open source doesn't mean it sucks; there are some really great games in this list. I particularly love Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead!
• r/ROMs Megathread // Looking for illicit ROMs for niche (or mainstream) consoles? This is where you should start. They include ROMs for consoles from Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, and arcade machines. PLEASE use a VPN if you're going to try this.
• Silent Hill Media X // This archive is dedicated to media related to the first four Silent Hill games. While it hasn't been updated since 2016, it is a wealth of knowledge and data that I haven't been able to find anywhere else. The site's CSS themes are bangin', as well. They even have downloadable archives of all the sound effects and backing tracks for each game!
• SpinJump // This is my buddy Adam's Super Mario ROM hack aggregator that he made over a couple weekends. It's definitely not in my realm of knowledge, but he does good work, and I'm sure this will be helpful to some of you SNES/N64 nerds!
• The Cutting Room Floor // TCRF is dedicated to sourcing and documenting cut content from video games, such as unused assets and levels, as well as developer-only materials. I love this wiki! It's a unique insight into a lot of games.
• The PlayStation Datacenter // This archive's bent is to document absolutely everything they can (with utmost accuracy) about the PlayStation 1 and 2, as well as games released for both. This is no small feat, but there's quite a trove of information here!
• The Video Game Library // This is my favorite subpage in the Video Game Library archive. They have all sorts of scanned-in materials related to video games, but this particular page is dedicated to concept art and reference books. A majority of these are available to download (in .pdf format) for free!
• Video Game History Foundation Library // The online version of this library is still in its infancy, but I already have high hopes for it. The VGHF is an excellent non-profit which dedicates itself to gathering materials related to video game development and history. They have a ton of unique items in their collection, mostly contributed to them by the original developers!
• Vimm's Lair // ⭐ VIMM IS BASED. ⭐ The greatest video game archive on the Internet? Probably. Looking for game ISOs for your favorite console? Here they are; almost every single one of them is here. Use a VPN.

Creation Tools

Looking to create something in digital format? This category has you covered. From novelty generators to zinemaking tools, I've scoured the Internet for tools to enhance my (and now your) creativity.

Generators

Would you like to generate something from nothing? Or perhaps generate something from a limited selection of inputs? Randomization is awesome and a great way to get inspired if you're in a black. Enjoy!

• 88x31 Web Button Maker // An excellent web tool for creating your own 88x31 site badge! No .gif support yet, but it's stellar for making static badges!
• Acme Labelmaker // This Acme.com classic allows you to generate text that looks like it was punched out on a Dymo Labelmaker, which is one of the greatest organizational tools known to modern man.
• Barra's Error Message Generator // An excellent faux-Windows error message generator! There are many of these out there, but I think this is the best one. It allows for a selection of different styles (with additional color schemes for each!) that mimic Windows 98, XP, Vista/7 (Aero), and Windows 10.
• blinkie maker // Ever wanted to make one of those omnipresent "blinkies" you see on so many personal webpages? This tool does it well via an extensive library of templates. This excellent webapp is in active development and run by developer Amy and fellow Neocities Netizen (and excellent artist) Anakin!
• donjon's RPG Tools // An interesting collection of generators to be used in tabletop gaming, mostly Dungeons & Dragons. This ought to be useful for fantasy DMs of all sorts!
• Image to Dot Art Generator // This generator chomps up a user-uploaded image and spits out a dotted, black-and-white (think halftone nightmare) version of it. You can adjust the size of the dots, as well as adjust the darkness and size of lines used.
• Neo Rolodex // An unfinished (but still incredibly cool) "rolodex entry card" generator concept. I think this is just as cool of an idea as site badges, and I wish it took off like the webgardens and other embeddables did back in the day. Maybe me (or some other hyperfocused developer) will finish and perpetuate it someday!
• Online Safety Sign Maker // This generator allows you to create "safety" signs from pre-defined images. Think "Wet Floor Sign" maker OSHA type beat.
• Oregon Trail Tombstone Generator // Generates a tombstone based on inputted text, a la the OG Apple II version of Oregon Trail.
• Pokemon Battle Creator // Generate your own custom Pokemon battle screen. Choose different scenes, opponents, and eras of interfaces.
• Pokemon Card Maker // Generate your own Pokemon card; enough said.
• Prescription Maker // Ever wanted to make a non-passable prescription from your fake doctor? Stack up those Adderall 'scripts with this handy generator! (To big brother - this is a joke..)
• RandomGen // Want to make your OWN random generator? ⭐ RandomGen ⭐ has you covered. There are a number of generators hosted here, but RandomGen is also a tool you can use to create your own themed generator. Very cool stuff.
• RedKid.net's Generators // RedKid.net has alllll sorts of generators with big late-2000s vibes on this page. My favorites are: Fortune Cookie, iPod Billboards, and Blackberry.
• Seventh Sanctum's Page of Generators // Another megalist of generators hosted by Seventh Sanctum. I think its intended purpose is as a writing tool, but the site is founded upon the basis of "creativity through randomization," which I am all for. My personal favorites are the Technomancy and Dark Ritual generators.
• Text to ASCII Art Generator (TAAG) // Patorjk's world famous TAAG lives forever. I've used this thing for many, many years.
• Textcraft // Textcraft is every 12 year old's favorite text generator. Generate text in the style of famous game logos! It's honestly a pretty robust interface.
• TextEditor // This generator provides a similar function as TAAG (listed above) but provides a completely different catalog of preset outputs. If you're bored of TAAG's selection of "ASCII" fonts, check out TextEditor.
• The Death Generator // ⭐ The Death Generator ⭐ is probably my favorite entry in this category. You can generate custom death screens featuring your own text for a myriad of computer games. My favorites are Dino Crisis, Drake & Josh, and System Shock 2.
• userbar generator // Userbars are the post-9/11 answer to 88x31 buttons, and they were used extensively on websites and forums throughout the 2000s and early 2010s. They are not the same as blinkies, although the format is similar. I used to make these all the time for my Runescape forum profile.
• Watabou's Generators // Watabou is a prominent developer over on Itch.io who makes generators (and games) of all sorts. My favorite of the lot is the Cage/Glade Generator.

Image Manipulation

This might sound like an overly vague category, but it'll make since once you start clicking. Anything in this list allows you to manipulate images in some way. There are a lot of "offline" or downloadable tools that allow for image manipulation like Photoshop or whatever, but I curated this list with convenience and low-barrier-to-entry in mind.

• Bulk Image Crop // A web app that allows you to crop & resize images in bulk. It functions client-side, so none of your images are actually uploaded anywhere. Privacy friendly, free web apps like this are few and far between!
• Cybergrunge.net's Thumbnailer // A beautifully dumb tool you can use to "thumbnail" an image, which essentially means "squarify and compress it to hell." There are varying levels of compression from "shittiest" to "almost ok."
• Dither It! // ⭐ Dither It! ⭐ is THE premiere dithering web application. Anyone who says different is selling something! But really, I love this tool and it's one of my most-used tools in creative processes.
• Ezgif // ⭐ Ezgif ⭐ is my desert island "pick one" link; it's the Swiss Army Knife of image manipulation tools. I mostly use it to chop up .gifs, as well as to compress and resize images.
• Image Scrubber // There are countless "Exif data scrubbing" tools out there, but I love Everest Pipkin's work, so I'm including their rendition of the concept. If you didn't know, images store lots of unseen metadata that must be purposefully removed. EXIF data includes things like the type of device used to take the picture, the GPS coordinates where it was taken, and other potentially privacy-violating data points. I highly recommend scrubbing pictures taken with a cell phone before uploading them ANYWHERE on the Internet.
• Image Vectorizer // This tool allows you to upload a .jpeg, .png, or .pdf and convert it to a vector (.svg) file. As with any tool that follows this sort of idea, your results will be mixed. For best results, process the brightness/contrast of your image before uploading.
• LunaPic // LunaPic is an online photo editor with a variety of tools. It's pretty goofy in terms of image effects and filters, but the basic functionality is effective. Helpful if you don't have to means to use GIMP on your device!
• Pixel It // Create pixel art from uploaded images. You can specify block size, max height/width, and choose your own color palette! This is honestly one of the more effective tools I've seen that does this sort of process, and it's free.
• RealFaviconGenerator // Generate favicons for your web projects! Favicons are the tiny little icons you see on the browser tab for a given website. This generator spits out all the possible versions needed for all major browsing platforms based on the image you upload.
• Seamless Texture Creator // This neat little tool attempts to cobble together a seamless texture from any given uploaded image. It's a little janky, but it's way better than doing it by hand in Photoshop or GIMP.
• SVG Crop // A niche function, but a nice little tool nonetheless. Ever tried to crop an SVG without a professional image editor or some weird alternative to your OS' photo viewer? It's a tall order; use this tool. You can even paste the markup code instead of an actual, packaged .svg file.
• Tooooools // Tooooools is a great little oddball image editing suite maintained by Daniil Sukhovskoy. Each tool listed applies a different type of image manipulation; my favorite effects are "DISPLACE" and "CRT."
• Vector Halftone Maker // This tool allows you to upload an image and convert it to a halftone pattern. It even supports the upload of transparent .pngs and .svg files! They provide a wealth of settings, color palettes, and dot styles to tinker with. There's also a beta for the new version of this app here.

Miscellanea

UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE - by decree of Salty P. Slug, creation tools that don't really fit in any other category are to be stashed here.

• JSKIDPIX // A JavaScript-based rendition of the OG Kidpix in your browser! Have fun and don't forget to crank up the volume so you can hear those zany sounds.
• Lospec // This site is dedicated to "digitally restrictive art." This is my favorite place to find color palettes for most of my work! It's also a great place to see amazing pixel art.
• Vertex Meadow // This is an interesting little tool that renders 2D images as 3D terrain in your browser. You can do all sorts of crazy stuff with this app, but its main intention is as a world builder. The code is open source and it's maintained by the lovely Ian Maclarty.
• webgbcam // A fun little browser app that captures input from a webcam uses it to take a picture emulating the OG Gameboy camera! I love taking selfies with my wife using this thing. Maple also has some other tools on their site here.

Music Production

There are a billion tools out there for writing and producing music, so I ended up filing this list down quite a bit. This list ONLY contains sites/tools I actually use to produce my own music. A lot of these sites house sample packs or VSTs, which are plugins that can be loaded into your DAW of choice.

• BVKER // This is a pretty popular site for grabbing sample packs at low prices, but I exclusively use the free packs offered on the site. It's a good spot for electronic drums and modern synth sounds, and they're all royalty free!
• EffectiveFX // Self-proclaimed "Independent Experimental Audio Tech Studio" that made the best delay VST of all time. IYKYK.
• FREAKSHOW INDUSTRIES // ⭐ FREAKSHOW INDUSTRIES ⭐ make some of my favorite VSTs out there, and they're also a based company who are anti-DRM and anti-corpo. They even let you pirate their plugins directly; just press the "STEAL" button instead of the "BUY" button. (Also pls consider paying for them if you continue using their shit.) Seriously though, as zany as their marketing and interfaces are, their plugins are amazing. MISHBY is my go-to tape distortion plugin.
• FreeVST's // This is THE de facto "link farm" for free VSTs. This incredibly overwhelming website is all you'll ever need to find plugins if you're ballin' on a budget. Also there's nothing wrong with using free plugins, it's what you do with 'em that matters!
• JummBox // ⭐ JummBox ⭐ is a lovely little browser-based, piano roll-style chiptune DAW based on the Beepbox source code. It's got a huge bank of instruments and a surprisingly robust set of effects for each. It also runs offline if saved as a bookmark, and you can share your song directly via the unique URL generated for every project. This is one of my favorite production tools, and a nice alternative to the all-too-common vertical/tracker-style interface, which I personally don't fuck with.
• Musical Artifacts // An open source web app which is a wonderful place to get free soundfont files! See the "Sforzando" entry below to learn more about those.
• Producer Grind // ProducerGrind is another popular sample pack marketplace mostly geared towards hip-hop beatmakers, but again, I only use their free sample packs. They don't make it easy to find out which packs are free, so I've included a direct link to their "Free Packs" page for your convenience! Current free packs (last checked April 2025) include some trap drum kits, 808 packs, a boom bap kit, and some "producer type beat" packs (Yeat, Metro Boomin, Pierre Bourne).
• Sforzando // Sforzando is a free Soundfont (.SFZ file type) sample player. Soundfonts are an incredibly powerful resource for music production. Essentially, .sfz files are sample libraries (pre-patched) into a very small file. There are many places to get these soundfont files, some of which are listed here. These are especially useful for those with limited bandwidth and/or processing power!
• SkyboxEye // An excellent YouTube channel which uploads loopable ambience sound files from famous video games. I get a lot of great ambient loops from this channel, and it's also just interesting to see the choices available.
• Surge Synthesizer // A neat little hybrid synthesizer that is free and open source! I love virtual instruments; I think they have a charm to them. This one has its quirks, but it's a good start to getting into synthesizers if you don't want to invest in hardware.
• The Sounds Resource // I use a ton of video game sound effects in my music, and my main source (other than my own personal gamerips) is The Sounds Resource. The site's content is all sourced by community contributors from the VG Resource community, including myself, so if you want to get involved in the cause you should sign up for an account!
• VGM Updates, Search and Stuff // This resource might require a little technical expertise, so I'm just dumping it here for now without instructions. If you're into ripping sound and music files from video games, which is something I plan to write a "how-to" guide for someday, this is the joint for you. xxx.joshw.info has an extensive list of video game soundtracks here in their originally-presented format, some of which require some conversion trickery to get into a modern file format. If you can't find a soundtrack for a game anywhere else, it's probably here. USE A VPN for the love of god!!
• VST.UNPLUG.RED // Aside from FREAKSHOW, mentioned above, this is my favorite place to get VSTs. This little coder/artist collective makes some really cool stuff, and all their plugins are INCREDIBLE. I highly recommend using them, no matter what kind of music you make.

Zines & Webzines

I love creating and collecting zines. They're such a radical little vessel for ideas and art!

• Decker // Decker mimicks the visual aesthetic of early era MacOS and provides an extensive platform to create eZines, visual novels, and more. If you're looking to make some 1- to 16-bit crusty ditherpunk art, Decker is the tool for you! I personally use Decker quite a bit; here is an example deck I made.
• Electric Zine Maker by Alienmelon // ⭐ EZM ⭐ is a fantastic Windows/macOS program intended for use to create zines, albeit a little janky. This is one of the most fun tools I've ever used, and I just love the zany, childlike UI design.
• Slaptrash // Slaptrash is another incredible webzine-making tool based in HTML tags. It kinda functions like a weird hybrid of a Snapchat story and a Flash animation, and it's website embeddable. It's also developed by the inimitable KicksCondor, whose ideas I love and (healthily) idolize. I hope they return to the Web someday!
• Zine Machine // Zine Machine is a handy little guide to making physical AND electronic zines. They even provide a CSS grid equivalent to their physical template, which is such a great idea.

Fidget Toys

This section is filled with online fidget toys to give your "little video"-addled goldfish brain a micro hit of dopamine. Call it online microdoping?

Brainrot (Non-Derogatory)

{COUNT: 13} Rapid fire round, no descriptions, just link-clicking roulette to pointless little web toys LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO!

• Blob Garden
• cat clubhouse
• DashNet
• DigiQuilt
• drawing.garden
• FLONGA (Free Online Games)
• garden party
• Halo 1 Main Menu
• HammyHome
• joey's stuff
• Neal.fun
• Pokémon Booster Pack Simulator
• Science Vs. Magic

Dress-Up & Decorating Games

Dress-up games, avatar creators, and decorating games galore! No descriptions here; enjoy the surprise. 😊

• ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆dream room ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆
• A Quaint Laboratorium: Lab IDs
• Alternative Avatar Maker by pinkmantisx
• Bratty Doll Maker by kinibee
• Cursed Emoji Maker (Picrew)
• Doll Divine // Okay I know I said no descriptions, but I lied. I fuckin' loved this website when I was a kid; it had the best dress-up games. Its spiritual successor is Meiker.io.
• dressupgames.com
• Minipix Maker by Avatars in Pixels
• PSX Character Creator by strawbebby228
• RPG by G0966 (Picrew)
• vizkut's cats (Picrew)
• 도트 인포 메이커 (Picrew)

Other Link Farms

{COUNT: 22} A list of other lists? Yes, of course. Here are some other link farms from around the web to which I refer or enjoy.

• 32-Bit Cafe's Resources for the Personal Web // A list for webmasters. An excellent list to CTRL+F through to find new handmade web resources.
• Ballonlea Links's // A mixed directory of resources including: webmastery, art, queer history, mental health, and more!
• Brisray's Public Domain & Creative Commons Resources // Brisray is a legend, as is his link directory. It's all in the name baby!!! Check out his other link farm here.
• Class Collection by Aidan Quinlan // I'm a big fan of Aidan Quinlan's work, but their link farms are truly out of this world! This is a great little "web inspiration" link moodboard type joint.
• Cyberlife's Cyberpunk Links // Cyberpunk gotta be one of the best aesthetics out there... and this farm does not disappoint on that front!
• Daryl Sun's Links // A mixed directory of resources including: online privacy, webmastery, typography, fandoms, and more!
• E-Wizard's Resources // A mostly webmastery-focused link directory, in addition to a few links on philosophy.
• Fragile Forge's Libre Tools and Instruments // A bunch of really cool web-based tools, fonts, and other quirky exercises by Raphaël Bastide!
• FreeMediaHeckYeah // This infamous Reddit staple (usually abbreviated FMHY) is a crowd favorite for finding free/open-source software, torrent sites, and other pirate-flavored corners of the web.
• Handmade Web Resources // Another link directory from Aidan Quinlan! This one is for their online "Handmade Web" class they teach for VCU, but it's a valuable webmastery directory nonetheless.
• Malice in Wonderland's Link Directory // A mixed link directory containing sub-directories about education, graphics, web surfing, and more!
• Melonland's Webhost Collection // A very handy guide to webhosts, which are places to host your website! This is a great resource if you aren't down with the usual suggestions like Neocities, Nekoweb, etc.
• Moonsetter Industries' Links // A mostly webmastery-focused directory containing links to embeddables, graphics resources, and other coding resources.
• MSX's Tools & Toys // A neat little directory of tools and toys made by Em over at heckscaper.com. Some reallllyyy interesting programs and graphic tools here!
• Museum of Alexandra's Links // A mixed directory of important reads (which I really loved), other link farms, fun timekiller sites, educational links, blogs, and more!
• Obspogon's Zone's MegaCollections // A very nerdy, retro gaming and computing-focused directory from Neocities darling, Obspogon. Includes lots of kits/mods for Doom, Wolfenstein 3-D, Quake, and more! Oldhead PC nerds rejoice!! I've learned so many things about retro gaming and emulation from this directory.
• Open Source Design Resources // As the name suggests, this directory is dedicated to open-source design resources. This includes icons, fonts, images, tools, and other resources. This whole site is also pretty cool!
• Peelopaalu's Directory // Peelopaalu's whole site is a dedicated link directory!! It has over a thousand links of all sorts, and there's lots of deep cuts here I haven't seen elsewhere.
• Pixel Safari's Graphics Websites Directory // This directory is dedicated solely to linking back to other websites that are all about graphics, gifs, pixels, and other digital imagery!!
• Tiny Tools Directory // This is an excellent list of tools that are useful in building games, websites, and other virtual interactive projects. It's also maintained by the wonderful Everest Pipkin, a webmaster whom I truly admire!
• TOMB OF NULL's Resources Library // A mixed link directory focused mostly on art creation resources and web development. TOMB OF NULL is also just an insane artist; you should check out their stuff either way!!

Quizzes

Dawg, I LOVEEEEE an online quiz. I think Quizilla was my most-frequented website for a solid few years of my childhood (R.I.P. Quizilla). I have compiled a list of online quizzes below, as well as a subsection of "quiz directories" that link to multiple quizzes. A lot of these are no longer online, but are accessible via the Wayback Machine.

Quiz Directories

{COUNT: 10}

• Altered Origin's Zodiac Pokémon Quizzes
• Hekate's Homepage
• Mystery of the ZenHex
• nebula's quiz results
• PEACHIE SUMMER 2003
• Ravenblack.net | Silly Quizzes
• Springhole.net | Tests and Quizzes
• Star-Girl.org | Quizzes
• The Bozone | Quizzes
• Valvigirl.net | Personality Quizzes

Individual Quizzes

{COUNT: 38}

• Are you a computer geek?
• Can You Identify the Drug?
• Dante's Inferno Test - Impurity, Sin, and Damnation
• Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?
• How Are You Doing? Find Out If You Suck at Life.
• How Do You Use Magic??
• How much are you worth? | HumanForSale.com
• Questionable Pirate Quiz
• SWIFTY'S HQ mystery box quiz
• The Nerd Test, Version 2.0
• What Ace Attorney Character Are You?
• What famous lesbian do you most closely resemble?
• What Flavor Lip Gloss Are You?
• What frog are you?
• What Kind of Bikini Are You?
• What Kind of Doll Are You?
• What Kind of Shoe Are You?
• What kind of wings would you have?
• What mental disorder do you have?
• What Pokémon Are You? | The Cave of Dragonflies
• What Pokémon Type Are You?
• What RPG Class/Job Best Suits You?
• What teddy bear are you?
• What Toontown Toon Species are you?
• What Tumblr aesthetic describes you?
• What type of cheese are you?
• What whale are you?
• What's your tarot card?
• Which Big Brother 3 houseguest are you?
• Which Invader Zim Character Would You Be Reincarnated As?
• Which is Your Morality Alignment?
• Which of my favourite specific character archetypes are you?
• Which of the Four Horses of the Apocalypse are you?
• Which Powerpuff Girls character are you?
• Which Special Infected are you?
• Which Video Game City Are You?
• Which World of Warcraft race matches your personality?

Webrings and Internet Collectives

{COUNT: 12} This section houses links to communities nestled throughout the Web. Some are webrings, some are forums, and others are something else...

• tilde.club // A neat little shared web server filled with personal pages and a shared wiki! Tilde has been around for over a decade, and it's a super cool idea.
• 32-Bit Cafe // 32-Bit Cafe is an extensive community of web developers focused on reviving the personal ("indie") web. There are some great tutorials and services provided here, as well as opportunities for volunteering and community discussion.
• Hall of Rock // A cute little pixel club consisting of personalized guitars accompanied by the artist's chosen song! This is such a cool idea.
• ISOCITY // This one is actually no longer online, but it's such a cool concept that I'm including a Wayback link anyways. Back in the heyday of collaborative pixel art (late 2000s), ISOCITY was a shining beacon of those communal efforts. This acts as a webring of sorts to other pixel artists' websites, but with the twist of each link having its own specially-designed plot of land to represent its owner. A lot of these outbound links still work and will lead you to some very talented artists!
• Melonland // This fun little forum is centered around webmastery, art, and virtual worlds! It's run by Neocities superstar, Melon!
• Nightfall City // "From the hills of Dusk's End to the small alleys of Main Street, you feel drawn to the lights of this vibrant metropolis in an uncharted internet territory. The sign reads "Nightfall"."
• PalaceChat // A faithful recreation of one of my favorite '90s relics, the original PalaceChat. This is an insane virtual chat room that every Netizen should experience! Fun fact: this is where the original concept from which "Dollz" (a popular pixel art movement) originates.
• Pik Ring // This is a webring of folks who are fans of the video game series, "Pikmin."
• Sticker Sheet Club // A cute little community of folks making tradable/collectible pixel stickers!
• Sunday Sites // A seemingly-defunct site for a community of coders who gathered on random Sundays to create a project from the same prompt. While they no longer appear to conduct these sessions, they do have a list of previous' session work and it's all so cool! I would love to do something like this in the future.
• Void.Shrooms // A webring for sites that embrace, "dark/gothic aesthetics, the morbid, the uncanny, and fungi."
• Webring Hispano // Un webring para hispanohablantes de la indie web. :)