The Bored Game

What it is

The Bored Game is a one-click joke that this site uploaded to a games portal back when browser games came as plugin files, and that runs there today through the portal's emulator. The portal lists the upload as 2011. The thumbnail is a crayon scrawl asking what the game is. Press play, and the game offers a red crayon blob that says Start The Game. Click it and you have already lost, because the game in question is the mind game about not thinking about it.

How to play

Press the play button on the portal page to load the game, then click Start The Game. The next screen says YOU LOST THE GAME in big hand-lettered capitals, with four crayon blobs around it: Try Again, Make your friends lose, What is the Game, and a small blue smiley carrying this site's name. What is the Game opens a card with three rules in the same hand lettering, the first of which is that everyone is playing, knowingly or not. The author's note on the portal page says the same and adds the only control: use your mouse.

What makes it different

A game that is lost by loading it. The rules card is the whole content, the Try Again blob is the whole replay, and the drawing is crude crayon on white, which is the right look for the joke. The portal page around it is the other half of the artifact: a 2011 upload date, a handful of 2012 reviews that mostly complain it is pointless, a score and a vote count, all preserved. One of our own, in a sense, hosted elsewhere.

Why it is on Bored

Some entries are here as history. This is a joke page from this site's own past, still playable because a portal kept it and an emulator runs it, and it takes fifteen seconds to see the whole thing. Losing a game by reading its name is a format that has not improved since.

Tips

• Press play on the portal page first, the game loads inside it
• Read the rules card, it is the only content the game has
• The reviews under the game are from 2012 and worth a scroll
• You have lost already, by the game's own rules

FAQ