The latest articles on DEV Community by Pop Recall (@poprecallgames). https://dev.to/poprecallgames https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4242323%2F1e96d73a-f20e-4cf4-ad60-b42f41e01a2f.png https://dev.to/poprecallgames en Pop Recall Fri, 13 Nov 2026 06:42:08 +0000 https://dev.to/poprecallgames/i-built-25-tiny-browser-games-with-vanilla-javascript-no-engine-no-framework-4j3n https://dev.to/poprecallgames/i-built-25-tiny-browser-games-with-vanilla-javascript-no-engine-no-framework-4j3n <p>For the past few months I've been running a small experiment: how far can one person get shipping a complete little games site with nothing but HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript?</p> <p>The result is <strong>Pop Recall</strong> — a collection of 25 tiny browser games, live at <a href="https://poprecallgames.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://poprecallgames.com</a>. No downloads, no sign-ups, no build step. Every game is a static page; you open it and you're playing in seconds.</p> <h2> Why vanilla? </h2> <p>Mostly constraints I chose on purpose:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>Instant load.</strong> No engine runtime, no bundles. A game page is just HTML + a script.</li> <li> <strong>It runs anywhere.</strong> Desktop, phone, an old laptop — if it has a browser, it plays.</li> <li> <strong>It ages well.</strong> No dependencies to rot. The pages I shipped in October will still work in five years.</li> </ul> <h2> What's in the collection </h2> <p>Memory games (the namesake <strong>Moon Pairs</strong> — balloons light up, fade, and you tap the ones you saw), word games (<strong>Word Search</strong>), quiet classics (<strong>Tic Tac Toe</strong>, <strong>Brick Break</strong>, <strong>Mini Pool</strong>), and small oddballs like <strong>Potion Pour</strong>, <strong>Rail Switch</strong> and <strong>Slide Eight</strong>. Each game lives in its own folder with one <code>index.html</code>, wrapped in a shared shell: navigation, one ad slot, and stats kept in <code>localStorage</code>.</p> <p>A tiny Node build script assembles the static output, and a test suite (155 checks at last count) verifies every page — links, meta tags, canonical URLs, the ad slot, even an "English-only content" rule.</p> <h2> The embarrassing part </h2> <p>For the first two weeks the whole site shipped with <code>noindex,nofollow</code> and a robots.txt that blocked everything — a leftover from playtesting that nobody remembered to switch off. Zero search traffic, and the data agreed. I fixed that this week: real domain, canonicals, a sitemap, Search Console, the works. Distribution, not code, turned out to be the hard part. The games are also listed on a few browser-game directories (Foundplay, SlowDen, and counting).</p> <h2> Full disclosure </h2> <p>This is a solo, learn-in-public project built with heavy AI assistance — code, copy and a lot of the grunt work. That's part of the experiment: can an AI-assisted one-person project run a small games site end to end? So far the honest answer is "the site, yes; the audience is still loading."</p> <h2> Try it </h2> <p><a href="https://poprecallgames.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://poprecallgames.com</a></p> <p>I'd genuinely love feedback from other builders and players: which game keeps you longest, and what would you add as game #26?</p> gamedev javascript webdev showdev