This is a forum allocated to being a quiet space for sharing projects related to fun creatures and critters, dinosaurs and dragons, and other such things. It serves a few purposes:
- To be an archive and offer dev logging and promoting critter games and media, which doubles as publicly available archive without registration requirements to be viewed. (Discord and many public sites require registration to view anything)
- To be a quieter outlet to post and follow each others' projects, as opposed to the over-generalized social media platforms that are noisy, attention grabbing, and generally miserable to read or write to. (Twitter, Bluesky, etc are short-form and awkward to post and share updates to.)
- To be focused on this specific niche of critter games and for viewers to discover new games and projects they might like. (Steam, itch, etc are general and rely on tag surfing, luck, or word of mouth.)
Must I be a developer too?
You don't have to be a dev to join or lurk. If you want to see more games like ones here, go buy or donate to such devs and share this place around so those projects get more attention.
Why a forum? And such an archaic forum?
Classic PHP forums are often a lot leaner to run, both as a server and in a client's browser. Heavy infinite-scroll Javascript browsers like Discourse are heavy and low end devices may choke at the simple act of browsing. Archiving such a forum is also accessible to anyone who would like to do such.
But I have to make an account and wait for admin approval and...
You can lurk without an account and see projects in motion. Registration and approval isn't a hindrance for growth, it's a feature to filter low effort posters and keep bots and floods at bay so those who do post have some breathing space.