Because every website like this has to have a link page, right?
As a rule, anything linked on this page is something I'm familiar with, or was familiar with at some point. If it's a page with a lot of other things on it, like a Youtube channel or a blog, then there's a chance I haven't seen/read/whatever everything on it, but still, it's gotta be something I'm somewhat familiar with/have read.
To be clear, me linking to something here isn't me endorsing it entirely, or the person/people behind it, or anything like that. Like, I don't necessarily agree with everything and everyone involved. For one thing, people change over time, and there's a good chance there'll be something linked to here that I used to agree with but now don't, and I don't want to have to go through this whole page to sort out stuff like that. For another thing, I think it's important to see perspectives you don't necessarily agree with from time to time.
Itch.io - An online store that mainly focuses on indie videogames, though they also have other software, books, TTRPGs, and other things. They also do big bundles not infrequently with hundreds of games and other things included in order to raise money for one charity or another.
Bundle Browser - An unofficial (?) site for people who’ve bought one or more of (most of) the aforementioned charity bundles to search through everything in them in more detail than Itch’s search system allows.
Epic Games Store - I'd suggest using Steam over this for actually buying games, the Epic Games Store is on the list just because they give away free games every week. Like, I probably have hundreds if not thousands of dollars in games on their launcher now that I haven't paid a cent for.
Clone Hero - A Guitar Hero clone, seems to be the most popular option nowadays in the plastic instruments variety of rhythm games. Closed source, but free to download, and comes with a few charts pre-included.
Custom Songs Central - Seemingly the main place to go for Clone Hero charts. There are quite a few on there.
Circuit Breaker - A setlist of over 115 electronic songs. I played the whole thing a while ago, and I remember it being quite fun. (Also, all the songs in it are full difficulty, which is always nice.)
Fuse Box - The sequel to Circuit Breaker, with 255 full difficulty electronic songs. I haven't played the whole thing yet, (as of ) but it's been good so far.
Clone Hero Masterlist - A well maintained Google spreadsheet with links to, as far as I can tell, almost every set of charts available, most of which are hosted on the site linked above this one. They've also got links to all of the charts from the official Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, except for Rock Band 4.
r/CloneHero - The subreddit for Clone Hero. Mostly discussion and memes, but they have links to even more stuff for the game in the sidebar, and people tend to announce new sets of charts there.
Yet Another Rhythm Game - Also frequently referred to as YARG, an open source Rock Band clone that supports quite a few instruments and comes with a lot of nice charts available through the official launcher. Clone Hero and YARG can both use the same charts, but I recommend looking for Clone Hero charts specifically due to how much more popular it seems to be compared to YARG. It’s a bit stricter than Clone Hero by default, but you can change that in the settings.
Vivid/Stasis - A combination rhythm game / visual novel about a girl named Saturday trying to find her missing sister with help from her friends, though the story gets a lot more bizarre (complementary) from there. The story is unfinished as of 2024-11-10, and the game suffers from a few instances of unnecessarily high requirements to unlock things, but that story is actively being worked on, and you can ease unlock requirements, or remove them entirely, with accessability settings.
Stepmania - An open source recreation of dancing rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution, but it's also playable with a keyboard as a regular rhythm game where you only ever have to press two buttons at once.
Trotmania - Several sets of mostly MLP:FiM themed songs for Stepmania and games based on it, as well as themes and other cosmetic stuff for those same games. Project appears to have been abandoned, but the site is still up for now.
ITGmania - A fork of Stepmania, with added features that seem to cater more towards competitive folks, mainly integration with a score tracking site called GrooveStats, and a theme called Simply Love built in.
OutFox - Another fork of Stepmania, though this one is apparently closed source. OutFox supports 18 different varieties of rhythm game charts, and also offers their own charts for download. Seems as though it may be abandoned, as the there have been no updates or news in close to a year.
To be clear, in the context of this website, a fangame would be a standalone game based on something made by somebody else, whereas a ROM hack would be a game made by hacking the files of a different game, which of course requires the you having the files for that game.
PokéCommunity - Both a pretty big forum for everything Pokémon and, from what I've seen, the place to go for Pokémon ROM hacks and fangames. There are definitely other websites that at least claim to host them, but as far as I can tell they're mostly rehosting stuff from PokéCommunity, most likely for money somehow. Every ROM hack and fangame I've found so far either had PokéCommunity as the official place to get it, or had an official thread there linking to their actual website.
Pokémon Reborn - A massive fangame, a decade in the making. Very long, very story-focused, very much so darker than the official games. I haven't finished it yet (as of ) but what I've played so far is very fun and good. This links to the official site for the game, which is also a forum for it. Also, the devs of Reborn are currently working on two other big Pokémon fangames, both of which are work in progress and probably won't be done for years, but they're there. Reborn itself is complete, though they're still working on adding extra stuff to it.
Pyrolusitium Z2 - A UI overhaul mod for Pokémon Reborn. Did I mention Reborn has modding support? It does and it's awesome. But yeah, I use this, it looks nice. Unfortunately it isn't available for the latest version of Reborn yet, but someone ported the "lite" version to the new version, and that seems close enough.
BIGJRA's Reborn Walkthrough - A complete walkthrough for the entire game, in text, hosted on Github. Includes every detail you'd want to have, like Pokémon catch rates in each area, hidden item locations, how your actions affect your relationship with other characters, everything. I used this when trying to catch every Pokémon the first time I played Reborn, it was really quite helpful.
Pokémon Unbound - A ROM hack of Pokémon Fire Red, complete, with a whole new region and story. You can also catch every Pokémon from gen 1 to gen 7, except for 7 that you have to get with codes, due to one area not being accessible yet in the post-game. I haven't finished this yet, (as of ) but it's been fun so far.
Eevee Expo - Okay I lied actually about PokéCommunity being the place for fangames, it seems Eevee Expo is also an option, though just for fangames it seems, there are almost no ROM hacks there. They also apparently make yearly hour long youtube videos in the same vein as Nintendo Directs to promote various fangames, as well as news posts on the site for the same purpose. They also do game jams! all of which is very neat. Other interesting thing about the site is it appears to be a replacement for a site called Relic Castle, which got DMCA'd a while back.
r/PokemonROMhacks - A subreddit dedicated to, well, Pokémon ROM hacking. Mostly announcements about hacks, discussion of them, that sort of thing. I've also seen at least one hack that was only really shared there. (referring to Emerald Seaglass specifically)
SMW Central - A forum dedicated to ROM hacks for Super Mario World, its sequel Yoshi's Island, and Super Mario 64. They also seem to have quite a lot of resources for people interesting in making ROM hacks themselves.
New Super Mario World 2: Around the World - A massive hack for Super Mario World, with 16 worlds, and 90+ levels! I've only just started playing this recently, (as of ) but it's quite fun so far, if significantly harder than I'm used to. I guess I'm a bit rusty when it comes to platformers.
Super Mario Bros. X2 - A Mario fangame in the classic 2D style, with a built in level editor. Could also be counted as a fangame for several other things, with playable characters and pieces for levels from other franchises. SMBX2 Seems to be a sort of unofficial continuation of the original, but I'm linking this instead of the original because it adds a lot of new things while being fully backwards compatible.
SMBX Forums - Technically this links directly to the sub-forum thing for sharing "episodes" for SMBX, which are essentially packs of levels, usually with a neat world map to connect them all.
Mushroom Kingdom Fusion - A massive, but work in progress 2D fangame, also a crossover with like a million other things, to the point that I'm not actually sure if it's accurate to just call this a Mario fangame. Or, well, it probably is, seeing as the actual gameplay is very much so Mario based. Also worth noting that there are quite a few other Mario fangames on itch.io, and honestly quite a few fangames for a lot of things.
So to play pretty much any Doom mod, you're going to need the files for the original Doom games. Unfortunately you do have to pay for those, but! If you have the Xbox Game Pass, Doom Eternal has the files for Doom 1 and 2 freely accessible in among the rest of the game files. So, you can totally just copy the files from there if you can. (Fair warning, I did this like a year or two ago (around 2023 or 2024) so I don't actually know if this still works)
Doom World - A forum dedicated to the Doom games, with a focus on the earlier ones. It's also, as far as I can tell, the main place that people share Doom mods/wads. (Though there are quite a few shared on itch.io for some reason) They've also got a yearly awards showcase thing going into detail on the best mods of the year, a whole thing on the history of Doom modding, all sorts of neat stuff like that.
ZDoom - ZDoom is an enhanced port of the Doom engine for modern systems, with a whole bunch of new features to let modders do more fun stuff. Technically the one you're probably going to want to use is GZDoom, since ZDoom was cancelled, but that's hosted on the ZDoom website as well. There's also a forum on the site where people share Doom mods, though it seems a lot less active than Doom World.
Freedoom - Fun fact, the source code for the original Doom is actually open source! Unfortunately, the assets for it are not. Freedoom is an attempt to make a full game based on that source code, compatible with most Doom mods, but with fully open source assets. It is a work in progress, and there hasn't been a new release in a while, and I haven't actually played or used it at all, but I still think it's neat enough to link here.
Doom: The Golden Souls - This is technically the first in a series of Doom wads inspired by Mario games, from the collectables to the level design, not to mention that the first one has the Mario 64 castle as a hub world. Well, not really, it just looks quite similar. I haven't finished the second one, and the third is a work in progress, (both as of ) but they've been fun so far.
Sonic Robo Blast 2 - A 3D Sonic fangame made with a modified version of Doom! It's also open source and moddable! Only downside is it isn't fully complete yet, but having played the whole thing myself recently, it may as well be. The site has a forum on it where people share mods they've made.
The Mystic Realm - A mod for SRB2 that is essentially a whole new game, new levels and everything. Only downside is the final few levels have a massive spike in difficulty, but that's fine honestly.
Tangle & Whisper - Two mods that add new playable characters, that being Tangle and Whisper from the IDW comics. Tangle is essentially Spiderman but incredibly finicky and difficult to play as, whereas Whisper has a magic gun and is just ridiculously good. I list them together because the two mods are made so that if you have them both active you can play as both characters in one save file!
Rain - A complete webcomic about a trans girl and her friends attending a catholic school. Starts off a little rough, but I remember really enjoying it when I first read it, to the point that I read the entire thing twice over in a week. (There is technically a side-story about dragons which is currently in progress, but the main comic is finished.)
My Impossible Soulmate - An incomplete webcomic by the same person who made Rain. It’s about a girl getting seriously injured and then waking up in a fantasy world. It sounds like a lot of the drama is going to come from the bit where the main character was in love with a girl in the world she came from, but she can’t do anything about it due to being in fantasy land.
Aurora - An incomplete comic about a newly created soul in the body of a god traveling the world to rescue the god who’s body he’s occupying, and things get more complicated from there. Aurora is made by Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions
Sunjackers - A complete (for now, there may be more later but for now there's a complete story here) MLP:FiM fan comic about a group of criminals stealing sunlight in a cyberpunk looking future where the sun has long since vanished. The characters also stop sometimes to answer questions submitted to the Tumblr ask box, and there are occasional flash games/animations and animated videos. The author of Sunjackers also has several other MLP fan comics on Tumblr, though not all are complete.
Fimfiction.net - The best place to go for MLP:FiM fanfiction, and there is a lot of it.
Fimfic2Epub - A command line tool/browser extension that downloads Fimfiction stories as very nicely formatted ePub files, also highly configurable. If you’re going to download any ePubs from Fimfiction, use this! I’ve also been working on a command line tool to automate this further, which I’m calling Fimfic2Extra.
Fimfetch - An archive of Fimfiction, (including deleted stories) as well as portions of a couple other sites. Has a more in-depth tagging system than Fimfiction does, as well as an OPDS service. There hasn’t been a news update in years, and there appears to be no way to contact the creator, so no way of knowing how long it’ll stay up.
Archive of Our Own - Also frequently referred to as AO3, this is probably the most widely used fanfiction website around at the moment, at least that I know of. Definitely use Fimfiction for MLP:FiM stuff though. Also, fair warning, AO3 does not filter out anything by default, and there’s little if any restriction on what can be published on the site.
The SCP Wiki - A sort of collaborative writing project that anyone can contribute to, born from a horror story written in the style of a formal, classified document from some secret organization. While originally, and still largely horror, there’s now a wide variety of genres and subjects to be found here.
Phoenix Code - A text editor specifically designed for web design, with all sorts of useful features, and a very nice built in live preview. It’s what I was using to make this website, originally. (It’s apparently the successor to a previous text editor called Brackets, though I never used that one)
Emmet - A plugin available for quite a few text editors, including phoenix code. Pretty much just lets you add a lot of HTML tags really quickly without having to type as much, if you can remember the syntax. It looks like it can do more than that, but so far that’s all I’ve actually figured out how to do.
Overly Sarcastic Productions - Also referred to as OSP, this channel has kinda educational videos about several topics, including mythology, folklore, history, and tropes in fiction. One of the folks who runs this channel, called Red, is also the author of the webcomic Aurora.
Short for Table-Top Roleplaying Game, which is a sort of game that usually involves people playing the roles of characters they make up to tell stories together, most often using a large amount of math to decide where that story goes. There's a lot of variety in the genre however, it's like trying to describe card games as a genre.
MLP:FiM
Short for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a cartoon about colorful ponies being friends and occasionally fighting evil, there's a bit more to it than that, but this is a summary. Had a massive fandom on the internet for a long time, though the fandom seems smaller years after the show ending.
