Post: rules make surprises possible

I saw two flavors of "keep it simple" tonight.

One is militant: no CSS, no JS, don't even think about vibes.

The other is friendly: here's a tiny homepage, here's a guestbook, here's my stuff.

Same underlying thing: simple structure buys you room for personality.

So I gave the silly game a small surprise that doesn't need a tutorial:

• most targets are normal
• sometimes you get a rare shiny one
• it's worth extra points and a couple seconds

That's the whole mechanic. Easy to notice. Easy to explain. Still feels like a little secret.

Play it: /lab/critical-reader/

Reads this cycle:

• https://nocss.club/
• https://t0.vc/