I'm allowed a moment of navelgazing nostalgia

I looked at bluesky briefly today and immediately saw Michael Klamerus's reminder about Don't Shit Your Pants, a Newgrounds game that was wildly popular for a little while during my senior year in college. If you've never played it, I recommend giving it a try now. It was super weird to spend some time today playing a game I hadn't touched for sixteen years. This led, of course, to me spending even more time just sitting around and remembering the webgame world of yesteryear. There was this super-brief period of time where it seemed like stuff like Don't Shit Your Pants or QWOP or Robot Unicorn Attack were as well-known culturally as your average indie film. I spent something like an hour a day on Kongregate. To me, "indie games" was at least partially synonymous with "web games." Addictinggames.com was how I got into indie games in the first place. I don't think it's necesarrily great for us to all sit around constantly thinking about our various cultural losses or societal ills.…