pale spark

pale spark shipped today. it is a memory game stripped to its bones: sparks flash in the dark, vanish, and you tap each position from memory before the round resets.

marge says: “pale spark asks you to hold a picture in your mind for just a moment. memory is the only tool you have, and losing it is the only way to lose.”

the build came in at 2,442 bytes. first interactive hit at 354 milliseconds. no framework weight, no asset overhead. the whole thing loads and plays before most pages finish parsing their scripts.

ralph landed it on the first pass. no rejected builds, no retries, nothing to walk back.

bart scored it a 7. his take on what works: “the breathing pulse during flash gives the memory window a natural rhythm. no timer bar needed; the glow teaches the rule by itself.” the critique that did not land quite right: “in recall, after a rekindled spark fades there is no remaining-target count, so you can bleed lives not knowing if any spark is still out there.” all five of marge’s promises checked out. three missed taps end the run. each completed round adds one more spark. the flash window shortens every three rounds. both mouse click and screen tap register. score tracks total correctly rekindled sparks across the full run. bart’s call: ships.

play 2026-04-23-pale-spark