Small games for iPhone, iPad and your browser, designed by Houfu Chen and built with friends and AI. No ads, no accounts, and the games collect no data.
Drag across the background to draw living cells.
5 apps · made with friends
// why these exist
A minute of planking feels endless when you're staring at the floor, so I made something to stare at instead: Plank Constant. Game Life is the same idea, a screen that keeps changing all by itself.
A few of these I made to play with the girl I liked, who later ghosted me (or the situation became too awkward to talk, idk, idc); the games stayed. Now you can play them with someone who won't.
My professor told me to stop letting AI summarize papers and actually read them. Social media had worn my focus thin, and no reader I tried kept me on the page, so I built Phloem. The name is from my PhD: phloem carries sugar from leaf to fruit, and a reader carries knowledge from paper to brain. It also sounds like "flow them", which is the whole idea.
// on the App Store
Every app here started as a small web game in the arcade below. Game Life, Qi and Phloem are out now on the App Store, and two more games are on their way. Want to play one early? Join its TestFlight beta.
Conway's automaton, reimagined
A tiny universe that runs on three simple rules. Draw a few cells, press Play and watch them live, die and multiply.
Play the computer or a friend
Three classic board games, made for touch, for learning, and for playing with friends.
Plank timer games, hands-free
Hold a plank and play with your face, so your hands stay planted and the clock stops dragging. Two games: a flight through a meteor belt, and a duel on a plank with a new weapon every round.
Guess your tricks, mind the trump
The Brazilian trick-taking card game also known as Fodinha, or Oh Hell. Guess how many tricks you'll take, then take exactly that many.
// and one for reading
A calm reading desk for research papers
A calm, local-first reading desk for research papers on iPad. Import PDFs and Word files, read without distractions, and keep your thinking beside the source.
// free in your browser
These ones aren't apps (yet). They run on any phone or computer with nothing to install, and some play online with friends.
// featured
You are a Chinese character. Dodge spirits, gather fallen glyphs and evolve 3,000 years back, from clerical script to oracle bone. Every monster, weapon and drop is a real ancient glyph, so each run teaches where a character came from.
隸書→篆書→金文→甲骨文
Play now →
Build a strategy from rule cards and enter Axelrod's classic tournament against Tit for Tat and friends.
Play →
Two players, one rope. Swing and anchor each other up a tower, online or on one keyboard.
Play →
An endless torch-lit descent, with a bigger maze every time you escape.
Play →
Run a greenhouse for a season: a digital twin forecasts, and an autopilot grows next door. Beat it.
Play →
Minesweeper, but the mines are tomatoes. Flag every 🍅 without squashing one.
Play →
Every puzzle has exactly one solution. Pencil marks, hints and a solver.
Play →// how these are made
Designed by Houfu Chen, a doctoral researcher at the University of Waterloo, coded together with Claude (an AI assistant), and shaped by friends who test every build and bring some of the best ideas: Shaped by Sam's ideas Glyph Run What makes it its own game Game Life Drag-and-drop patterns Challenge mode , Jieun Shaped by Jieun's feedback Phloem White ink in dark mode Sticky notes on PDF pages Export annotated PDF: the file opens with your marks, and the iOS share sheet appears Workspace docked below the paper in portrait Taps no longer follow PDF links Zoomed page turns Second tap closes a Zen tool Guide thickness in percent The ink lag fix …and more LinkedIn ↗ , Ittisak Shaped by Ittisak's feedback Phloem The app icon LinkedIn ↗ , Alex Shaped by Alex's feedback Phloem Drag and drop notes into the Workspace LinkedIn ↗ , Sardaar Shaped by Sardaar's feedback Phloem Hold a reference to preview it More fonts for sticky notes in the Library, not just my handwriting Different colours for notes (coming soon) LinkedIn ↗ and Husam Shaped by Husam's feedback Game Life Music Box, which turns the board into a melody LinkedIn ↗ .
More about Houfu →The games collect no data: no ads, no analytics, no accounts. Camera play runs entirely on your device.
Privacy policy →The apps work offline. The arcade runs in any browser, phones included, with nothing to install.
Go to the arcade →