Introduction

Xenga, a blogging platform that allowed users to subscribe to blogs for updates without having
to manually check each one, first launched in 1999. At its peak in 2006, Xenga boasted over 27
users and blogs each with different layouts, content, writings and art. But with the rise of their
biggest competitors, MySpace and Facebook, the end was nigh and Xenga wouldn’t keep its
doors open for long.

Thousands of blog posts, images, and media were completely erased from the internet in an
instant. Gone were the pages of teenage angst, memories of high-school, fan pages for anime,
boy-bands, diary entries, friendships, comments, art, and any and everything else the internet of
the mid 2000’s had to offer. By the fall of 2013, Xenga and all the blogs contained within
became completely and utterly UN-NAVIGATABLE.

But there's still time.

One blogger, in a desperate attempt to keep and record all of their writings, is exporting all of
their posts. This wouldn’t be a problem for most people, except they wrote nearly 10 posts a day
for a good 10 years and they have lost their password.

Better get started.

Content and Safety

This game is also a celebration of the freedom experienced in youth when you were unashamed
to write and share your deepest feelings on the internet. Your interests at the time might be
embarrassing now, but they do not make you a bad person then or now. This is a game about
laughing at the folly of youth, not hating yourself for past interests or interactions.

Cringe is dead, love yourself.

This game also contains the specific following in prompts: Public Humiliation, Mentions of a
dead grandmother, online harassment
Feel free to change or discard any card or prompt for any reason.

Touchstones and Inspiration

Legal Disclaimer
Xenga is trademarked by Xenga.com, Inc.
This game is not affiliated with or supported by Xenga or Xenga.com, Inc.

Tools
● A tumbling block tower (or alternative)
● One six-sided die (1d6)
● 10 tokens, or a way to keep a tally
● A way to record the blog entries and the thoughts of The Blogger

Setup
Set up the block tower as you would for a game of that nature.

Roll 1d6 and remove that many blocks from the tower.

The tower represents the time left until Xenga has completely shut down. If the tower falls, the
website is unreachable and the blog has completely vanished from the internet.

Shuffle the playing deck and place them face down in front of you.

Throughout the game you will encounter the King cards. Keep these cards in front of you at all
times. If you pull all four kings from the deck, the game is over. The Blogger has succumbed to
embarrassment and doesn't believe that their blog is worth the emotional distress it takes to
save it. They have chosen to give up on saving the rest of the posts.

You won’t use the tokens until you find the Ace of Hearts. The prompt will instruct you on how to
use them. See Ending the Game for more information.

Ace of Hearts
If you wish to increase your chance of removing all the tokens, you may start the game with the
Ace of Hearts as the top card.

Block Tower Alternatives

Or

Be honest with yourself and your feelings. If at any point in the game, you genuinely make
yourself cringe or feel embarrassed, mark down a tally. If you reach a tally of 10, then the game
is over, and Xenga has become unreachable.

Playing the Game

Interpreting the Prompts

The player will take on the role of “The Blogger,” the individual attempting to save all of their
blog posts before the closure of the site Xenga.

This game will have the player write both in the third person, eg she/they/xe, describing what
The Blogger is currently doing in the present to preserve the posts, and in first person, eg. I, me,
we, writing out the blog posts or comments, other people’s blog posts, or other media. The
game will indicate when the player should be writing in first or third person.
When a prompt asks the player to write about a piece of media, feel free to either use a real
piece of media circa 1999-10 or make something up entirely.

Red Suits Represent the Present. What The Blogger is currently doing or feeling.

These prompts will be written in third person, addressing the character as “The Blogger.” This is
an indicator that the player should write the section in third person.

For Example:

7 of Diamonds: What entry are they looking for in particular? Why is it important that they find it?

She found the exact post she had been looking for: the summer vacation to the
beach. She wanted to remember exactly what she had written about that
damned seagull.

Black Suits Represent the Past. Actual blog posts, comments left on posts, web
advertisements etc. Spades will always be blog posts while Clubs are up to interpretation by the
player.

When a prompt is written in second person, addressing the character as “you”, this is an
indication that the player should either write in the first person, or write an excerpt from an
online source.

Also feel free to have The Blogger make notes or comments about blog posts or other media,
but be sure to write these comments in third person.

Example 1:

4 of Spades: Write a post about a hobby you no longer do.

User: xxRaxorRawrxx
Post # 1: Date: 10/29/06
ZOMG guess who is back! You would not believe what I ahd to do in art
today! I had to draw my favorite anime boi! OWO Lol , well the teacher
said to draw “cartoon” but like w/e. I got to draw sasuke in class and not
get in trouble AHAHAHAAHAHAHAH I cannot stop drawing him he is so
smexy ><;;;;

Sarah covered her face with her hands and put her head on her desk. She
had completely forgotten about the notebooks upon notebooks she had
drawn of Sasuke that were probably sitting in her closet this very minute.
Example 2:

7 of Clubs: You had one person who would always comment on your posts. When did they first
appear? Did they know you in real life?

User: Artsy_Nekochan666
Comment Section: date: 10/29/06
O.O; Omg Sarah! Hiiiiiii!!!1 It’s Jill from art! Remember!!! I didn’t know you
had a Xenga! XDDDDD LEts be Xenga friends!!!!

User: xxRaxorRawrxx
Comment Section: date: 10/29/06
Omg Jill you have a Xenga???? XD thats so random! Rofl

Preserving the Blog Posts

At the start of each day, roll 1d6. This is the amount of cards you will draw for the day.

Answer the corresponding prompts for each card by writing what The Blogger is doing, or
writing out the individual blog posts.

You do not need to write a post for each prompt. Feel free to combine prompts as seen fit.

Combination Example:

3 of Spades. Write a post about a friend you no longer keep in contact with.

6 of Clubs. Your blog was never very popular. What sort of posts did you make to attempt to
gain popularity?

User: xxRaxorRawrxx
Post Date: 6/30/06
Zomg simone(my bff! I talked about her before! You would know this if you
had read my posts!!!) gave me some good tips on how to get more peeps
on this blog. :)))) I’m just worried about all you freakks that will show up and
be creepy! *looks nervously around* Jk Jk! I lov eyou all! She said I wasn’t
kawaii enough and taht I need to post more cute things. I am cute! right?
TT_TT; HOepfully this new layout will make people more interested int his
blog? It is Teh Cutest. Simone recced it to me and I just coluldn’t not.
Anways I’m tired now and I have to go teh bed. Se ya later lovelies!!
Writing Tips

Feel free to write as much or as little for each prompt. Not every prompt needs to
be the same length. For some prompts, you might wish to write several
paragraphs, for others, maybe only a few sentences.

You also don’t need to answer every prompt explicitly. You can also answer them
implicitly or with subtext.

Lingo

Using Emoticons such as ><; XD TT_TT; and many, many semicolons were very
common.

It was also common to use the * to indicate actions or roleplay such as *looks
around* or *laughs*.

Some other common words were: Teh, zomg, smexy, fugly, pwned, n00b, rawr
All of these were used unironically.

Ending the Game

The game ends one of three ways:

1. The player has removed all 10 tokens. In this scenario The Blogger has saved all of their
posts. Every single one. The task is done. Write one final day about the relief and joy of
accomplishment.
2. The tower falls. Xenga is no more. The site won’t load. The blog is lost. Even if The
Blogger wanted to save anything else they can’t now. Write one final day lamenting
about what they couldn’t save.
 3. The 4th King has been drawn. The blog is too embarrassing and The Blogger can’t bear
to look at it anymore. They have decided to abandon their efforts because some things
just aren’t worth saving. Write one final day about what led to this decision.

Playing a Shorter Game

There are two ways to shorten the length of the game.

1. Remove 20 non-King cards from the deck and re-shuffle.

You may choose to end the game prematurely at any time. If you do so, consider this ending to
be the same as if the tower had fallen.
HEARTS - TECHNICAL ISSUES
A. The Blogger has finally found it. After scrounging through old diaries, journals, and half-filled
notebooks, they have the old password to their Xenga blog. They now have access to the
individual entries for ease of downloading. At the end of each day, roll 1d6. On a 6, remove one
of the tokens. Do not discard this card.

2. They spent the entire day copying and pasting from the blog to Word. Do they try to save the
formatting, with all the colors and poor font choices?

3. The website refused to load today. When this card is drawn, write what The Blogger did
instead of saving posts and shuffle the remaining cards back into the deck.

4. Half of the images are broken links. They don’t remember what site they used to host them.
They spend the day writing annotations about what they think the images might have been. Pull
1 block from the tower.

5. The website crashes every time they try to play a song on it. It takes ages to load again. Pull
1 block from the tower.

6. The emojis they used in the posts don’t transfer over to Word. Do they manually re-insert
them, or do they forgo it completely? Pull 1 block from the tower.

7. An entire section of the website is unavailable because of a broken link. What does The
Blogger think was supposed to be there? Pull 2 blocks from the tower.

8. There is something wrong with the formatting of an entire post. They can only see about half
of the words. Do they try to fill in the blanks or do they leave it as is? Pull 1 block from the
tower.

9. A post is half garbled in symbols to represent missing characters and unregistered fonts.
They can read the post fine, but they will need to manually re-type at least half of the
characters. Pull 1 block from the tower.

10. The resolution for the website is too small and they need to spend time zooming in each
time they refresh the page.

J. 7h3y wr073 4 p057 1n l337 5p34k. W)(y? C4n 7h3y 3v3n r34d 17 n0w? (They wrote a post in
leet speak. Why? Can they even read it now?)

Q. They no longer have access to the same email they used to sign up for Xenga. How has this
hindered the progress of saving all the posts?
K. They broke the external harddrive they have been using to back up all the blog posts. The
harddrive is completely unusable, but they still had about half of the posts saved on the
computer. Pull 4 blocks from the tower and set them aside. Do not put the blocks on the
top of the tower. If this is the 4th King, The Blogger has decided that it isn’t worth the effort to
save the blog after all. The game is over
DIAMONDS- WHAT IS IT ALL FOR?
A. They find an unassuming post about a mundane, but still lovely day they had with a
grandmother that has since passed. They didn’t remember this until reading the post and all the
memories came back. They would have never remembered this moment if not for this blog. Do
not discard this card. When there are 3 blocks set aside, go ahead and place them on the top
of the tower. You may only do this once.

2. Why did they start the blog?

3. Why did they abandon the blog?

4. What was the original reason for wanting to save this blog? Has that reason changed over
the course of reading the posts?

5. Did they show this blog to anyone while they were writing it? What did that person think?

6. What are they missing out on to spend time saving the blog posts? Pull 1 block from the
tower.

7. What entry are they looking for in particular? Why is it important that they find it?

8. Reading the posts has made them emotional for their youth. Are they nostalgic or are they
happy it’s over?

9. What do their friends think of this project to save the posts? Are they encouraging or
discouraging?

10. They find a post that makes them laugh out loud. Was the writing genuinely funny or were
they laughing at themselves?

J. The Blogger is still friends with someone they met on Xenga. They are also trying to save all
of their blog posts. Are they having just as much trouble as The Blogger?

Q. Are they afraid of anyone finding the posts while they are still online? If yes, who?

K. When they thought it couldn’t get any more embarrassing, they have found the worst post
they have ever made. Do they save it? If yes, pull an additional black card, write the entry and
remove a token. If no, or if there are no more black cards available, roll 1d6 and remove that
number of blocks from the tower and set these blocks aside. Do not place them on top of
the tower. If this is the 4th King, The Blogger has decided that this blog should never see the
light of day and they give up on trying to archive their posts. The game is over.
CLUBS- OTHER USERS
A. Xenga is crowdsourcing to keep the lights on! If they can raise $60k by mid-July for Xenga2.0
it might stay open! Do not discard this card! The next time the player is asked to pull from the
tower, pull one less block than asked. This includes amounts obtained from dice rolls.

2. You saw another user on a new Social Media site talking about Xenga. What do they say?

3. You made a friend by posting comments on someone else’s page. Are you still friends now?

4. One time someone from your school found your Xenga, and you were bullied for it. Pull 1
from the tower.

5. You found a complete conversation in the comments with another person. Write or describe
what you chatted about.

6. Your blog was never very popular. What sort of posts did you make to attempt to gain
popularity?

7. You had one person who would always comment on your posts. When did they first appear?
Did they know you in real life?

8. Who’s blog did you check every day? Can you still find this blog?

9. The internet is full of cruelty, but often in bizarre ways. What was the wildest insult that made
little to no sense that you received?

10. You used to write about someone you had a crush on. Who was it and did they ever see
your posts?

J. When you were writing the blog you were never good at coding. How did you find the layout
for the blog? Do you know who made it?

Q. You were warned from a very young age not to put pictures of themselves on the internet.
But you saw people their own age do it anyway. What did you think of them at the time? Has
that opinion changed?

K. You have found a subsection of the blog dedicated to roleplay. What media was it from? How
many pages are still available on the blog? Who was the RP partner? Write out or describe a
blog entry of the RP. Pull 3 blocks from the tower and set them aside. Do not place them
on top of the tower. If this is the 4th King, The Blogger has decided that this is too
embarrassing to continue to save and it’s best that this blog be laid to rest. The game is over.
SPADES - BLOG POSTS
A. Through endless scrolling into the depths of Xenga, you have finally found it. Write your first
ever blog post on your new Xenga blog. Do not discard this card. If you have drawn the Ace of
Hearts, you may remove a token on a 5 or a 6.

2. Write a post about a band you once loved. How does it feel knowing they broke up? Pull 1
block from the tower.

3. Write a post about a friend you no longer keep in contact with.

4. Write a post about a hobby you no longer do.

5. Write a post about your first date.

6. Write a holiday post.

7. Write a post about a time someone betrayed you. Does it still hurt, or do you realize you were
being petty?

8. Write a post that contains an absurd amount of tacky, poorly made gifs. (Describe the gifs to
the best of your ability or if you, the player, are using a computer, feel free to find them at
GifCities.org)

9. Write your first “fangirl/fanboy/fanperson” post about a piece of media you are now definitely
embarrassed you enjoyed. Pull 2 blocks from the tower.

10. Describe then write the accompanying post for a piece of artwork that you posted on the
blog. Include the reasons for your artistic choices.

J. Write a chapter from a long abandoned fanfic. A chapter does not have to be very long, it can
even be just a single paragraph. Pull 1 block from the tower.

Q. Write an overly emotional, angsty post about something that ended up not even mattering.

K. You got really into a webcomic. The most embarrassing one you can think of. You were
OBSESSED. There are pages and pages of posts, fanart, fantheories, the works. You start to
wonder if this is really worth saving. Write one entry that encapsulates the pure, innocent joy
you had before you knew how to be embarrassed. Pull 2 blocks from the tower and set them
aside. Do not place them on top of the tower. If this is the 4th King the shame has gotten to
The Blogger and they decide to abandon the blog to depths of the internet. The game is over.