The Evolution of Trust
A playable explainer on why we trust each other, with game theory.
- Rabbit hole
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
36 sites · every link checked daily
Websites like Neal.fun
You have spent an evening on Neal.fun, you have been through the password rules, the deep sea, the trolley problems and the bill-gates shopping spree, and now you want more. These are the websites like Neal.fun: small, polished, playful projects that make an idea feel like a toy.
The nearest relatives are the explorable explanations. The Evolution of Trust and Parable of the Polygons are playable essays by Nicky Case, and they feel like the same school of thought as Neal's scrolling explainers. The Pudding tells visual stories about culture with data, and Bartosz Ciechanowski's Interactive Explainers takes bicycles, lights and cameras apart in long, clear essays. For scale, The Scale of the Universe does what Size of Life does, bigger. And for the timeline lovers, Histography is a dot-filled history of everything.
The list also includes Neal's own work, so you can find the pieces you missed: Neal.fun itself, Absurd Trolley Problems, and others. One practical note: neal.fun sits behind a bot wall, which means automated checks cannot always load it, so our badge may say "alive but unverifiable". It is not broken.
Use "Surprise me from this list" to roll the dice, or start from the top: the first eight are the closest in spirit and the easiest to enjoy right away.
The sites
All the sites
The list (36)
Parable of the Polygons
A playable post on how small biases build segregated societies.
- 5 minutes
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Pudding
Visual essays that explain culture with data.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Bartosz Ciechanowski's Interactive Explainers
Long, gorgeous interactive essays on how things work.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Scale of the Universe
Zoom from quarks to the edge of the observable universe.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Histography
An interactive timeline of all of history, powered by Wikipedia.
- Rabbit hole
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The True Size Of ...
Drag countries around the map to see their real size.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
WindowSwap
Look out of a stranger's window, anywhere in the world.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds
A playable guide to how ideas and behaviour spread through crowds.
- Rabbit hole
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Adventures With Anxiety!
An interactive story about living with anxiety.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
How To Remember Anything Forever-ish
A comic-style interactive guide to spaced repetition.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Explained Visually
Interactive explanations of ideas like Markov chains and eigenvectors.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Explorable Explanations
A hub for interactive essays that you learn by playing.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Scale of the Universe 2
The original Flash-era zoom through everything, rebuilt for HTML5.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Radio Garden
Spin a 3D globe and tune into live radio from any city.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Zoomquilt
An infinitely zooming painting that never stops falling in.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Bruno Simon's Portfolio
A portfolio you explore by driving a toy car around a 3D world.
- 5 minutes
- Desktop
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
The Library of Babel
A website that contains every possible page of text.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Universal Paperclips
An idle game about making paperclips that goes somewhere dark.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Little Alchemy 2
Combine basic elements to discover hundreds of things.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Quick, Draw!
Doodle quickly while an AI tries to guess what you're drawing.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Moral Machine
Judge self-driving car dilemmas and compare with the world.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Pixel Thoughts
Type a worry into a star and watch it dissolve in sixty seconds.
- 30 seconds
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Silk
Draw flowing, symmetrical ribbons of light with your mouse.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Patatap
Every key on your keyboard triggers a sound and a burst of animation.
- 5 minutes
- Desktop
- Alive · checked 15 days ago
Neal.fun
Neal Agarwal's playground of games, visualizations and weird stuff.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive
The Deep Sea
Scroll down through the ocean and meet what lives at every depth.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Spend Bill Gates' Money
Blow $100 billion on everything from Big Macs to an NBA team.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
Infinite Craft
An endless crafting game that starts with Water, Fire, Wind and Earth.
- Rabbit hole
- Works on phones
- Alive
Space Elevator
Ride a virtual elevator through the atmosphere and into space.
- 5 minutes
- Works on phones
- Alive
How we picked. Neal's projects share a few traits: a single clear idea, an interface you can use in seconds, and a sense of humor about the subject. We looked for sites with the same traits, whether they come from independent creators, universities or Google. We did not include anything that looks similar but is mostly ads.
Three routes from Neal.fun.
- The explainer route: the Nicky Case sites, Explained Visually and Explorable Explanations, a hub that links to many more.
- The map and data route: MapFight, Radio Garden, and Window Swap if you liked the calm of the Deep Sea.
- The game route: Infinite Craft is Neal's, but Little Alchemy 2, Semantle and Akinator scratch the same itch.
Why Neal.fun matters. It shows what you can do when a developer treats every page like a small short film. Our job is to find the rest of that family, so we welcome submissions when you find one.
More lists. Fun Websites to Play With is more game-centric, Fun Educational Websites is more learning-centric, and the Interactive Websites list is more technical. If you want something unplanned, take me somewhere odd.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best websites like Neal.fun?
Nicky Case's explorable explanations, The Pudding, Bartosz Ciechanowski's explainers, The Scale of the Universe and Histography are the closest in spirit. They share a clear central idea, an easy interface and a playful tone. All are on this list and checked daily.
Who makes Neal.fun?
Neal.fun is the creation of Neal Agarwal, who built many of the projects on it, including The Password Game, Infinite Craft and The Deep Sea. The site collects his games, visualizations and other interactives in one place, with each project opening as its own self-contained page.
Is there a site that collects projects like Neal.fun?
Explorable Explanations is a curated hub for interactive essays you can play with, and Experiments with Google collects creative-coding and AI toys. Our own directory also gathers them, with filters for mood, time and mobile support so you can find similar sites quickly.
Why does neal.fun show as unverifiable?
neal.fun uses bot protection that blocks automated checkers, so we cannot always confirm it loads. We treat bot walls as alive but unverifiable instead of broken, and re-check it with a browser-based test each week. If you see this badge, the site is almost certainly fine, just unable to be verified by a robot.
