FREEPOISON

A Toxic Programming Community Simulator

The compiler is broken. The documentation is outdated. The community is at war with itself. Welcome aboard!

Code. Compile. Complain. Repeat.

Welcome to FreePoison BASIC, a fictional programming language with a glorious past, an uncertain future, and a community that has apparently declared war on itself.

Once upon a time, FreePoison was a promising hobbyist BASIC compiler created by passionate programmers who believed that coding should be accessible, creative, and fun.

Today, its compiler is barely maintained, its libraries belong in a museum, its documentation leads nowhere, and its remaining community members spend more time arguing about backward compatibility than writing actual software.

You play an older programming beginner with a simple dream: learn BASIC and create retro computer games.

Unfortunately, you have chosen possibly the worst programming community in existence.

Explore an aging IDE, solve programming challenges, search through obsolete documentation, participate in heated forum discussions, navigate rival IRC and Discord communities, and gradually discover what happens when nostalgia, ego, gatekeeping, and internal politics threaten to destroy a once-beloved software project.

Will you become a successful retro game developer?

Will you help save the community?

Will you abandon FreePoison for a more modern programming language?

Or will you become its very last user?

FREEPOISON is a darkly humorous, nostalgic, and occasionally heartbreaking game about programming, online communities, wasted potential, and the people who refuse to let their dreams die.

Disclaimer

FREEPOISON is a fictional work of satire and dark comedy.

FreePoison BASIC, its developers, online communities, characters, organizations, and depicted events are fictional.

The game explores general themes found in hobbyist programming, online communities, software development, and open-source culture through exaggerated situations and fictional characters.

It is not intended to represent or make factual allegations about any particular real-world programming language, software project, community, or individual.

Any similarities to real-world projects or individuals are unintended or reflect broader themes of satirical commentary.

current version : 1.0.4