Chapter zero. A dead tube warms up and says its first words. Three screens — scope, static, raster — all in black and white. Color hasn't been invented yet.

The first color TV in the house. Every bite births a new hue — red arrives first — until a whole rainbow lives in the wood-grain box.

The machine moves into a smaller box with a keyboard. The window starts tiny and grows as you earn space — the site's namesake, level by level.

Green phosphor night — deep starfield, ground mist, shooting light across the dark. The world outside the window; the journey begins here.

The colors learn to dance. Shag den, daisy wallpaper, then a lit disco floor — every bite births a new 70s color and one more arc of the corner rainbow.

Miami to Vegas to Tokyo — 1980, the year the light went everywhere. Combo chains, a decaying bonus star, and a rival who speaks fluent light.

Glowing cyan light cycle on a perspective grid floor. Walls derez you. End of line.

Pastel teal, neon pink, squiggles and confetti. The opening credits of Saturday morning, rendered as a snake.

Food falls from the sky; what you miss becomes a door. Catch the years, or fall through the floor and drop back in from above.

The video store. You are the tape — a ribbon threading the aisles, banking ◀◀ charges to run yourself backward out of trouble. Be kind: it pays.

Plasma color cycling, lens flares, perspective rainbow grid. The early-web demoscene fever.

Tiled clouds, Comic Sans, rainbow text, blinking "under construction" sign. The internet when everyone had their own neon page.

Fluorescent cyan LCD backlight, dark pixel snake. The phone in your pocket on the bus home from school.

Falling katakana. The snake is a chain of characters glitching through the matrix. Beware the red viruses.

Glassy gel snake on pinstripe brushed metal. Bright candy reflections. The first time a computer felt like a toy.

Pink and purple emo profile chaos. Three difficulty tiers — Top 8, Top 3, Top 1. The closer to #1 you want, the harder to keep up.

Mirror-chrome snake on a black grid, IR-red HUD, targets bracketed and labeled. Walls don't kill — your body reforms three times before it can't anymore. The year the machine started seeing.

Ballard, this July. A perfectly round raccoon eats his way from a rainy alley to a city proclamation — growing a parade of fans instead of a tail. Based on a true story.