Groddle Field Notes · Other remakes
Glitch closed in December 2012, and a year later Tiny Speck gave its art and server code to the public domain. Since then several groups have tried to bring the game back, each in its own way. This page puts them side by side: what each one is, how you can play it, and which parts of the original world it has. Groddle Afternoon is the newest of them, and its column is counted straight from its own repository.
Facts about other projects were checked on . Every one links to its source.
Oldest first. Badges show where each project stands today; the small numbers link to the sources at the bottom of the page.
What a public source shows in each game. Select any mark for the detail and its source. Unknown means nobody has said either way, not that it is missing; Eleven runs the original server code, so it may have far more than its sources show.
Nobody here is doing it wrong. Each project picked what mattered most to it, and every choice gives something up.
Eleven
Keep Tiny Speck's own server code and Flash client, and rebuild only the pieces that were never released. Every rule, number and line of dialogue is the real thing. The catch is how much was missing: the host that ran the code, the login and auction web app, and a client that depends on Flash.
Children of Ur
Port the game to a new language (Dart) so it runs in any browser without Flash, and rebuild the systems one by one. That freedom made room for new areas and storylines; the cost is that every system has to be re-created by hand.
Odd Giants
Build a new Unity client with its own servers, bring back the original world and add new features along the way. Players get a shared, living world today with regular releases. It is a desktop download, and the code is not public.
Groddle Afternoon
Follow the released server code rule by rule in a web game you open in a tab. Solo needs no account and no server: saves stay in your browser, and group activities are adapted for one. Multiplayer adds a small server for the parts other players share: the street, chat and groups, buddies, parties, quoins, rocks and trees, races, Rook fights, Feats and street projects, Hi signs, visiting each other’s homes, trading, gifts and the auction house.
Glitch was a social game. A project with servers can bring back chat, trading and Feats, but someone has to keep those servers running. A single-player game can be published as plain files and keep working for years, without the shared world. Groddle Afternoon offers both: solo is plain files, and multiplayer is the part that needs a server.
Flash reached its end of life in 2020. Keeping the original client protects every detail of the old interface; a browser rewrite opens in a tab; a desktop build escapes the browser's limits but asks players to install it.
Eleven and Children of Ur publish their code under the MIT licence, so others can learn from it and carry it on, and so does Groddle Afternoon, on GitHub. Odd Giants keeps its code private.
All of them stand on Tiny Speck's 2013 release of Glitch's art, music and server code under CC0. None may use the Glitch name or logo, which were not part of it.
Not remakes, but every remake leans on them.
Glitch was made by Tiny Speck between 2009 and 2012. Thank you to the volunteers and players behind Eleven, Children of Ur and Odd Giants for keeping Ur alive for more than a decade, and to the wiki editors, archivists and video makers this page links to.
Project names belong to their owners. This page hosts no other project's logos, artwork or screenshots: follow the links to see them. The only Glitch art here is Tiny Speck's CC0 release, as used in Groddle Afternoon. Groddle Afternoon is a fan project and is not affiliated with Tiny Speck, Slack or any project listed.