Marginalia: notes from the checks of 10 and 11 November 2026

The BBC’s text adventure left the book on 11 November

On 11 November 2026 Quest Alder narrowed its hosting rule to 2 sites: every game now sits on CrazyGames or Poki. Chapter VI had been The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Infocom’s 1984 text adventure, which BBC Radio 4 hosts free. It was taken out, and Escaping the Prison on Poki took its place.

Hitchhiker’s still runs at the BBC. It left because of the narrower rule, not because of any fault found in the game.

Neither host lists a typed text adventure

Both hosts were searched on 11 November 2026 before a replacement was chosen. CrazyGames found nothing for “text adventure”, “interactive fiction”, “interactive story” or “typing adventure”, and its tag addresses for text and interactive-fiction games led to an error page. Poki’s search for “text adventure” brought up driving and puzzle games.

The nearest thing on offer was a game where you choose an action from a list, so the book took the best-known one.

All 6 games now sit on 2 large hosts

3 are on CrazyGames and 3 on Poki. CrazyGames is run by Maxflow B.V. of Leuven, Belgium, and says 60 million players come to it. Poki B.V. of Amsterdam claims 100,000,000 players a month and “over 1,700 web games”.

A large host publishes its terms, its minimum age and its line on adverts, and the chapters quote them. That is why games kept on small personal sites are not in this book.

The checks ran from outside the UK

The browser used on 10 November 2026 was on a connection in Thailand. Poki’s page state said so, and the adverts on CrazyGames and Poki were in Thai. Which adverts a reader in the UK is shown, and how many, was not checked.

Escaping the Prison was checked from the same connection on 11 November 2026.

Poki’s age rule depends on the country

Poki’s website rules, as served to us, read: “Our website is dedicated to website visitors of 16 years and older.” The same page opens by telling readers to check whether an age restriction applies to their location, and Poki’s Privacy Center says an age requirement may depend on it.

So 16 is the figure for the version we saw, not a confirmed UK figure. Poki points younger players to kids.poki.com, which its FAQ calls “an ad-free, child-friendly space”.

A CrazyGames rating covers 6 months; its vote counts do not

Each CrazyGames page prints a rating with the words “based on last 6 months” beside counts of likes and dislikes that run from the day the game arrived. For Strange Case that is 9.0 next to 43,031 likes and 6,639 dislikes. This book prints both and does not blend them.

Horror was the commonest reason to turn a game down

The Visitor was dropped because its CrazyGames page lists “Bloody scenes”. The Forgotten Hill series and Exhibit of Sorrows were passed over as horror without their pages being opened. Detective Lawrence is filed under horror on Poki, whose description speaks of “cosmic horror”, though Google Play’s UK page rates it PEGI 7. It was not play-tested.

Strange Case stayed in at PEGI 12, with the rating printed at the top of its chapter.

Why Escaping the Prison and not another Henry Stickmin game

Poki lists 5 games of the series, all credited to PuffballsUnited. On 11 November 2026 Escaping the Prison had the largest vote count of the 5, 3,269,130, and it is the only one whose main Poki category is Escape Games. Fleeing the Complex, the last of the 5, is filed first under Brain Games.

Only 1 game per series goes into the book, so the bank, museum and airship episodes stay out.

Samorost 1 is a download now

Amanita Design’s page for Samorost 1 offered a free download for Windows and Mac, with store links beside it. There was a trailer on the page and no game. The page describes the current edition as “formerly released in 2003. Now with remastered sounds, enhanced graphics, and new music by Floex.” It no longer runs in a browser tab.

Windosill and Submachine 1 have left the free web too

windosill.com listed PC and Mac, iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch, with links to those stores and a trailer. Wikipedia describes a 2009 release whose first half could be played free on the web; that version was not on the site. Mateusz Skutnik’s archive page for Submachine 1 said the game was “available to play only in Submachine Complete Collection”, a paid product.