June 1st, 1999 - The file-sharing website Napster officially launches.
Direct Link (Bahamut RPG Community)
A vast majority of what made the early internet special comes from humble origins, and it doesn't much humbler than a 16 year old making a video game in 30 minutes out of spite. When someone says they love Arfenhouse, they are almost certainly referring to the series of Flash movies that would come to encapsulate a very specific form of 'ironic random' humor in the early 2000's, but this is where it began. You are the HOUSEMASTER!!! tasked with defeating the EVIL KITTY!!! at the other end of the ARFENHOUSE. The ARFENHOUSE in question is a giant nondescript room, you move north and run directly into the EVIL KITTY (they have mean eyebrows). Along the way you run into many enemies that all have the same sprite and attack pattern. Your options include using your LYTNING attack that one shots most enemies, using your normal attack if you want to lose, or scrolling through a menu screen with nothing inside, also to lose. Got three minutes to kill? Why not take a peek at what satirical games looked like at the turn of the millenium?
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Macromedia Flash 3 
Of the number of compliments you could give Flash at the turn of the millenium, 'being a good tool for game dev' wasn't even on the list. The object-oriented scripting language Actionscript would not have a stable release until 2006, meaning any dev work had to occur within the limited use of buttons and mouse-based input. Tom Fulp would release this game to such acclaim as to effectively kickstart the Flash scene as we know it. You play Pico, who has had their school day rudely interrupted by a ornery goth named Cassandra, who then proceeds to murder everyone but Pico in the classroom. Pico must then take up arms himself and take down Cassandra and her cabal of murderous misfits. Despite the obvious black humor on display, the tasteless nature of the game is actually crucial to why Flash became the go-to for so many young people's creative expression; With Columbine still being a fresh grief on people's minds, and other outlets for expression not meeting the moment, Pico's School represented a sharp jab at the kind of anxities and catharsis a lot of people ached for without even knowing. Gameplay-wise, the game is remarkably tight and full of little bonus content that must've been a real pain to program with just buttons alone. Boss fights, hidden optional dialogue trees, changing environment depending on your progress...it's honestly a real gem.
July 31st, 1999 - NASA ends the Lunar Prospector spacecraft's mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface by crashing it into the moon - the assumption being that the levels of hydrogen within the Moon's surface means frozen water had to be somewhere within the Moon. One of the Prospector's final mission parameter was to commit the ashes of the late geographer Eugene Shoemaker, whose life's work included generating the first geological map of the moon.
