Game Necromancy — James Shapiro<br>Game Necromancy<br>Resurrecting Yahoo Word Racer from old YouTube videos<br>James Shapiro &middot; August 21, 2026

Word Racer 12-30-2013

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Word Reborn 2026<br>Points<br>nick24_73507 6760<br>wstp0123 2450<br>changsomo1 1660<br>golfangel1956 1330<br>shannonforfun 1150<br>estero20002 340<br>dolinangel 260

ERNHNARJETENTASOEALTTWDKVNHH Round: 3 Time: 1:40

Type word: Submit Clear<br>Words Found:<br>WordDiscovererPts<br>jeeshannonforfun10<br>raterdolinangel40<br>treatgolfangel195640<br>senechangsomo160<br>retenenick24_73507210<br>rentnick24_7350760<br>toterchangsomo140<br>rantswstp012340<br>jeangolfangel195620<br>totechangsomo120<br>rentsnick24_73507120<br>rantwstp012320<br>atesdolinangel20<br>treenwstp012340<br>treewstp012320<br>atedolinangel10

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Word checking by dictionary.com

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Background

I wasted countless hours playing Yahoo Word Racer in middle school but Yahoo tragically retired the game some time around 2014 (along with other gems like Yahoo Towers*An even more tragic loss. Towers was a Tetris-like competitive block smashing contest. All software dies, but I mourned Yahoo Games's demise almost as much as Google Reader's.). The game was fun and addictive, and AI gives you superpowers, so I decided to resurrect it from old YouTube videos, like the one above. You can play it live:

HERE👇☝️

... for now anyway. I believe this is fair use, but I do not have the will or incentive to litigate it, so I can only hope that the original copyright owners let me keep this small, 100% non-commercial indie project alive as a fun tribute to an old gem of the internet. I will obligingly take it down at their request.

Scope

This project was a lot of work! Agentic AI made it possible. My professional background is in software engineering, and that certainly sped things up. I would guess I spent an hour a day on this project over the span of a month, not counting the time I wasted "testing" it against friends.

The project included 465 commits over 143 sessions. I submitted 382 prompts, and agents spent a total of ~128 hours building.

Some things that took a long time: handling edge case logic for the lounge and game room (invite/boot/stand/sit logic), an abandoned quest to create a serverless, infinitely scalable variant of the game engine (it worked, but the latency killed the magic), and adding a<br>fewTaking the Lead

Points<br>Alice250<br>Bob220<br>James+330170<br>Calvin150<br>Dave+150120<br>Erin+22040<br>Sit<br>Sit<br>BEFORE: INSTANT SNAP<br>Points<br>Alice250<br>Bob220<br>James+330170<br>Calvin150<br>Dave+150120<br>Erin+22040<br>Sit<br>Sit<br>AFTER: GLIDE<br>In the original Word Racer, when one player overtakes another, their avatar and score smoothly glide over their opponent's. If you're in first, you can immediately tell you've been passed without looking away from the board. It also adds some suspense. I had to precisely describe that interaction and test several variants to reproduce it.<br>funLetter frequency distribution

A 4.7%, B 1.0%, C 2.9%, D 2.6%, E 12.5%, F 3.9%, G 2.6%, H 5.2%, I 5.5%, J 1.3%, K 1.8%, L 4.9%, M 2.3%, N 7.0%, O 6.5%, P 2.3%, Qu 1.3%, R 4.4%, S 6.5%, T 7.8%, U 4.9%, V 2.3%, W 2.1%, X 1.0%, Y 1.6%, Z 0.8%

10%<br>5%<br>12.5%

Qu<br>I reconstructed the original letter frequency distribution by having Gemini parse every Word Racer YouTube video (a dozen or so), locate and screenshot the frames for rounds 1-4, extract/OCR the characters from every board, and tally them. Not perfect, but I thought it was clever.<br>flourishesThe Lounge<br>Recreating the lounge was tough. Most YouTube footage is of actual gameplay, not lounge activity. I had to scan about 40 old YouTube videos of people playing OTHER Yahoo Games, before I found a single clean screenshot of a lobby from Yahoo Pool:<br>YouTube source, some juvenile names were redacted from the screenshot 😂<br>The screenshot was perfect, except that it was taken from Yahoo Pool, where tables seat two players versus Word Racer's eight seats per table. Fable's first attempt at an eight seater looked nothing like the original. The prompt to transmute it was quite involved. I manually typed out the ascii diagram and attached multiple screenshots. I was delighted and relieved when it worked:<br>lounge_fix_prompt.md+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br>+ Table | Who is Watching +<br>+_____________________________________________________________+<br>+ #1 | Watch | JOIN | JOIN | JOIN | JOIN | viewer_1, viewer2, viewer3<br>+ | |______|______|______|______| +<br>+ | | JOIN | JOIN | JOIN | JOIN | +<br>+ |_______|______|______|______|______|_________________+<br>+ | options: fast-paced, rated +<br>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br>TableWho is Watching<br>#1WatchJoin0/8 seatedGuest-4d60's Table · Type: Public · unrated<br>#2WatchJoin0/8 seatedGuest-9c3a's Table · Type: Public · rated

Fable initial attempt<br>TableWho is Watching<br>#1

options: fast-paced, unrated, classic mode<br>#2

options: fast-paced, rated, classic mode<br>Word Racer tables after surgical prompt<br>We need to fix the styling/display of the lounge tables in the lounge. See...