Source note: Local copy of a Summer Into AI 2026 submission originally published on Substack. Screenshots, video, and audio found in the post body are mirrored locally when publicly accessible; profile and avatar images are intentionally not copied. Read the canonical post.
The theme Eric created asked for independence as a mechanic, not a symbol. So I took it literally — and a little as a programmer’s pun. Thirteen colonies are wired to the Crown by supply lines (dependencies). You win by cutting those dependencies until every colony stands on its own.
This week the field is mostly fireworks clickers and town builders, so I shipped a different shape: a graph/network puzzle where the whole board is a dependency tree you dismantle.
How it plays:
The gold Crown rules 13 red colonies through red supply lines. Click a line to cut it (costs Powder).
Independence cascades: the moment a colony has no path back to the Crown, it flips free — one well-placed cut can liberate a whole chain at once.
United we stand: a free colony with 2+ free neighbors becomes secured (gold) — permanently independent, walling the Crown out of everything behind it.
The Crown fights back: any cut line not held by a secured colony re-garrisons in seconds and reclaims unsecured colonies — so lock in a region before its line heals.
The engine: every state you secure resupplies Powder faster — independence powers more independence.
Win: make all 13 colonies independent before the clock runs out.
(I balanced it with headless simulations — the naive “snip every Crown line at once” exploit is impossible, and the intended peel-and-secure strategy is winnable.)
Theme connection (Independence Engines): independence is the mechanic — connectivity to the Crown is dependency, cutting it is the gameplay, and “a system breaking free from bottlenecks” is the literal win condition.
A tip of the tricorn hat to Adam’s playable Paul Revere arcade game — Revere raced to warn the colonies; Dependency Day is the morning after: the colonies actually cutting themselves free, one supply line at a time.
Proof:
▶️ Play it live: https://myles-mf.github.io/summer-into-ai-2026/week-2/
💾 Code: https://github.com/myles-mf/summer-into-ai-2026/blob/main/week-2/index.html
🗂️ All my entries: https://myles-mf.github.io/summer-into-ai-2026/
Also written up on my site: https://merlinforge.com/blog/dependency-day-week-2/
Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://merlinforge.substack.com/p/dependency-day-a-single-file-in-browser.