Terrible Controls
A playable museum of the worst form inputs ever made: a volume catapult, a runaway Accept button and more.
Screenshots
Screenshots supplied by the seller.
Description
Terrible Controls is a very serious art gallery for very unserious form inputs. Six framed exhibits, each with an engraved plaque, and every one of them genuinely works. That is the problem.
Enter a phone number with a single slider. Set the volume by firing a catapult with real projectile physics. Have your birthday established by interrogation, one date at a time. Chase an Accept button that runs away from your mouse. Try to unsubscribe from a panel where every switch is wired to its neighbours. Then pedal a loading bar by hand, knowing that nothing is loading.
A frustration meter climbs as you go, plaques record how you survived each exhibit, and finishing all six earns a Certificate of Survival. It works as a shareable joke for designers and developers, a talking point for a UX class or conference, or a base for your own gallery of bad ideas.
Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no server or running costs. Adding a new exhibit means one frame in the page and one small function.
Condition
Development stage: Working prototype (seller-declared)
Seller-declared: provided by the seller, not independently verified by SellMyVibe.
- Solo creator
- Mainly AI-generated
- Under one month in development
- Mobile-friendly
- Tests included
- Setup guide included
- Demo available
What works
- Six playable exhibits
- Phone number slider with exact +1 and -1 buttons
- Catapult volume control with real projectile maths
- Birthday found by interrogation, which catches contradictory answers
- Accept button that dodges the mouse, then tires out after 12 dodges
- Unsubscribe panel that can always be solved
- Pedal-powered loading bar with buttons or arrow keys
- Frustration meter, survival notes and a Certificate of Survival
- 8 tests covering the maths behind every exhibit
What’s unfinished
- Only six exhibits so far
- No sharing or social image for the certificate
- No sound effects
- The dodge on touch screens hasn't been tried on a real phone
Included assets
Full source code
Test suite
Documentation
Technologies
HTML, CSS, JavaScript (ES modules), SVG, localStorage, Node test runner
Setup requirements
Upload the files to any static web host. To try it locally, run python3 -m http.server and open http://localhost:8000. Run the tests with npm test (Node 20 or newer).
Dependencies and ongoing costs
None. It's a static site that runs free on any web host and uses system fonts.
Known limitations
Visit progress is saved in localStorage on one device. It's an intentionally awful joke, so the controls aren't meant for real forms.
Listings are reviewed for completeness and clarity before publication. Approval is not a guarantee of quality, ownership, security or commercial success. Read the details and ask questions before buying.