Yongguang Cinema

A browser ARG: a 2004 cinema site still posts a ticket-less screening daily. Seventeen records, two endings, one seat kept for a missing man.

A single-screen old cinema at dusk: the rusted neon frame is dead, one bulb burns over the entrance, and the doorway is black — illustration, not a game screenshot
Illustration (AI-generated), not a game screenshot

Yongguang Cinema opened in 1956: one hall, 720 seats. Its website froze in 2004 and the layout has not been touched since — yet the daily schedule still posts, and 18:40 still carries a ticket-less "internal screening". The box of stubs is your grandmother's: the same unreleased film, the same row 7 seat 8, one for every one of grandfather's birthdays. Follow the search box down and the seat turns out to be waiting for a projectionist who vanished in 1999.

Released 2026-11-08 · Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-11-08

The site home: sections on the left, today's schedule on the right. Teal ground, serif headings, a faded lobby photograph, a layout frozen in 2004 — yet the date in that column changes every day. The bottom left reads "records opened 0/17".
The site home: sections on the left, today's schedule on the right. Teal ground, serif headings, a faded lobby photograph, a layout frozen in 2004 — yet the date in that column changes every day. The bottom left reads "records opened 0/17".
Into the schedule: every day at 18:40 there is an "internal screening", no tickets. The photograph is an empty red-seated hall, house lights out, only the screen lit. Records accumulate one by one, and the sidebar keeps the opened ones apart from the rest.
Into the schedule: every day at 18:40 there is an "internal screening", no tickets. The photograph is an empty red-seated hall, house lights out, only the screen lit. Records accumulate one by one, and the sidebar keeps the opened ones apart from the rest.
The entry screen states in one paragraph why you are here: grandmother's stubs, the same film, the same row 7 seat 8. Below it the running time, "progress saved on this device", and a content note: a disappearance and bereavement, quiet tone, no horror imagery.
The entry screen states in one paragraph why you are here: grandmother's stubs, the same film, the same row 7 seat 8. Below it the running time, "progress saved on this device", and a content note: a disappearance and bereavement, quiet tone, no horror imagery.

The container is a 2004 cinema website

Yongguang Cinema opened in 1956: one hall, 720 seats. The teal ground, the serif headings, the faded lobby photograph and the grille over the ticket window all stopped in 2004 — nobody has touched the layout since. Yet the "today's schedule" column changes daily, without missing a day.

That is the first wrong thing: a frozen website, posting a new schedule on time, every day. You do not have to accept any premise; you only have to click and notice.

There are five sections: home, schedule, ticket prices, about, guestbook. The other twelve records are not in the navigation; they have to be pulled out with the search box — a keyword, or a date.

Search is the only road

The search box takes two kinds of input: keywords ("the other side", "reserved seat", "print") and dates (19990612). Find the right one and a new record opens; find the wrong one and nothing happens — no error, no "try again" button, only silence.

So it cannot dead-end you: three misses in a row and it hands over the next keyword. It does not explain why that word, it just leaves it there.

Every record you open adds one to the counter on the left. Of the seventeen, the opened and the unopened stay distinguishable — the thing these games most often lose: the player needs to know where they are.

Eight images, every one labelled "not a photograph"

Every image on the site is AI-generated fiction, not a photograph. Each caption and alt text says so — not as a disclaimer ritual, but because this subject demands the line: a story about a disappearance and a bereavement must not pass invented pictures off as a real scene.

They are not decoration either. Each maps to one record: the lobby, the empty red-seated hall, the dead neon frame, the projector, the reel, the screen, the single seat at row 7 seat 8, and a box of stubs. Every one can be traced back to the page it belongs to.

Both endings are actions, not options

The last scene offers two actions: finish cutting the final print and open the door to screen it once; or cancel the standing ticket and let the house lights go out.

Neither is the "true" ending and neither is more correct. One lets the film finally be watched by one person; the other lets the seat actually empty. Afterwards the schedule column changes — the only time in the whole piece the website is rewritten by what you did.

Questions

Is it frightening?
No. It involves a disappearance and a bereavement, but the tone is quiet: no horror imagery, no jump scares, no sudden sound.

What if I get stuck?
Three misses in the search box and it gives you the next keyword. You can also start from the date: 19990612 is where the thread begins.

Do I need an account?
No. No login, no server, no cross-device sync; progress lives in this browser only and clearing it starts over.

Are the images real?
No. All eight are AI-generated fiction, and every caption and alt text says so.

Does it work on a phone?
Yes. On narrow screens the sections collapse to the top, the body goes single-column, and the search box sits above the text.

Are there ads?
The page loads Google AdSense, as every game site here does, to cover domain and hosting. There are no ad slots in the reading column and no popups.

Enter the site — Runs on its own subdomain · 17 records, 2 endings · progress stays on this device

Release notes

Since the first version on 2026-11-08, this page records what changed in each version of this game.

  1. 1.0.0 · 2026-11-08 — First release: seventeen records, two endings, and eight AI-generated images each labelled as fiction. The container is a cinema website frozen in 2004, opened up with a search box — keyword or date — that hands over the next word after three misses.