My favorite backlog tracker is closing Feb 5, 2026. It's called Darkadia, here's the announcement: https://blog.darkadia.com/post/805093191602831360/darkadia-i...

Because the Giant Bomb API for video game data shut down, it caused this ripple effect.

Darkadia did everything I wanted, but it is closed source. Here's what I liked about what TinyLogan (Rob) created with Darkadia: - It kept me from buying the same game more than once when it goes on sale at various times at various stores - It allowed export of data (so your collection was not locked up) - It was pretty - It was inexpensive

So I'm taking lemons to make lemonade. Here's the source for Backlog Beacon: https://github.com/kokokino/backlog_beacon

And the source for the Hub that handles user accounts: https://github.com/kokokino/hub

I decided to do more than make a single app, I went for an ecosytem... where the Hub takes care of common user authentication and each Spoke application can focus just on what makes them tick. So you could install both the Hub and the Backlog Beacon if you wanted to host it yourself. Or you could pay $2/month where I host it: https://www.kokokino.com/

There's even a skeleton, a MVP spoke app with real time chat, to be used to make your own spokes. That's exactly what I used to begin Backlog Beacon and soon hope to use it again to make some games. Here's the source for that: https://github.com/kokokino/spoke_app_skeleton

Backlog Beacon, what can it do? Besides being open-source (you can contribute!) here's what I like that works right now: - It imports Darkadia data (yay! my immediate need) - You can export your game collection too. - It recreates the Darkadia bookshelf effect for your game collection (I love that) - It has a true "infinite" scroll for your collection (flyweight pattern) where it only puts a few games in the DOM at any time but it feels like the entire collection is there. - There's an animated 3D Beanstalk view of your games - really silly, but it makes me smile! - Has a dark and light mode but also "auto" that detects what your OS is using.

It has four layouts for your game collection:

1. Pages: a paginated view showing "next" and "previous" buttons

2. Infinite: a scrolling view that only keeps a handful of DOM elements but let's you scroll through your entire collection smoothly

3. Bookshelf: recreates the Darkadia bookshelf to show off your games in style. Has two wood modes (brown or grey) and is also a true infinite scroll.

4. Beanstalk: like Jack's stalk, going to the heavens, but spawning leaves with your games. It's an infinite scroll too but a complete 3D scene (works on mobile phones as well as desktops/laptops)

Love to hear what you think about this ecosystem and backlog tracker :-)