Glitch had a very brief life, lasting only from September 27, 2011 to December 9, 2012. During its short existence, the game touched many people and these players grew into a large community. The player numbers and budget fell short of requirements and Slack Technologies, Inc., then known as Tiny Speck, was forced to shut the servers down forever. However, they did leave a few parting gifts to the beloved community: source code released under a public, domain-like Creative Commons license and access to an archive of profiles, screenshots, and forum threads. This meant that the game could one day be brought back to life under a new company banner. It also allowed players to look back at their profiles and memories from their time in the game world.

New communities branched off on their own in a quest to breathe life back into their cherished virtual world. The two most notable communities being Children of Ur (named after the game world) and Eleven (named after the game’s eleven god-like giants). Children of Ur (CoU) set out to rewrite the code of the game in HTML5, rather than use the original Dart version and stated they intend to make some slight changes to the game. Eleven, on the other hand, set out to remake their version to be as identical to the original as possible. Both games are still in different stages of development and both are far from being complete, but CoU has a playable alpha available right now. Players can even sign up with the name of their old username, allowing their new character to look exactly as the old one did when the original servers were shut down.

Little details and a zany personality are what made Glitch so special that people would be willing to take on the gargantuan task of rebuilding from the ground up. Players squeezed chickens for wheat, pet butterflies before taking their milk, and nibble on piggies for meat. The world of Ur was also home to egg trees, spice plants, and lizard bureaucrats. These delightful and imaginative ideas, combined with the passionate community, are things that people who frequented Glitch will never forget and have been longing to find again in other online games. If the CoU and Eleven’s projects continue to grow and improve, the former community may finally be able to settle into their old virtual home once again.