All About Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game

Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game was a humorous "game" website from 1997ish–2004ish. It got to be wildly popular and its creators became unbelievably wealthy virtually overnight. Unfortunately they spent all of their money (almost as quickly as they had earned it) on starlight mints and Flooz.com credits.

With the owners penniless and bearded, the Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game web hosting account went unpaid, and eventually the site disappeared. But after investing in a few sound financial projects based on tetrahedronical wealth dispersement, they soon found the means to re-establish the site and begin the slow climb back to internet relevance.

A Little History

• 1911: Discovery of Machu Picchu.
• 1977: Mike and Alex both born.
• 1984: Apple launches the Macintosh. Alex finally gets that Admiral Ackbar figure.
• 1995: Mike and Alex both go to college, beginning lifelong debt cycle.
• 1996: Mike's first foray into computer game development: Poke Alex in the Eye: The Text Adventure.
• 1997: Mike hides in bushes to secretly videotape Alex "cleaning his tear ducts". Selected frames are put online as the first version of Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game.
• 1999–2004: Somewhere within this timeframe, the "Poke Pro" and "Poke Plus" editions of Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game went live. Our memories are a little fuzzy.
• 2007ish: The Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game website vanishes. Millions* of fans rip their shirts in anguish.
• 2009: The Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game website returns. Millions* of fans rejoice and feast upon the young.
• 2020: The Poke Alex in the Eye: The Game, Poke Pro Difficulty game is revived as an HTML5 game, healing the hearts and souls of millions* of pandemic-affected players around the world.

* Estimated value. Margin of error +/- 99%.

More About the Creators

From a 1999 interview in Eye-Poking Monthly:

Alex: "Mike and I are great pals. We first met in our freshman years at RIT, back in 1995. Mike instantly recognized me as a man of incredible charisma and intelligence, and I noticed Mike has an interesting-looking nose. We became fast friends. By a stroke of luck, we both have really great senses of humor."

Mike: "Well, I do, at least."

Alex: "Right. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, making cartoons, jokes, and thinking up ideas for movies. The two of us also share some of the same tastes in canned cheese, ancient South American city ruins, and rodeo trophies. Plus, I'm really tall and good-looking."

Mike: "We became completely obsessed with eye-poking somewhere around mid-1996. It started as a masochistic habit on Alex's part but evolved into more of a mutual interest. So we decided to make this game to share our appreciation for eye-poking fun with the world."

Alex: "I also smell pretty good and have three elbows."

Mike: "We figured the web would be the best place to share our latest creation. It's a really great arena for this sort of thing. This way thousands of people can play our game and be introduced to the wonderful world of eye-poking. And we couldn't be happier with its success so far."

Alex: "Does anyone else want macaroni and cheese?"

Mike (interrupting): "Without a doubt, it's been a great experience. Not to mention a super chance to flex our skills in web design, coding, photo editing, and Director scripting."

Alex: "Well, more for him than me. After all, he's not the one getting poked in the eye all the time. I'm just hoping all this publicity will help me to get elected Supreme Dictator. With all those morons out there, I figure it's gotta be a lock."

Mike: "Before we go, I'd like to take this opportunity to say 'hello' to my mom. She's very proud of my accomplishments."

Alex: "And I'd like to say that my eye hurts."