Every year, Tumblr, one of several online blogging platforms, does something ridiculous for April Fool's day. One year, it was the dreaded Mishapocalypse. This year, April Fool's came early.

On March 31, tumbloggers logged into Tumblr to discover a small white square in the lower left corners of their screens. Clicking on it revealed a small pixelated horse with a random name. Each horse began at 0 days old, becoming a day older every few seconds. The horse would then poop. This poop, if left unclicked and therefore uncleaned, would kill the horse. A timer in the upper left of the popup window would go down and the speed at which it would deplete was multiplied by the amount of poop. The horse would move around during all of this, never knowing its own mortality. The player could click on the horse and it would release hearts, but the hearts did nothing.

When the horse died, it turned belly-up and floated to the middle of the screen. The words "Remember your dead. Hatch a new one." A new horse would appear, never knowing of its predecessor's demise.

Every horse name was random. However, every horse name was grand. Some horses had only one word for their name, such as "Foolish," "Gumbe," and "Dirt." Other horses were rulers and owned lands, such as the "Emperor of Swinfield" and the "Boy-King of Oldfield." Some horses were parents of other horses--which made no sense considering the horses were 0 days old when they were randomly named.

The only way to neglect a horse without it dying is to click into a new tab. The pixel game pauses when the tumblogger is in another tab. It doesn't pause when the user is writing a new Tumblr post, nor when the game is minimized.

I don't know why Tumblr decided to release the horses or why they decided to release them early. The Staff on Tumblr have kept quiet, only telling people to take care of their horses. My horse, Chanteuse of Seaworth, is 14 days old. She may not sing beyond today, but she is an excellent pixelated horse.