One of the things I love about the Emacs community is people's sense of humour and whimsy. There's a grand tradition of people hiding Easter eggs in software, a bit of hidden fun that might make someone smile. But isn't this just bloat and frivolity? One might argue that the code that lets us play M-x tetris, dunnet, or doctor in Emacs is a waste of time and space compared to More Serious Things, but on the other hand, the Tetris source code could be a good jumping-off point if you find yourself wanting to make an interactive real-time simulation that displays graphical results. Want something more modern? Maybe DOOM on Emacs! Besides, the code for games isn't actually loaded until you choose to play it. It's okay for something to be fun by itself instead of needing to be productive. There's something wonderful about a tool that people choose not just for work but also for enjoyment.

Our adventure can start with Fun and Games in Emacs - Mastering Emacs or Emacs Is A Gaming Platform for Windows, Mac and Linux - YouTube, which cover a lot of classic built-ins. Here's a barrage of ideas; skip or explore anything you want: Pretend you're on a typewriter or turn on power mode or make c-c-combos. Go on to draw some ASCII art with artist-mode or with Emacs Lisp, and add some box shadows because why not. Maybe even use it to tell the time. Turn ASCII art into PNGs. Have fun with obscure calendars. Use kaomojis or write weird text. Explore the screensavers in zone and let them sprinkle characters through your buffer, take over your other frames, or teach you something new. Watch snow or a fireplace. Rotate cubes in ASCII or with hardware-accelerated graphics. Why limit yourself to cubes? Still, if you do want to stick to cubes, you can solve them. Go ahead, animate something. Play roleplaying games (also check out Howard Abrams's 2023 talk), rogue-likes, multi-user dungeons, classics, chess, trading, Klondike and lots of other card games, a racing game, Minesweeper, 2048, Boomshine, a Gameboy emulator (this other one handles NES). Simulate cities or physics or pets (here's another one) or life. Have fun with so many cats: timers, scrollcats, screensavers. Not a cat person? There's a parrot version and a fish version. Read comics or make memes. Guess words or find them. Learn other alphabets. Make art. You can even turn your Emacs into a Geiger counter for garbage collection.

Then take a step back and marvel at this community of people who try things out, tinker, follow that crazy idea that won't let go of them, and share what they came up with. If you write Emacs Lisp (or want to learn), rummage around in the source code for ideas on how to do things. See if you have any ideas that tickle your fancy. You might be able to get Emacs to do things text editors don't usually do! =)