WBWWB Play free

A five-minute game about the news cycle

We Become What We Behold

Free in the browser. Made by Nicky Case in 2016. One ending.

# Play the original

Park scene from We Become What We Behold: circles and squares under a tree, with a news chyron on the television.

The game loads after this click and needs WebGL. You can also play on Nicky Case's itch page.

Checked 7 November 2026

itch still lists the game as free, mouse-driven, and public domain. Newgrounds dates the author's upload to 24 October 2016. speedrun.com records the any% record at 2:44.133 and a release date of 18 October 2016. I print both dates because they disagree.

Guides

Endings
One path, and why the rumors exist.How to play
What the viewfinder has to catch.The quote
Blake, Culkin, and the misattributed card.Where to play
itch, portals, Steam, and phone apps.Nicky Case
The person who made the game.Is there a 2?
No direct sequel. Here is what people mean.Say Cheese
The Roblox game that borrowed the idea.The lovers
The couple behind 'go get a room'.Everyone hates everyone
The headline people use as the title.
Crowd of circle and square characters reacting in the park while the television plays.

What you actually do

You move a viewfinder over a park full of circle people and square people, then you take a photo. The photo becomes a television headline. The crowd watches that headline and copies it. The next photo records the copy.

There is no score and no timer. You cannot lose. The only way to stall is to photograph the wrong action, and the game tells you, in its own voice, that you missed it.

If you want the click-by-click version, use how to play. If you want the count of endings, start at endings.

One ending, said up front

The English browser build reaches one ending. After the panic, the credits roll, a night scene with candles appears, and a share-and-replay screen follows. Choosing replay brings back the opening quote card. Photographing the couple, or a peaceful moment, changes the chyron. It does not open a second ending.

Nicky Case said the feedback loop only rolls one way, like a gear with a ratchet. I treat that sentence, the scene order, and the PlayGamesDaily write-up as the same conclusion from three places. The good ending page is where the joke guides live.

Who made it, and where the line comes from

Nicky Case released the game in October 2016 and put the code and the art into the public domain. The author's own listing is the itch page. This site hosts that browser build so you can press play without an account.

Questions about a follow-up are answered on the sequel page. The title line is older than the game, and the game itself marks the McLuhan credit as misattributed. I keep the biography on Nicky Case and the quotation history on the quote, so this page stays about playing.

A 14 May 2022 upload by gecko whose title says All Endings. I use it as a record of how viewers label scenes, not as a count of branches.

FAQ

How many endings are there?

The English browser build has one path: the shooting scene, the credits, a candlelit epilogue, then the share-and-replay screen. Peaceful photos change the headline, not the path.

What does We Become What We Behold mean?

The game prints the line, credits Marshall McLuhan, and marks it misattributed. William Blake wrote the singular 'he became what he beheld' in Milton. The meaning page and the quote page split those two jobs.

Who made We Become What We Behold?

Nicky Case made it alone, and wrote that it took about two months. The itch page is the author's own listing. Newgrounds also has an upload by the same person.

Where can I play it for free?

Here, after you click Play, and on the itch page. The copy on this site is the public-domain browser build from a fixed 2018 source revision.

Sources