Sometimes between the clatter of dice and the shuffle of cards, there is another kind of work happening quietly behind the scenes. It is not as glamorous as building a city in Machi Koro or rescuing treasures from a sinking island, but it matters just as much. Today I want to share something I created called LinkCheck.

This is not a board game. It does not come in a box with beautiful artwork. But it was built from the same place that inspires me to gather friends around a table. It was built from care.

If you have ever poured your heart into a blog post, added thoughtful links, pressed publish, and then months later discovered that one of those links leads to a page not found error, you know the feeling. Broken links are small, quiet disappointments. They interrupt the experience. They make a space feel neglected. And they are so easy to miss. LinkCheck is my simple solution to that problem.

It is a browser extension that scans any page you can open and checks every link on it. You click the icon, press Check Links, and results begin to appear almost immediately. Broken links are highlighted right on the page in red. Redirects show in orange. Working links glow green. You can hover and see exactly what is happening behind each click.

There is something strangely satisfying about watching the results stream in live. It feels a bit like scoring points as you go, except instead of collecting coins or victory tokens, you are collecting clarity.

I made sure it was simple. No accounts. No setup rituals. Just install and go. It works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, and other Chromium browsers. It can export a clean Markdown report so you can share it in an email or tuck it into a GitHub issue. It even lets you skip image links or ignore certain errors if you only care about specific types of links.

Privacy was important to me. There is no tracking. No analytics. No hidden data collection. It only checks the links already on the page you are viewing. It is open source under the Apache 2.0 License, which means anyone can inspect it, use it, and improve it. We even have a dark mode setting for those of use that are into that.

I know this blog is usually filled with laughter, clever mechanics, and stories from around the game table. But this little tool supports all of that. Before someone clicks through to read about Othello or Catan, before they explore a favorite dice game, the links need to work. The experience needs to feel smooth and welcoming.

LinkCheck is not flashy. It is practical. It is a quiet helper. And I built it because I care about the spaces we create online just as much as the spaces we build with cardboard and imagination.

Sometimes the most meaningful creations are not the ones that sit on the table. They are the ones that make sure the table is ready when everyone arrives.

To try the extension, click any image on the page or the link to the extension:
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/linkcheck/mcedpgkgnkcnaamkggligoahjackaghd

Let me know if you have any issues. 🙂