Sissyfight 2000 (stylised as SiSSYFiGHT 2000) is a turn-based strategy online game developed by the Word online magazine staff, including executive producer Marisa Bowe, producer Naomi Clark, lead programmer Ranjit Bhatnagar, and art director Yoshi Sodeoka, with game designer Eric Zimmerman.
A successful crowdfunding campaign was launched in early 2013 on Kickstarter by some members of the original development team, who announced the re-release of the game as open-source in HTML5.
The graphics are also simple, and were inspired by the work of "outsider artist" Henry Darger, illustrator Edward Gorey, Japanese anime, and early, 8-bit video games of the 1980s.
With each round, players try to eliminate each other's self-esteem until only two (or occasionally one or none) are left standing and proclaimed the winners of that game on a classroom-style blackboard.
Most often, two players resort to using a third-party instant messaging service in order to coordinate their moves outside of the in-game chat interface.
Some modes will disable certain defensive moves like lolly licking and cowering, others will prevent tattling to slightly increase difficulty, and others will make the timer speed up.
However, Sissyfight suffered from a lack of promotion and development after Zapata Corporation, its parent company, closed down Word late 2000.
Nonetheless, the community proved strong enough to sustain itself, with unpaid administrator RamonaQ and a handful of volunteer moderators managing the game and message boards.
Since its release, Sissyfight was consistently named a top internet game by online magazines and continued to remain popular among its regular players, even after the site became unavailable late April 2009.
On April 28, 2009, long-time volunteer administrator RamonaQ announced on an unofficial message board that the site would not be returning anytime soon, as it was no longer being hosted.