# TIP — you cannot outrun it

> Loading tips exist to fill dead time, which means somebody wrote advice knowing it would be read by a bored person. The best ones are accidentally quite dark.

August 18, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/loading-screen-tip

A small segmented circle. The word `TIP` in spaced capitals beside it. Underneath, larger:

`YOU CANNOT OUTRUN IT`

A thin rule below, part filled. That's the entire design, and most of it is empty space.

## Why did loading tips exist?

To make waiting feel like it had a purpose.

Loading a level took long enough to be noticed, and a blank screen makes a wait feel longer than it
is. Filling it with advice does two things: it occupies attention, and it turns dead time into
something that looks like service. Almost every game of a certain era did it.

Which means somebody, on every one of those teams, had the job of writing forty short pieces of
advice knowing they'd be read by someone irritated and bored.

## Why are the good ones dark?

Because the game's actual advice is usually about failure.

Stripped of context, tips read as aphorisms delivered by an indifferent system. *You cannot outrun
it. Some doors only open once. Light attracts attention. Nothing here will heal you.* All of those
are practical instructions about a specific mechanic, and all of them sound like something said at
the end of a long conversation.

That double reading is the whole reason this format is worth printing —
[precise inside, ominous outside](/stories/hiking-trail-shirt).

## Why so much empty space?

Because a loading screen has nothing else on it.

This is the only design in this bucket that's mostly nothing. The restraint isn't a style choice —
it's what the screen actually looked like, and reproducing it faithfully produces a print that's
far quieter than everything around it.

That makes it the most wearable thing here in ordinary company. Nobody reads it as a games
reference; they read a sentence.

## What should the tip be?

Something true, phrased as a mechanic.

The grammar is fixed and generous: a flat statement about how the world works, in the second person,
with no comfort attached. Point it at anything real and it holds — a job, a habit, a relationship,
a deadline.

Resist explaining it. The format never explains, and the explanation is what would make it a
slogan.

## Can I use a real game's tip?

A one-line sentence is short enough to sit near the edge of what copyright covers, but it isn't
nothing.

Short phrases generally attract little or no protection on their own; a distinctive line strongly
associated with one title is a different proposition, especially where it functions as a catchphrase
the publisher merchandises. Licensable if it matters that much, and easily avoided if it doesn't.

Writing your own is a minute's work and the result is yours.

## Is the loading indicator necessary?

It's what makes it a screen rather than a poster.

Without the small segmented circle and the progress rule, the sentence is a quotation. With them,
it's a message displayed *while you wait* — and the implication that something is still coming is
doing a lot of quiet work.

Same mechanism as
[the small triangle at the corner of a dialogue box](/stories/visual-novel-textbox).

## Does it print well?

Yes, and it's the lowest-risk design in this bucket.

A small hard-edged indicator, one line of clean type and a thin rule. Nothing fine, nothing soft,
very little coverage. The only thing to get right is the scale relationship: `TIP` should be
noticeably smaller than the line it introduces, and the gap between them generous.

Deep grey, charcoal and slate grounds. One ink, cream.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the tip at [JustOG](/) — what it says, and how much space it should sit in. Pick a
direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and
shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Somebody wrote that to fill eleven seconds, and it outlived the game.