A pocket arcade that draws itself. Walk the floor, play the machines, win tickets, spend them on things that change your arcade.

What it is

An arcade you can walk around, on a phone. Twenty-one machines, each one a small game with its own rules and its own trophy board. Tickets you win at the machines are spent at the prize counter on cosmetics that visibly change the arcade you are standing in.

Nothing in the shop makes you better at anything. Every score on every board was set by somebody's thumbs.

What it looks like

The arcade floor, with the prize counter and the trophy hall
The floor
Night Drive: a car on a curving road at 300kph
Night Drive
Glass House: a tower of panes with a wrecker on the roof
Glass House
Cross Town: traffic in lanes with the player between them
Cross Town
Duck Season: birds over a treeline at night
Duck Season
Key Master: shelves of keyhole plates above a rising key
Key Master
The trophy case panel, open over the arcade
Your trophy case
The prize shop, listing character looks and their ticket prices
The prize shop

Every one of these is a real frame, taken by a script that plays the game headlessly — not a mock-up, and not a lucky screen grab.

How it treats you

No forced ads

Video ads are opt-in only — a doubler you choose, a continue you choose. There is one app-open ad, frequency-capped. Nothing you want to do is behind an ad you did not ask for.

Nothing to buy

No in-app purchases, no currency for sale, no loot boxes, no wagering. Tickets are earned by playing and spent on cosmetics.

No account, no server

There is nothing to sign up for. Your progress lives on your own phone. There is no Pixel Cade server for it to be sent to.

Every machine is beatable

Difficulty is tuned by measurement, not by feel: every bronze trophy is set above what random input can reach, and every machine is checked to make sure skill — not luck — is what moves the score.

The floor

ACTION

CROSS TOWNHop the traffic. You are only hit where you land, and standing still brings the red line.
GLASS HOUSEA wrecker throws bricks down a tower. Mend the panes faster than he breaks them.
GALACTIC INVADERSThree shots in the air at once, so make every one of them count.
NEON MOTHFlap through the tubes. Thread the middle for a bonus and build a streak.
NEON RUNNERHold for height, tap again for the double jump. The floor never slows down.
NIGHT DRIVEAutomatic throttle, manual nerve. Pass close for the combo, beat the clock to the checkpoint.

PRECISION

CLAW GRABBERLine it up and drop. A centred grip holds; a weak one slips on the way up.
DUCK SEASONThe ring on screen is the actual spread. Two birds inside it drop on one shell.
LOCK BREAKERStop the needle on green. The last lock needs five in a row and turns back after each one.
MAZE RACERFind the exit before the clock, without walking into a drone.
TARGET SHOTPull back and roll. The gold ring is the jackpot; the holes pay nothing at all.
TOWER STACKERLock each row on the one below. Only the overlap survives to the next floor.

MIDWAY

MONSTER DROPThe ball takes a second to fall and the wheel does not wait. Let go early.
OPEN THE BOXKeep one box, open the rest. The banker buys you out after every round.
CYCLONEStop the running light on the gold lamp. Twenty rounds, faster every one.
HOOP FEVERThe hoop slides faster as the clock runs down, and baskets buy time back.
KEY MASTERSlide until the lane goes green, then raise the key into the keyhole. Higher pays more.
COIN PUSHERThe side channels keep whatever falls in them, so feed the middle.
CRITTER BASHTap the critters, not the bombs. Gold ones are worth ten of the rest.

PUZZLE

STACK ATTACKDrag, rotate, slam. The rows you clear are the rows you planned three pieces ago.
NEON BLOCK BREAKERSteer low on the screen, tap to launch, and keep the ball off the floor.

How it is built

Pixel Cade ships with no image files, no audio files and no fonts. Every sprite, every sound effect and the entire typeface are generated in code the moment the game starts. That is why it is small, and why it looks the same on every screen it lands on.

It is a vanilla JavaScript game running in an Android WebView, written by one person. The whole thing is open on GitHub, including the notes on why each machine is tuned the way it is.

Support

Found a bug, or a machine that feels unfair? Please open an issue on GitHub — it goes straight to the person who made it.