The Tavern Arcade is an independent game studio and a free browser arcade. Every game on the shelves was designed, coded, drawn and shipped in-house — no licensed portals, no reskinned templates, no ad-walls between you and the play button. Open a tab, pick a cabinet, start playing.
What we make
We build games that run straight in the browser, on desktop, phone and VR headset, with no download, no install and no account. The library spans a handful of genres we keep coming back to:
- Retro action platformers — 16-bit-inspired run-and-gun titles like Super Stuber, an eight-stage boss-rush platformer with wall climbs and charge shots, and PieGar, a side-scrolling arcade brawler.
- Survivor roguelites — horde-clearing builds such as Ashelon's Survivors, Vanguard Survivors and Starblaze Survivors, where the run is short and the upgrade tree is the game.
- Sandbox and survival — Voxel Frontier, a procedurally generated mining-and-building world with skills, barrow dungeons, warden bosses and shared online play.
- Arcade oddities — one-more-go score chasers like Chicken Long Surfing, Astro Hop, Fish Flop, Werm and Galaxanoids.
- WebXR and VR — headset-native experiments including Arcanima VR, Boost Ball VR and Beneath the Tavern VR, playable in a browser on a standalone headset.
- Online multiplayer — a growing set of live titles such as Creature Survivors, Tristran and Wobblerz.
New cabinets get wheeled in regularly, and the ones already on the floor keep getting patched. Games with a leaderboard let you post a score under any nickname you like — no email address required, ever.
Why there are no logins
The web used to be a place you could click a link and immediately be playing something. Somewhere along the way that turned into sign-up walls, launchers, newsletters and "create a free account to continue". We built The Tavern Arcade as a small argument against all of that.
Nothing here asks who you are. Your name, avatar, theme and settings live in your own browser, and you can wipe them in one click from your browser settings. If you want to appear on a leaderboard, you type a nickname; that is the entire onboarding process.
How the arcade stays free
Hosting, domains, art tools and multiplayer servers all cost money, and we would rather that come from advertising than from your wallet. The site displays ads served by Google, which is what pays for the lights. We keep them out of the games themselves — no pre-roll before a play session, no interstitials between lives.
If you would rather chip in directly, there is a voluntary Bitcoin donation option on the homepage. It is entirely optional, unlocks nothing, and no part of the arcade is gated behind it.
How we build
Everything is hand-built with web technology — HTML5 canvas, WebGL and WebXR — so a game loads in the same tab you were already browsing in. That constraint shapes the design: fast loads, instant restarts, controls that work equally well on a keyboard, a touchscreen and a gamepad, and file sizes small enough to play on a hotel wifi connection.
We write our own engines and tooling for most titles, which is slower than reaching for a framework but keeps load times honest and lets a whole game ship as a single page.
Who we are
The Tavern Arcade is a small independent operation, not a publisher and not a portal. The games, the site, the pixel art and the questionable puns are all made by the same tiny crew. If you spot a bug, want to suggest a game, or just want to tell us a boss is unfair, we read everything sent to us.
Get in touch
Bug reports, feedback, collaboration, press — all welcome at tavernentertainmentgames@gmail.com, or through the contact page.