NEON GRUDGE
Twin-stick score attack with a rewind mechanic that costs you multiplier — Steam & itch, $7.99.
INSERT COINGenerating 400 unique cabinet marquees from a 12-rule grammar, with the seed viewer to play with.
arcadelabs.org · open R&D lab · est. two designers, one engineer
Insert Coin. Open Source.
Arcade Labs is an open R&D lab making short, sharp arcade games — and publishing the prototypes, shaders and sprite kits behind them for anyone to fork.
Now Playing
Six releases built for the five-minute window: high-score chases, one-button bosses, and score attacks you can finish on a coffee break. Buy them on Steam or itch, or play the browser builds right here — no launcher, no login, no tutorial you can't skip.
CABINET ROW — SELECT YOUR GAME
Arcade Labs is an open R&D lab for arcade games: half playable showcase, half public workshop. This marquee is the playable half — releases you can buy, download or launch in a browser tab right now.
PARALLAX CITY
A one-button endless runner where the background is the level — free in-browser, pay-what-you-want download.
PIXEL RUN
CATHODE KNIGHT
CRT-warped boss rush, twelve fights, sixty seconds each — Steam, Deck Verified.
FREE PLAY
BLOCK PARTY '86
Local four-player couch puzzler with rollback netcode bolted on for fun — itch.io, $4.99.
itch.io · 4P local
HALFSTEP
Rhythm-platformer prototype that grew legs; still free, still updating weekly.
Free · Weekly builds
Demo Reel
Ninety seconds of every game we've shipped, GIF-looped and ready for your press embed.
Press embedInside the Lab
Every game starts as a rough experiment, and we post the rough part. The experiment log is a running record of mechanics we tried, numbers we tuned, and things that broke loudly — with build notes, GIFs, and dev videos that show the ugly middle, not just the trailer.
ROM OF THE MONTH
This is the workshop half: open lab doors, experiment logs, source assets and mechanic prototypes anyone can fork, remix, or build on.
Log #047 — Input Buffering That Feels Fair
Three frames of leniency turned a hated boss into a favourite; here's the data and the diff.
Log #044 — Procedural Arcade Cabinets
Log #039 — Why We Killed Our Combo System
A postmortem on two months of work that made the game worse, and what replaced it.
Dev Streams
Live prototyping every other Thursday — mechanics jams, shader breakdowns, questions answered on the spot.
Build Notes
Playable dev builds pushed weekly so you can feel the change before we explain it.
> build 0.9.14 — jump arc retuned
> build 0.9.13 — parry window +2f
> build 0.9.12 — new spawner curve
> build 0.9.11 — CRT bloom pass
Open Source
The tools we build to ship our own games are yours: MIT-licensed engines, shader packs, sprite kits, and mechanic prototypes with real documentation and honest READMEs. Fork them, ship commercial games with them, or lift one function and never mention us — that's the point.
PUBLIC REPOS — MIT / CC0
cabinet.js
Lightweight arcade game framework with fixed-timestep loop and gamepad remapping — MIT, 3.4k forks.
MIT · 3.4k forksCRT-Kit
Nine tunable CRT, scanline and bloom shaders for Godot, Unity and WebGL — MIT, drop-in presets.
Godot · Unity · WebGLPixel Pantry
1,200+ hand-drawn sprites, tilesets and UI elements, CC0 — no attribution, no strings.
CC0 · 1,200+ assetsMechanic Sandbox
Twenty isolated, commented prototypes: grapples, parries, wave spawners, screen-shake curves.
20 prototypesPro Packs
Premium shader and animation bundles for studios who want extras and a support inbox — funds the free tier.
Paid · funds free tierLicensing, Plainly
MIT or CC0 on everything free. No attribution traps, no dual-license surprises.
No surprisesJoin the Lab
Arcade Labs is a .org because arcade innovation shouldn't live inside one studio's private repo. Come argue about frame data in Discord, ship something in 48 hours at our seasonal jams, or sponsor the toolkit that a few thousand devs already build on.
PLAYER TWO — PRESS START
The .org framing makes this a community hub for arcade innovation rather than a closed studio portfolio — players, hobbyist and pro devs, jam organizers, press, publishers and sponsors all get a door in.
Discord
2,800 devs and players in #shader-help, #playtest-swap and #high-scores — feedback usually within the hour.
2,800 membersArcade Jam
Twice yearly, one constraint, 48 hours; winners get a spotlight page and a cabinet slot at our next showcase.
48 hours · 2× a yearContributor Spotlight
Every merged PR gets credited on the site and in-game — 96 contributors and counting.
96 contributorsSponsor Tiers
Patreon and GitHub Sponsors from $3/mo; studio tiers include logo placement, priority issues and roadmap input.
From $3/moHire the Lab
Commissioned games, arcade installations, and engine consulting — tell us the constraint and we'll prototype it.
Commissions openPress & Publishers
Keys, assets and founder interviews on request; scouting inbox is always open.
Inbox openCoin Return
Everything else you might be looking for: the press kit with logos, screenshots and fact sheet, the story of how a two-person lab ended up maintaining a framework, and the mailing list where releases and jam dates land first.
Newsletter
One email per release or jam — new builds, lab logs, no drip campaigns.
Press Kit
Logos, GIFs, screenshots, fact sheet and review keys in one zip.
.zip · 84 MBAbout the Lab
Two designers, one engineer, a restored 1987 cabinet, and a public commit history.
Since the beginningRepos & Socials
GitHub, itch.io, Steam, Bluesky, YouTube — same handle everywhere: arcadelabs.
@arcadelabs