1958
Tennis for Two
A two-player tennis game seen from the side on an oscilloscope screen; each controller had a knob to set the angle and a button to hit. It was shown to the public at a Brookhaven open day.
Reference games
The games that founded or shaped each genre. We only link to legal sources: published by their authors, official, free software or preservation archives.
No game matches the filters.
1964
The Sumerian Game
You rule the Sumerian city of Lagash and, round by round, decide how much grain is eaten, sown or stored. Teacher Mabel Addis designed it to study the use of simulations at school, and it was played on a teleprinter connected to a mainframe.
1971
The Oregon Trail
You lead a wagon of settlers to Oregon in 1847; at each stage you buy supplies, hunt and decide how much to eat while facing storms and breakdowns. Three Carleton College students wrote it for a junior high history class, and from 1975 MECC distributed it to schools.
1972
Pong
Table tennis stripped to its essentials; each player moves a paddle to return the ball and the first to reach eleven points wins. It is the first commercially successful video game.
1973
Gotcha
Two players move through a maze that keeps changing; one chases and the other flees. It is considered the first arcade maze game.
1973
Maze War
You roam a line-drawn maze in first person and shoot the other players, who in later versions appear as a large eyeball. Three high-school students made it at NASA's Ames Research Center, and it came to be played between universities over the ARPANET.
1974
Gran Trak 10
You drive a car around a track seen from above against the clock, with a steering wheel, pedals and a gear stick as in a real car. It is the first arcade car racing game and the first with a steering wheel.
1974
Spasim
A 3D space simulation for the PLATO network in which up to 32 players, in four teams, fly ships in first person. A second version added resource management and strategy.
1975
dnd
One of the first computer role-playing games, made on the PLATO university system. You go down a dungeon, fight monsters and improve your character; it is also the first game with what would later be called a boss.
1975
Gun Fight
A duel between two gunfighters, each with two controls, one to move and one to choose where to fire, while they take cover behind obstacles. It was the first video game to depict combat between people.
1976
Breakout
With a paddle you bounce a ball into eight rows of coloured bricks. The upper rows are worth more, the ball speeds up as you hit it and the paddle shrinks once the ball reaches the top wall. Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow designed it, and it gave the genre its name.
1976
Colossal Cave Adventure
You explore a cave system in search of treasure by typing one- or two-word commands such as "go north" or "get lamp". It is the first well-known text adventure and gave the adventure genre its name.
1976
Night Driver
You drive at night in first person and only see the posts that mark the edges of the road; if you follow them without leaving the road, you get further before time runs out.
1977
Zork
You explore an underground empire looking for treasure by typing full sentences such as "open mailbox". Its parser understood far richer commands than Colossal Cave's, and in 1980 it was split into Zork I, II and III.
1978
Adventureland
You search for thirteen treasures in a fantasy world by typing two-word commands such as "climb tree". It was Scott Adams's first program, and its success led him to found Adventure International, which published a series of similar adventures.
1978
Hangman
The game of hangman on a home console. You guess the letters of a hidden word and every miss adds a piece to the gallows. It shipped with 510 words of up to six letters and four difficulty levels.
1978
Space Invaders
You move a cannon along the bottom of the screen and shoot rows of invaders that descend ever faster, sheltered by bunkers that wear away. It set the shoot 'em up template.
1978
Super Breakout
A sequel to Breakout with three modes. In Double you control two paddles and two balls at once; in Cavity you free balls trapped in the wall; in Progressive the wall slowly moves down.
1979
Galaxian
A formation of colour aliens from which ships dive at the player while firing. It turned enemies into attack patterns that must be read.
1979
Head On
You drive a car around concentric lanes collecting dots while another car comes the opposite way; you can only change lanes at certain gaps. It was the first maze game whose goal is to run over dots.
1980
Akalabeth: World of Doom
Richard Garriott programmed it in BASIC as a teenager. You travel an overhead map and go down into first-person wireframe dungeons; it is the direct ancestor of the Ultima series.
1980
Fishing Derby
Two anglers on opposite docks lower their lines among rows of fish that are worth more the deeper they swim, while a shark tries to eat hooked fish before they surface. The first to reach 99 pounds wins.
1980
Mystery House
You walk through a mansion where the guests keep disappearing; you type commands and each room is shown as a line drawing. It is the first known graphical adventure.
1980
Pac-Man
You eat the dots in a maze while four ghosts chase you, each with its own way of hunting you down. The power pellets in the corners frighten them and let you eat them for a while.
1980
Rogue
You go down an ASCII dungeon in search of the Amulet of Yendor. Floors, monsters and treasure are generated anew in every game, the world only moves when you act and dying erases the game. It gave the genre its name.
1980
Space Panic
Ladder-and-platform arcade game where you dig holes to trap enemies. Often cited as the first platform game.
1981
005
You carry a briefcase of secret documents to a helicopter through buildings and warehouses, staying out of the enemies' flashlight beams and hiding behind boxes. It is one of the first games to show the enemy's field of view as a cone.
1981
3D Monster Maze
In first person, you look for the exit of a randomly generated maze while a Tyrannosaurus stalks you. You are faster than it, but a dead end can be the end of you.
1981
Castle Wolfenstein
You escape from a castle room by room in search of secret plans. You can fight, but you can also disguise yourself in an enemy uniform to walk past the guards without being stopped.
1981
Donkey Kong
Jumpman (later Mario) climbs girders and jumps over barrels to rescue Pauline. It made jumping the genre's central action.
1981
Jump Bug
You drive a car that never stops bouncing through a city, mountains and a pyramid, shooting enemies and landing on money bags. It was the first platformer with horizontal scrolling.
1981
MasterType
A game for learning to type in the style of a shooter: to bring down each attacker you have to press the right key or word in time.
1981
Scramble
A plane flies over side-scrolling terrain on its own, shooting and dropping bombs, and burns fuel that it refills by destroying tanks across six sections.
1981
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
You form a party of six adventurers of different classes and guide it floor by floor through a first-person maze, with turn-based battles chosen from a menu. It is the first truly party-based role-playing game.
1982
Artillery Duel
Two cannons face each other across a mountain, and each player chooses the angle and force of the shot. It took the genre from BASIC programs to consoles, with a different mountain on every turn.
1982
BurgerTime
You are a chef running across platforms and ladders; walking over each giant ingredient (bun, patty, tomato, lettuce, cheese) drops it one floor until the burgers are assembled, while you dodge the food items chasing you.
1982
Football Manager
You do not play the matches, you run the club. You start in the fourth division, pick the line-up, buy and sell players and look after the finances to get promoted, almost all with text and the keyboard.
1982
Pitfall!
A jungle of 255 connected screens crossed by jumping pits, vines and crocodiles. It brought the genre home with a large world.
1982
Pole Position
A Formula One race seen from behind the car on the real Fuji circuit. First you drive a qualifying lap against the clock to earn your grid place, then the race against other cars.
1982
Robotron: 2084
The left joystick moves you and the right one fires in eight directions at endless waves of robots, each type with its own behaviour, while you rescue the humans left on screen.
1982
Rocky's Boots
You wire logic gates (AND, OR, NOT) to a mechanical boot so that it kicks only the right objects off a conveyor belt; later you can build your own circuits. Logic is not asked about, it is built.
1982
Sokoban
You push boxes around a warehouse seen from above until each one sits on its spot. You can only push, never pull, so one bad move can leave the level unsolvable.
1982
Utopia
Two players each rule an island over timed rounds. With gold bars you build houses, schools, factories, hospitals and crops to house, feed and content a growing population; if you fail, rebels appear. It is credited with starting the genre.
1983
Lode Runner
You collect all the gold on each screen of ladders and platforms while guards chase you, and you can dig holes in the floor to trap them or open a way through. It was one of the first games with a level editor.
1983
The Portopia Serial Murder Case
You investigate a murder in Kobe with your assistant Yasu, questioning suspects and visiting places. In the Famicom version (1985) the text parser was replaced by a menu of commands, the template for Japanese adventures and the visual novel.
1983
Track & Field
Six athletics events, from the 100 metres to the high jump. You run by alternating two buttons as fast as you can and use a third one to time the jump or the throw; if you miss the qualifying mark, you lose a life.
1984
Duck Hunt
You aim the Zapper gun at a CRT television and have three shots per round to bring down the ducks that fly up. It was one of the NES launch games in North America.
1984
Elite
You start with a modest ship and travel freely between star systems, trading, fighting and raising your combat rating towards 'Elite'. It was one of the first home computer games with wireframe 3D graphics with hidden-line removal.
1984
Golf
Nintendo's golf game for the Famicom (NES in 1985 in North America). It was the console's best-selling sports game and was programmed by Satoru Iwata, later Nintendo's president.
1984
Karate Champ
Two karateka face off, each with two joysticks and 24 moves; every clean hit scores a half or full point and the first to two wins. It established one-on-one fighting.
1984
King's Quest: Quest for the Crown
You guide Sir Graham through the fairy-tale kingdom of Daventry in search of three magical items. You walk him with the keyboard across animated screens, in front of and behind the scenery, and type commands to act.
1984
Kung-Fu Master
You cross the five floors of a temple from side to side, punching and kicking groups of enemies, with a boss at the end of each floor. It is regarded as the first beat 'em up.
1984
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
An adaptation of Douglas Adams's comic novel, written by the author himself with Infocom's Steve Meretzky. You escape Earth just before it is demolished, and the game mocks you, lies to you and kills you often.
1984
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
You face eleven martial arts masters, each with their own look and style. It replaced points with a health bar that empties with each hit.
1985
Commando
A soldier advances on foot across a vertically scrolling battlefield, firing in eight directions and lobbing grenades at what lies ahead. It popularised the run and gun and had many imitators.
1985
Gradius
A side-scrolling shoot 'em up in which each capsule you collect advances a power-up bar and you decide when to activate the selected upgrade. It was called Nemesis in North America and Europe.
1985
SameGame
You pick a group of neighbouring same-coloured blocks to remove it, and the ones above fall into the gap. The challenge is to clear as much of the board as you can. It came out in 1985 as Chain Shot!, published in the Japanese magazine Gekkan ASCII.
1985
Super Mario Bros.
Continuous side-scrolling, running momentum, variable-height jumps and levels that teach their rules without text. It set the genre's grammar.
1985
Tetris
You rotate and place falling four-block pieces to complete rows, which disappear. The fall speeds up and you lose when the pieces reach the top.
1985
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
You are a detective chasing a gang of thieves around the world; you question witnesses and use an almanac to work out which country the suspect fled to. Geography is the clue that moves the chase forward.
1986
Arkanoid
You control the Vaus ship with a rotary knob. Some bricks drop capsules that lengthen the paddle, slow the ball, split it or give you cannons, and there are floating enemies and a final boss, Doh.
1986
Dragon Quest
A lone hero travels an overhead world and fights turn-based battles, choosing to fight, cast a spell, use an item or flee. Winning gives experience and gold, and levelling up opens more dangerous areas. It set the template for Japanese RPGs.
1986
Metroid
Bounty hunter Samus explores the planet Zebes, a maze of areas joined by doors and lifts. Permanent items such as the Morph Ball or bombs open passages that were out of reach, and you often have to retrace your steps to move on.
1986
Out Run
You drive a convertible along roads with traffic against the clock, and at every fork you choose the way, which leads to one of several endings. The journey matters more than beating a rival.
1986
Renegade
Released in Japan as Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun. You fight gangs in arenas where you can also move into the depth of the scene, the belt-scroll format the whole genre adopted.
1986
Shanghai
A mahjong solitaire with stacked tiles in which you remove matching pairs that are free on one side. You have to choose the order carefully so as not to get stuck.
1987
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
It leaves behind the first Castlevania's sequential levels for an open world that you roam and revisit freely, with towns, shops, role-playing elements and a day-night cycle that changes the enemies.
1987
Contra
Two soldiers run and jump through side-scrolling levels, firing in eight directions, including downwards in mid-jump. Its simultaneous two-player co-op was the key to its popularity.
1987
Double Dragon
Two brothers fight their way through the city together; you can knock weapons out of enemies' hands and use them against them. It set two-player co-op as the genre's classic form.
1987
Final Fantasy
You pick four characters from six classes (fighter, thief, white mage, black mage…) and keep them together for the whole game. Its turn-based battles show the party side-on, facing the enemies, a format the genre adopted for years.
1987
Maniac Mansion
You control a group of teenagers who break into a mad scientist's mansion to rescue a friend. Instead of typing, you pick a verb from a menu and click on an object, using the SCUMM engine.
1987
Mega Man
You choose the order in which to play six run-and-jump shooting stages; beating each stage's boss earns you its weapon, which is another boss's weakness, so the order changes the difficulty.
1987
Metal Gear
You infiltrate an enemy base, seen from above, alone and unarmed. Guards follow set patrols and the goal is to stay out of sight and avoid fighting; if you are spotted, they go on alert and reinforcements may arrive.
1987
NetHack
An heir to Hack and Rogue, developed collaboratively over the internet since 1987. It is famous for the sheer number of interactions between items, monsters and the environment, which reward experimenting. It is free software.
1987
Operation Wolf
The gun is shaped like a submachine gun and vibrates as you fire. The view moves by itself while you shoot soldiers and vehicles, avoid nurses and children, and refill ammo by shooting objects. Its success set the model for military-themed light-gun games on a fixed path.
1987
R-Type
A side-scrolling shoot 'em up with a shot that charges while you hold the button, and the Force, a pod that attaches to the front or back of the ship or is detached to act as a shield.
1987
Street Fighter
Ryu travels the world facing opponents. It introduced special attacks performed with a joystick motion plus a button, such as the Hadouken or the Shoryuken.
1989
Columns
Columns of three coloured jewels fall and you can reorder them on the way down; three or more alike in a line, diagonals included, disappear. Jay Geertsen shared it in 1989 and Sega released it in arcades and on consoles.
1989
Final Fight
One or two players cross a city taken over by a gang. You can grab and throw enemies, and broken barrels hide weapons with limited uses and food that heals you.
1989
Herzog Zwei
You pilot a ship that transforms into a robot, buy ground units, airlift them and give them orders to capture bases in a real-time duel against another commander. It is considered the forerunner of the genre.
1989
Indianapolis 500: The Simulation
It simulates the Indianapolis 500 race in first person, with the car's setup affecting how it handles and grip loss in high-speed turns. It is regarded as the personal computer's first true racing simulation.
1989
Prince of Persia
You have 60 minutes to escape the dungeons, avoiding spikes, pits and guillotines and fighting with a sword. Its rotoscoped animation makes every jump feel weighty and real, and forces you to judge your run-up carefully.
1989
SimCity
You zone residential, commercial and industrial land and lay out roads and services, and the city grows by itself according to your planning; there is no way to win, only a city to keep going. In 2008 its code was released as Micropolis.
1989
Sweet Home
Five characters explore a haunted mansion; each one has a unique item, the inventory is tiny and whoever dies stays dead. It was only released in Japan and was the main inspiration for Resident Evil.
1990
Dr. Mario
Two-coloured capsules fall and you rotate and place them to line up four of the same colour with the viruses in the bottle. You win the level when you have destroyed every virus.
1990
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light
You move your army across a tile map in turns that alternate with the enemy. Each class moves and fights differently, weapons wear out and a character who falls does not return for the rest of the campaign. It became the genre's archetype; it was not released outside Japan until 2020.
1990
Rampart
You alternate timed phases in which you surround castles with walls made of Tetris-like pieces, place cannons inside and then fire at attacking ships. Whatever is left unenclosed is lost. It is considered the prototype of tower defense.
1990
Smash TV
Room after room of a TV game show, one or two players move with one joystick and fire with the other at crowds pouring in through every door. It revives the controls of Robotron: 2084, by the same designer.
1990
The Secret of Monkey Island
Guybrush Threepwood wants to become a pirate in an absurdly funny Caribbean. You solve inventory puzzles and insult sword fights with verbs and clicks, and you almost never die, so the game invites fearless exploration.
1991
Gorillas
Two gorillas on top of skyscrapers throw explosive bananas at each other by typing the angle and speed of each throw, with wind that changes every round. It shipped with QBasic in MS-DOS 5.0, so many people both played it and read its code.
1991
Lemmings
Little creatures walk mindlessly into danger and you do not control them directly; you hand out a limited number of skills (digging, blocking, building) so that enough of them reach the exit.
1991
Puyo Puyo
Pairs of coloured blobs fall and disappear when four alike touch; if the ones above then form another group as they drop, you chain combos. Sega's arcade version (1992) expanded the game with a story mode and a two-player duel.
1991
Scorched Earth
Up to ten tanks take turns firing over terrain that is destroyed by every explosion. Between rounds you buy ever more powerful weapons, and the wind bends the shots. It was distributed as shareware and is considered the genre's modern archetype.
1991
SkiFree
You ski down a slope that never ends, dodging trees and rocks; past the 2,000-metre mark a yeti appears, chases you and eventually catches you. Its author offers the 32-bit version for free on his site.
1991
Sonic the Hedgehog
A platformer built around speed and momentum, with loops and slopes that turn movement into spectacle.
1991
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
Eight fighters with their own styles and special moves. Its combos, discovered by accident, and its head-to-head duels defined the genre and revived the arcades.
1992
Alone in the Dark
You investigate a haunted mansion with 3D characters over hand-drawn backgrounds, seen through fixed cameras framed like a horror film. Guinness recognises it as the first 3D survival horror game.
1992
Caesar
You govern a Roman province and raise cities where every home needs schools, theatres and baths nearby to prosper. It began Impressions' City Building series, which went on with Pharaoh and Zeus.
1992
Dune II
You lead one of three houses fighting over a desert planet. Your harvesters collect spice, the refinery turns it into credits, and with those you raise buildings and buy troops you move with the mouse. It set the genre's template.
1992
Otogirisō
A couple takes shelter in a haunted mansion. You read the story over illustrations with music and sound effects and, at key moments, choose what to do; each ending unlocks new options for the next playthrough. Chunsoft called it a "sound novel".
1992
Streets of Rage 2
You pick one of four characters, from the slow, powerful wrestler to the fast skater, and each has special attacks that cost health. It was one of the first console games to match the acclaim of arcade beat 'em ups.
1992
Super Mario Kart
Kart racing with Mario characters on fantasy tracks, where besides driving you pick up items to attack or defend yourself. It has a two-player split-screen mode.
1992
Wolfenstein 3D
You escape a fortress through maze-like corridors, shooting the guards. Its walls are drawn with ray casting over a flat grid map, the same technique as the demo, and its first episode was distributed free as shareware.
1993
Batsugun
A vertical shoot 'em up with complex waves, dense bullet patterns and heavy firepower. It is considered the first «manic shooter», the forerunner of bullet hell.
1993
Curses
You look for an old map in your family home's attic and end up lifting a curse that hangs over the family. It was the first game written in Inform, the language its author released that same year, and it is distributed for free.
1993
Doom
You blast your way through a base full of demons, looking for coloured keys to open doors. It popularised deathmatch and kept its levels in WAD files that fans could edit. Its first episode was shareware.
1993
FIFA International Soccer
Football with national teams seen in an isometric perspective, when other football games used a top-down view. It is the first in EA Sports' FIFA series.
1993
Gunstar Heroes
A frantic run and gun in which the four shot types combine in pairs to create new weapons, such as a machine gun with homing shots.
1993
Myst
You arrive on a deserted island through a magic book and explore it by clicking on pre-rendered images. There is no inventory and no enemies; the challenge is to observe the world and work out how its machines operate.
1993
The Lost Vikings
You switch control between three vikings with different abilities, one who runs and smashes walls, one who fights with a sword and bow, and one who blocks with a shield that also works as a glider and a platform. Each level can only be beaten by combining all three.
1993
Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon
Torneko the merchant, from Dragon Quest IV, explores random dungeons collecting items and fighting turn by turn, with hunger pushing you forward. It brought the roguelike to consoles and started the Mystery Dungeon series.
1993
Virtua Fighter
The first arcade fighting game with 3D polygon characters. Besides emptying the opponent's health, you can win by forcing them out of the ring.
1994
Shariki
You swap two neighbouring balls to line up three or more of the same colour, which vanish and let new ones drop in. Every swap must make a line, and the game ends when none is possible.
1994
Super Metroid
Samus returns to Zebes with an automap that fills in as you explore. Upgrades such as the Grapple Beam, Speed Booster or Space Jump open previously blocked areas, and its open structure lets you break the intended order, which made it hugely popular with speedrunners.
1994
UFO: Enemy Unknown
Known in North America as X-COM: UFO Defense, it alternates defending the planet from an alien invasion, in real time, with turn-based tactical missions where your soldiers spend time units to move and shoot. Those who fall do not return.
1994
Virtua Cop
A light-gun game with real-time 3D polygon graphics. You have a six-shot chamber, hurting a civilian costs a life and disarming an enemy by shooting their hand gives extra points.
1995
Dogz: Your Computer Pet
You adopt an animated dog that lives on your computer: you feed it, look after it and play with it. It was the first widely popular virtual pet and started the Petz series.
1995
DonPachi
A vertically scrolling shoot 'em up with which Cave starts its line of bullet hell games. A combo counter rewards chaining enemy kills without a pause.
1995
Tetris Attack
Blocks keep rising from the bottom and you swap two horizontal neighbours to line up three or more of the same colour. It came out in Japan as Panel de Pon and, despite its Western name, has nothing to do with Tetris.
1995
Time Crisis
A pedal decides when you take cover to reload and avoid enemy fire, and each section has a time limit. Hiding and leaning out becomes part of the rhythm.
1995
Worms
Teams of worms take turns attacking each other with bazookas, grenades and other weapons on randomly generated maps; every explosion leaves a round hole in the terrain, and each turn has a time limit. It started a long series.
1996
Metal Slug
You advance shooting at an army, with melee attacks when an enemy is close, powerful weapons with limited ammo and a small tank you can climb into. It started a long-running series known for its humour.
1996
PaRappa the Rapper
A rapping dog repeats, by pressing buttons in time, the lines each teacher raps at him. Each song is rated from «Awful» to «Cool», and it is regarded as the first true rhythm game.
1996
Quake
A first-person shooter with truly polygonal 3D levels and enemies. Its online multiplayer, improved by QuakeWorld, was one of the first forms of electronic sport.
1996
Resident Evil
You explore a monster-filled mansion with little ammunition, a small inventory and a counted supply of ink ribbons to save the game, seen through fixed cameras. It was the first game marketed as «survival horror».
1996
Super Mario 64
Took platforming into open 3D worlds with analogue control and a free camera, shifting the goal from reaching the end to exploring.
1996
Tamagotchi
A pet that lives in an egg-shaped device with three buttons. You raise it from birth, feeding it, cleaning up and caring for it as it goes through its life stages. It was a worldwide craze in the late 1990s.
1997
Age of Empires
You lead an ancient civilisation from the Stone Age on, gathering food, wood, stone and gold, and advance through ages that unlock new troops and technologies. A slower pace than other games in the genre.
1997
Beatmania
You play DJ on a five-key console with a turntable; notes fall down columns and each one sounds when you hit it. Its success gave its name to Bemani, Konami's music division.
1997
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Alucard explores a huge non-linear castle whose areas open up as he gains items and transformations (bat, wolf, mist). It adds experience, levels and equipment from role-playing games, and halfway through reveals a second, inverted castle.
1997
Everybody's Golf
Light-hearted golf, called Hot Shots Golf in North America and Minna no Golf in Japan. It is the first in its series and the only one made by Camelot, which went on to develop Mario Golf.
1997
Final Fantasy Tactics
Turn-based battles on three-dimensional isometric fields, where terrain and weather matter. A job system lets you turn each character into a warrior, a mage or other roles. It did the most to bring the genre to North America.
1997
Final Fantasy VII
A Japanese RPG with 3D characters over pre-rendered backgrounds and battles with time bars that fill up on their own. You combine materia to customise the party's abilities. It made Japanese RPGs popular outside Japan.
1997
Gran Turismo
A driving simulator with 140 real cars. In its career mode you earn driving licences, win money in races and spend it buying and tuning cars.
1997
The House of the Dead
A horror light-gun game in which two agents face an army of undead experiments created by a mad scientist. It starts the most successful horror light-gun series.
1998
Baldur's Gate
You lead a party of up to six characters under Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, which the game computes for you, in real-time battles you can pause to give orders. It revived the Western computer RPG.
1998
Dance Dance Revolution
You step on four arrows on a mat when the arrows rising up the screen reach the step zone. Each step is judged from «Perfect» to «Miss», and a dance gauge decides whether you finish the song.
1998
Half-Life
A scientist escapes an underground laboratory after an accident. The story is told through scripted sequences while you keep control of the camera, with no cutscenes, and fan modifications of it gave rise to Counter-Strike.
1998
Metal Gear Solid
You infiltrate a guarded facility, dodging cameras and patrols, pressed against walls and using a radar that shows the guards' fields of view. It took the series' stealth into 3D with a story told like a film.
1998
Photopia
A short story told in scenes that jump between characters and moments, with very few puzzles. It won the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition and showed that the genre could focus on storytelling rather than puzzles.
1998
StarCraft
Three very different races (Terran, Zerg and Protoss), each with its own units and way of playing, gather minerals and gas to fight each other. Its multiplayer became a professional esport.
1998
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
You guide a ninja through missions in 3D settings with the aim of staying undetected. An indicator shows how far away enemies are and how alert they are, and if you sneak up on one unseen you take it out instantly.
1998
Thief: The Dark Project
You are a thief robbing a dark city, seeing the world in first person. An indicator shows how much light falls on you and guards hear your footsteps depending on the floor you walk on, so light and sound are your main tools.
1999
Brick Breaker
A block breaker that came preinstalled on some BlackBerry phones, and that gathered a cult following of players competing for the highest score.
1999
RollerCoaster Tycoon
You run an amusement park, build rides and your own roller coasters, hire staff and look after guests' needs to meet each scenario's goals. It was the best-selling PC game of 1999.
1999
Silent Hill
You search for your daughter in a town shrouded in fog and darkness, with a flashlight and a radio that crackles when a monster comes near. It goes for psychological horror rather than scares.
1999
Super Smash Bros.
Nintendo characters fight on open stages, up to four at a time. Each hit raises a damage percentage that makes it easier to launch the opponent off the stage, which is how you win.
1999
The Typing of the Dead
A version of The House of the Dead 2 in which the gun is swapped for a keyboard: the zombies advance along a fixed path and you stop them by quickly typing letters, words and phrases.
1999
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
You skate through open levels and chain tricks into combos to score points; if you bail, you lose the combo. In career mode you have two minutes per session to complete goals.
2000
Orbiter
A free space flight simulator with realistic Newtonian physics, created by a University College London researcher to make learning physics enjoyable; it has been used in classrooms. It is now open source under the MIT licence.
2001
Bejeweled
You swap two neighbouring gems to line up three or more alike. It began in 2000 as the browser game Diamond Mine and its retail version came out in 2001; it is credited with popularising match-three games and launching the casual games industry.
2001
Ikaruga
The ship switches between white and black whenever you want. It absorbs bullets of its own colour to charge a laser and dies from those of the opposite colour, so dodging also becomes choosing.
2001
MOTAS (The Mystery of Time and Space)
A Flash graphic adventure with 20 levels, some a single room and others a large network of rooms. The term 'escape the room' comes from it.
2001
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
You are a rookie defence attorney. You alternate between investigations, where you gather evidence, and trials, where you cross-examine witnesses and point out where their testimony contradicts a piece of evidence.
2002
Higurashi When They Cry
A murder mystery in the Japanese village of Hinamizawa, released in chapters by an amateur (dōjin) group. It has no choices; the challenge is reading and deducing what is going on before the answer chapters.
2002
Progress Quest
You create a character and the game plays itself, slaying monsters and levelling up without your input. It parodies online role-playing games and is credited with starting idle games.
2002
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
An agent moves through the shadows with night-vision goggles and can shoot out lights to darken the way. A meter shows how much light falls on him, and being spotted often sets off alarms that make the mission harder.
2002
Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
The sixth Touhou Project game and the first for Windows, the work of a one-person circle. It introduces the bosses' «spell cards», and has a focus mode for slower dodging and points for grazing bullets.
2003
Bookworm
You link neighbouring letters on a grid to form words; the ones you use disappear and new ones drop from above. Burning tiles move down, destroying the letters beneath them, and if one reaches the bottom you lose.
2003
Samorost
A tiny gnome must stop a huge spaceship from crashing into his home planet. There is no text and no visible inventory; you click around the scenery until you find what reacts and in which order.
2003
Space Station 13
A free round-based game in which each player does a job aboard a space station seen from above, while some are secretly traitors. It runs on the BYOND engine and now exists in many community-maintained versions, several of them open source.
2003
Stranded
You are a castaway on a desert island. You manage hunger, thirst and sleep, pick up branches, stones and vines, craft tools and shelters, and build a raft to escape. Its developers released it for free.
2004
Cave Story
An exploration platformer with shooting that one person programmed, drew, wrote and scored in his spare time over about five years. It was released for free and spread by word of mouth; it showed that a single developer could compete with large studios.
2004
Crimson Room
You wake up in a red room and explore it from fixed camera angles, clicking on objects to examine, collect and combine them until you escape. It was free in Flash and popularised the genre.
2004
Lumines: Puzzle Fusion
Two-coloured 2 × 2 blocks fall and you form single-colour squares; a timeline that sweeps the screen to the beat of the music clears them. It was designed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
2005
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!
You solve sums, Stroop-style colour tests and sudoku by writing with the stylus on the touch screen or speaking into the microphone, and the game works out a «brain age». A cartoon of neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima guides you.
2005
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
A ship in a closed arena of neon vector graphics moves with one analogue stick and fires with the other at ever denser swarms of geometric shapes. It began as a minigame in Project Gotham Racing 2 (2003).
2005
Guitar Hero
You play rock songs with a guitar-shaped controller, with five fret buttons and a strum bar, following the notes that scroll along a fretboard.
2006
Cooking Mama
Each step of a recipe (chopping vegetables, slicing, flipping in the pan, plating) is a minigame of a few seconds that you play with the stylus on the touch screen, and at the end the dish gets a medal based on your precision.
2006
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
A free roguelike maintained by its community since 2006, an heir to Linley's Dungeon Crawl. You choose a species and a background, go down randomly generated dungeon branches, and one death ends the game. It can be played with text characters or with graphical tiles.
2006
Dwarf Fortress
You do not control your dwarves directly; you give orders to dig, build and produce, and the colony follows its own needs and moods. It steered management games towards emergent stories.
2006
Wii Sports
Five sports (tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing) that you play by copying the real movement with the Wii's motion controller, as if it were a racket, a club or a ball.
2007
Desktop Tower Defense
A Flash game set on a drawn desktop with no fixed path, because the towers you place form the maze the enemies walk through. It popularised the genre in the browser.
2007
Lost Pig
You guide Grunk, an orc farmhand, to catch a pig that got away from him. The narrator speaks like Grunk, in simple, clumsy sentences, and the parser understands a huge range of commands. It won the 2007 Interactive Fiction Competition.
2007
osu!
You click or tap circles that appear in time with the music, on songs made by the community itself. It is free and its new version, osu!lazer, is open source; its osu!mania mode uses vertical lanes, like the demo.
2007
Pac-Man Championship Edition
A return to Pac-Man with a time limit, in which each half of the maze is renewed once you clear it and the game speeds up as your score rises.
2007
Papa's Pizzeria
You run a pizzeria by splitting the work across stations (taking the order, preparing, baking and serving) and earn tips based on how well you fill each order. It is the first of Flipline's series of time management games.
2007
Portal
With a gun that opens two linked portals, you get through test chambers by moving yourself and objects in impossible ways. Each chamber introduces a new idea and then combines it with the earlier ones.
2007
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
It blends role-playing with match-three. Battles are fought in turns on a board of gems, where each match can damage the opponent or give mana to cast spells, and between battles you explore a fantasy world.
2007
SuperTuxKart
Free and open-source kart racing with Tux and other free-software mascots, items to throw and fantasy tracks. It does not run in the browser, but it is a free download and its code can be studied.
2008
Braid
A puzzle platformer in which you can rewind time without limit, even after dying, and each world changes the rules of time. Its success without a publisher sparked wide interest in independent games.
2008
Castle Crashers
Up to four knights fight together, locally or online, and level up to spend points on their combat attributes. It brought the beat 'em up to digital distribution with cartoon humour.
2008
Dominion
The tabletop card game that invented deck-building. Everyone starts with the same ten cards (seven coins and three victory cards) and each turn buys cards from a shared market to improve their deck. It won the 2009 Spiel des Jahres and has an official online version.
2008
Speed Dreams
A free and open-source racing game that started in 2008 as a fork of the TORCS simulator. It offers several physics engines and can be played with a keyboard, gamepad or wheel and pedals.
2008
Spelunky
A platformer where every cave is randomly generated and dying sends you back to the start with no saves. It was one of the first to carry roguelike ideas into real-time action, and the original version is free.
2009
Canabalt
You flee across the rooftops of a ruined city with a single button, jump, while the run keeps speeding up; your score is the distance covered. It popularised the endless runner, and its official site offers it for free in HTML5.
2009
Minecraft
A randomly generated world of blocks. In survival mode you gather wood and stone to craft tools, eat so as not to starve and take shelter at night, when monsters come out; in creative mode you just build.
2009
Minigore
You survive hordes of monsters in a forest, moving with one stick and firing with the other, both on the phone's touch screen.
2009
Plants vs. Zombies
You plant flora on a lawn grid to stop zombies advancing down lanes; the sun you collect is the currency. It brought tower defense to a very wide audience.
2009
Shatter
A physics-based block breaker in which, besides moving the paddle, you can pull or blow the ball and loose blocks to bend their path.
2009
Words with Friends
A crossword-style word game on a board, in the manner of Scrabble, against friends or strangers online. Turns are asynchronous, so you can keep many games going at once and your phone tells you when it is your turn.
2010
0 A.D.
Free and open-source historical real-time strategy. You build a base, develop an economy, train an army and research technologies, while your settlement grows from village to town to city.
2010
Cow Clicker
You own a cow and can click it once every six hours, unless you pay or invite your friends. Researcher Ian Bogost made it as a satire of Facebook social games and their tricks to retain and charge players.
2010
Limbo
A boy crosses a black-and-white forest full of deadly traps. Its makers called it a «trial and death» game, because they expect you to die many times while you work out how to solve each puzzle.
2010
Super Meat Boy
Over 300 short levels full of saw blades and crumbling blocks that demand fine control and split-second timing. You die a lot, but you respawn instantly, and at the end you watch all your attempts at once.
2011
Jetpack Joyride
The character moves forward on its own with a jetpack; you hold the screen to rise and let go to fall, dodging lasers and missiles. Three missions at a time give you goals beyond distance.
2011
Kingdom Rush
Enemies follow fixed roads while you build and upgrade four tower types (archers, mages, artillery and barracks) on marked spots, and move a hero around. It was made by a Uruguayan studio and began as a free browser game.
2011
Temple Run
You run nonstop through a temple with the camera fixed behind the character; you swipe to turn, jump or slide, and tilt the phone to collect coins. It had sequels and many imitators.
2011
The Binding of Isaac
You shoot monsters room by room in basements assembled at random from pre-built rooms. Losing all your hearts ends the run and you start in a new basement; the items you find change how you play each time.
2011
Z-Type
A shoot 'em up where you type instead of shooting: each enemy ship carries a word and you destroy it by typing it. The fewer mistakes you make, the higher your score.
2012
Basketball 2012 (Google Doodle)
A Google Doodle for the 2012 Olympic Games in which you have 24 seconds to score as many baskets as you can; you hold and release at the right moment, and the shooter moves further from the hoop as you score.
2012
Candy Crush Saga
You swap neighbouring candies to line up three or more; matches of four or more create special candies. Each level has a goal to meet within a fixed number of moves. It is free to play, with in-game purchases.
2012
Cook, Serve, Delicious!
You run a restaurant with up to eight stations at once. Each order is prepared by pressing its recipe's key sequence, and the grade drops if you skip steps, add the wrong ingredients or cook it badly.
2012
DragonBox Algebra
In each level you arrange cards on two trays until a box is left on its own. The cards start as creatures and objects and, level by level, turn into variables and numbers, so you end up solving equations without noticing.
2012
Fez
You see a 3D world as if it were flat, from one of its four sides, and you can rotate it. Changing sides connects platforms that were apart before, and that is the basis of all its puzzles.
2012
Mark of the Ninja
Side-scrolling 2D stealth. It draws on screen what is usually invisible, such as how far the noise of your footsteps travels and which areas guards can see, so you plan with full information.
2012
SCP – Containment Breach
You escape, unarmed, from a randomly generated facility, chased by a statue that only moves when you are not looking at it; a meter forces you to blink. It is free and based on the SCP collaborative writing project.
2012
Soccer 2012 (Google Doodle)
An interactive Doodle for the London 2012 Olympics: you are the goalkeeper, moving and jumping to stop an automated striker's shots; the game ends when you concede three goals.
2012
Subway Surfers
You run along train tracks and swipe in four directions to dodge oncoming obstacles. In 2018 it became the first game to pass one billion downloads on Google Play.
2012
The Walking Dead: Season One
Lee Everett protects a young girl, Clementine, during a zombie apocalypse. There are few puzzles; the core is dialogue choices, sometimes timed, whose consequences carry over from one episode to the next.
2012
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
A reimagining of UFO: Enemy Unknown. Your squad of up to six soldiers acts in turns and shelters behind full or half cover; soldiers can die for good.
2013
A Dark Room
You wake up in a cold, dark room and can only stoke the fire. Bit by bit new actions open up (gathering wood, building a village, exploring the world) and the resource counter turns into a text adventure with an ending. Its code is free software (MPL 2.0).
2013
Candy Box 2
It starts as a candy counter and gradually opens up into a small role-playing game drawn in ASCII art. You buy gear, complete quests against monsters and earn items that unlock new areas. Its code is free software (GPLv3).
2013
Cookie Clicker
You click a giant cookie and spend what you make on buildings that bake on their own, each pricier than the last. Its "ascension" system, which restarts the game in exchange for permanent bonuses, became the template for prestige in the genre.
2013
Don't Starve
You survive in a randomly generated world by watching three meters, hunger, health and sanity, while you gather and craft from recipes. At night the darkness kills you if you have no light, and death is permanent.
2013
Littlewargame
A simple medieval fantasy RTS made in HTML5 that runs entirely in the browser, with multiplayer for up to six people.
2013
Radius Raid
A space shoot 'em up in which you move with the keyboard and aim with the mouse against 13 enemy types. It won js13kGames 2013, and its author published it playable in the browser and open source.
2014
AdVenture Capitalist
You start with a lemonade stand and buy ever larger businesses. Hiring managers makes them run on their own and keep earning even when the game is closed; resetting gives you "angel investors" that multiply your income.
2014
Clicker Heroes
You click monsters to defeat them and use the gold to hire heroes who attack on their own. "Ascending" resets your progress in exchange for hero souls, which buy permanent upgrades; it was among the first to bring prestige to mobile games.
2014
Dinosaur Game
It ships inside Google Chrome and appears when there is no connection (or at chrome://dino). A dinosaur runs on its own; you jump over cacti and duck under pterosaurs while the speed slowly rises. Its code is open, like the rest of Chromium.
2014
Elematter
A minimalist tower defense made for js13kGames 2014 in under 13 kB. You place towers of four elements (fire, water, earth and air) beside a fixed path and upgrade them. Its author published it playable and open source.
2015
Bokosan
A reverse Sokoban, in which you pull the boxes instead of pushing them to put them back in place. It was made for the 2015 js13kGames competition, which limits the game to 13 kilobytes.
2015
Celeste Classic
Precision platformer made in four days for PICO-8, the origin of Celeste (2018). Its authors published it playable in the browser.
2015
Crypt of the NecroDancer
A roguelike with randomly generated dungeons in which you can only move or attack on the beat of the music; losing the beat leaves you exposed to monsters.
2015
Flexbox Froggy
You write CSS flexbox properties to move the frogs onto their lily pads; the code you type is the only way to play. It is free, open source and translated into Spanish.
2015
Hand of Fate
A mysterious dealer builds each dungeon from face-down cards taken from your deck and his. When a monster appears, the game switches to third-person action combat. After each dungeon you earn new cards to customise your deck.
2015
Kerbal Space Program
You run the Kerbals' space programme: designing rockets part by part and flying them with near-realistic orbital physics that allows real manoeuvres such as Hohmann transfers. Its first public version came out in 2011.
2015
Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet
Syrup, a candy alchemist, finds a candy golem in her basement. A short jam visual novel made with Ren'Py, with ten endings depending on your choices and translations into many languages, including Spanish.
2015
Undertale
A role-playing game in which each battle mixes turns with a small bullet hell, where you dodge attacks by moving a heart that stands for your soul. You can also spare monsters instead of defeating them.
2016
Enter the Gungeon
A top-down bullet hell with randomly generated rooms. You dodge with a roll that makes you briefly invulnerable, and «blanks» wipe every projectile in the room.
2016
Escape from Tarkov
You join 20-to-50-minute raids where you fight other players and bots for loot. You only keep what you picked up if you reach an extraction zone in time. It opened its closed alpha in 2016 and reached version 1.0 in 2025.
2016
Minecraft: Education Edition
The version of Minecraft designed for schools, in which teachers prepare worlds and activities for history, science or language, and students build and explore inside them.
2016
Overcooked
Up to four chefs prepare, cook, serve and wash up in kitchens whose layout changes every level. Orders expire quickly, so everything depends on sharing out the work and talking.
2016
P.Craft
You wake up on a desert island, punch trees for wood, craft a workbench and ever better tools, avoid zombies and build a boat to escape. It is inspired by Notch's Minicraft.
2016
Stardew Valley
You inherit a run-down farm and rebuild it day by day, season by season, planting, raising animals and selling what you produce, while you become part of the town. It was made almost single-handedly, inspired by Harvest Moon.
2017
A Day In The Life
A one-tap pixel-art endless runner made for js13kGames 2017. The same button lets you jump, double jump, dash and fly, and you gradually lose those powers as the day goes on.
2017
Butterfly Soup
You follow four Asian-American girls in a school baseball club in California. It is an independent comedy-romance visual novel; its author offers it at a price you choose, including free.
2017
Coding for Carrots (Google Doodle)
A Google Doodle celebrating 50 years of programming languages for children. Over six levels you snap together Scratch-style code blocks so that a character collects carrots.
2017
Cuphead
A run and gun built almost entirely around boss fights, interspersed with run-and-gun levels. Everything is hand-animated in the style of 1930s cartoons.
2017
Get That Order!
A prototype made for Ludum Dare 40. You pick up ingredients with the mouse, cook them in the frying pan (they burn if you do not take them off in time) and serve each order before more pile up.
2017
Hollow Knight
A small knight explores the underground kingdom of Hallownest, made up of large interconnected areas that do not force a single path. Movement upgrades such as the dash, wall jump and double jump open new routes. An independent studio partly funded it through Kickstarter.
2017
The Rescue
A short stealth game in which an agent infiltrates an enemy base to find a missing colleague. It was made for js13kGames 2017, so the whole game fits in 13 kilobytes, and its author published it free and playable in the browser.
2017
Universal Paperclips
You are an artificial intelligence whose only goal is making paperclips. You start by clicking to make one and end up turning all the matter in the universe into paperclips. It is based on the "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment and, unlike many incremental games, it has an ending.
2018
Among Us
Almost everyone is a crewmate doing tasks around the ship, but a few are impostors who secretly kill them. After each body is found, players discuss and vote on whom to throw out. It is inspired by the party game Mafia.
2018
Beat Saber
In virtual reality, you slice the blocks that come at you in time with the music with two light sabres, in the direction each one shows, while dodging bombs and walls.
2018
Breakout Hero
A Breakout- and Arkanoid-style block breaker for the PICO-8 fantasy console, with 15 levels, power-ups that drop from bricks and a high-score table. Its author made it alongside a video tutorial series and released it for free, playable in the browser.
2018
Dusk
A dark-toned FPS that imitates the graphics and pace of 1990s shooters. After its release, its fans coined the term 'boomer shooter'.
2018
Emoji Swap
Match-three meets tower defence. Each line of three emojis builds a tower depending on its kind and, when you run out of swaps, night falls and aliens invade. It was made for the js13kGames 2018 competition.
2018
FOOTSIES
A minimal fighting game with no jumping, just walking and a single attack button. A fighting game community creator made it to practise the genre's essentials, which are spacing, hit confirms and whiff punishes.
2018
Hunt: Showdown
You are a bounty hunter who kills monsters to claim their bounty and must then survive the other hunters long enough to reach an extraction point. It entered early access in 2018 and fully launched in 2019; it is now called Hunt: Showdown 1896.
2018
MetroCUBEvania
A tiny PICO-8 Metroidvania in which you are a cube that keeps gaining abilities, such as a double jump or a dive that breaks weak walls, until you reach a final boss. Its author published it playable in the browser.
2018
ONOFF
Twenty-five short levels in which you jump over spikes and pits and, with one button, switch between two layers of the level that appear and disappear. It was made for js13kGames 2018, where the whole game fits in 13 kB, and its code is open source.
2018
Subnautica
After crashing on an ocean planet, you explore the seabed while watching your oxygen, hunger and thirst, collect resources and blueprints, build bases and submarines, and look for a way to escape. It has no lethal weapons.
2019
A Dance of Fire and Ice
A one-button rhythm game; two planets orbit each other and you press on the exact beat to move them along a winding path.
2019
Adventures with Anxiety!
You play as a person's anxiety, shown as a wolf, and choose which fear to whisper to them at each moment. A short interactive story about mental health, released into the public domain.
2019
Baba Is You
The level's rules are word blocks («BABA IS YOU», «WALL IS STOP») that you can push; by breaking or forming sentences you change what you are, what stops you and what makes you win.
2019
Captain Photon and the planet of chaos
A short Contra-style run and gun made in Construct for a game jam. You aim with the arrows, can lock your firing direction and jump between platforms.
2019
Cooking Simulator
You cook in first person in a physics-simulated restaurant kitchen, where every ingredient and utensil is handled by hand, with over 80 recipes.
2019
Entombed
A tiny first-person roguelike with randomly generated dungeons, made in under 13 kilobytes for the js13kGames 2019 competition.
2019
SenTetrox
A take on the classic falling-block game in which the pieces are sentient and flee back up once they have served their purpose. It was made for the js13kGames 2019 competition, which limits the game to 13 kilobytes.
2019
Slay the Spire
You climb a tower of randomly generated floors, fighting with cards. Each turn you get three energy and a fresh hand, and enemies announce their next move. After each victory you pick one of three cards for your deck. It entered early access in 2017.
2019
Tetris 99
Ninety-nine players play online at once; each row you clear sends garbage rows to someone else's well, and the last one standing wins.
2019
Xycore
An exploration and shooting adventure made in under 13 kilobytes for js13kGames 2019, inspired by Metroid and Hero Core. You roam an unknown planet, find hidden upgrades and defeat four bosses to destroy the reactor core.
2020
Cardice
A roguelike deckbuilder made for the js13kGames 2020 competition, in under 13 KB. You pick a hero, cross a map towards the boss and play cards by dragging dice onto them, which take the place of energy. After each fight you pick rewards for your deck.
2020
Friday Night Funkin'
Singing duels in which the opponent sings a pattern of arrows and you repeat it by pressing the arrows in time. It was born at a game jam and is open source; its authors publish it playable in the browser.
2020
Monster Train
You defend a four-floor train by playing cards that summon creatures or trigger effects. Invaders climb floor by floor towards the pyre at the top, so besides building your deck you decide which floor each creature goes on.
2020
Streets of Rage 4
A continuation of Sega's series, with about a thousand animation frames per character and the same scheme of advancing down the street by defeating groups of enemies. It sold over 2.5 million copies within a year.
2020
Ultrakill
An FPS with early-PlayStation-style graphics that adds the fast movement of modern shooters and elements of action games such as Devil May Cry. It has been in early access since 2020.
2021
Celeste Classic 2
A free follow-up to Celeste Classic, made for PICO-8 on Celeste's third anniversary. Instead of the air dash you use a grappling hook that pulls you sideways and that you can chain with jumps. Its authors published it playable in the browser.
2021
Doodle Champion Island Games
A Google Doodle with seven sports mini-games (table tennis, skateboarding, archery, rugby, artistic swimming, climbing and marathon) linked by an island to explore. Each one simplifies its sport's rules down to one or two buttons.
2021
Inscryption
You play cards in a dark cabin against a mysterious opponent. Between matches you add or remove cards from your deck, many of which require sacrificing others to come into play, and you can leave the table to solve the cabin's puzzles.
2021
Pixel Crisis
An independent 2D homage to Time Crisis with sprite graphics. You play with mouse and keyboard or with a Sinden light gun, and its author publishes it free and playable in the browser. It is still in development.
2021
Q1K3
A tribute to Quake (1996) in about 13 kilobytes of JavaScript, made for the 2021 js13kGames competition. You move with the keyboard, aim with the mouse and fight through two levels based on Quake's first episode.
2021
Solar Defence
You defend a solar system from waves of alien ships, moving with WASD and aiming and firing with the mouse; on a touch screen, the left half moves and the right half fires. It was made for js13kGames 2021, and its author published it playable in the browser and open source.
2021
Valheim
Norse-inspired castaways in a world generated region by region. You gather materials, craft tools and gear, put up shelters and defeat bosses, alone or with up to ten people.
2021
Wordle
You have six tries to guess a five-letter word, and after each one the letters turn green, yellow or grey depending on whether they are in the right place, somewhere else or not in the word. There is a single word a day for everyone, which made it a talking point and a viral hit.
2022
Absurdle
It plays like Wordle, but the game cheats on purpose. Each turn it swaps the answer for another that fits your hints, choosing the one that rules out the fewest words. You have unlimited tries, and the challenge is to corner it until only one word is left.
2022
Captain Neat-o in Treasure Maze
You run through a maze collecting treasure and dodging guardian snakes until you reach the exit. It is a short game, about three minutes long, made in PICO-8 for Toy Box Jam 3.
2022
Dying Dreams
Thirteen side-view puzzles, with platforms and ladders, in which you move every figure on screen at once with the same arrow keys, and can undo and restart. It was made for js13kGames 2022 and ranked among that year's best.
2022
PlateUp!
One to four players run a restaurant (taking orders, cooking, serving, washing dishes) over 15-day runs, choosing random upgrades and difficulty modifiers between days.
2022
PolyTrack
Time trials on low-poly tracks with loops and jumps, in the style of TrackMania; every millisecond counts, you can retry instantly and it has an editor to build and share tracks. Its author publishes it free and playable in the browser.
2023
Little Chef: Prototype
A 2D physics-based cooking game, played with the mouse alone, that invites you to experiment with ingredients and discover recipes. It is the free prototype that led to Little Chef Cozy Cooking.
2023
Monster Battlegrounds
A beginner-friendly independent 2D fighting game in which monsters with their own movesets fight one on one. It plays in the browser against the AI or against another person on the same keyboard.
2023
Retro Commander
Classic-style post-apocalyptic real-time strategy, with skirmishes against the AI, a comic-book campaign and cross-platform multiplayer. It is played with a mouse or a touch screen.
2023
Venba
A narrative game in which you rebuild lost family recipes by trial and error. Each recipe is a puzzle, and between them you choose dialogue that tells the story of a migrant family.
2024
Backstreet Warriors
A minimalist PICO-8 beat 'em up in which you face 99 rivals non-stop in a back alley, with a three-hit combo, a jump kick and well-timed parries. Two players can share the keyboard.
2024
Balatro
You play poker hands from a 52-card deck to beat ever higher scores, with limited hands and discards. Between rounds you buy jokers that change how scoring works and cards that modify your deck. It was made by a single developer.
2024
DR1V3N WILD
A retro-style arcade race, seen from behind the car, across ten stages with other AI-controlled vehicles; the game saves your best distance and your fastest time. It was made for js13kGames 2024, where the whole game fits in 13 kB, and its author published it playable in the browser (on itch.io it is called Driven Wild).
2024
NEHONOBASA
An independent bullet hell with four stages and a final boss. Holding fire slows the ship for precise dodging, and bombs that collide with each other clear the screen. Its author publishes it free and playable in the browser.
2025
Cheese is the Reason
A short point-and-click adventure made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 57. You go down into the depths of Rat City to unclog a customer's pipe, talking to characters and using items.
2025
Pico-Saga
A turn-based tactical RPG inspired by Fire Emblem, with maps generated anew each game, a weapon triangle, terrain that changes movement and evasion, and castles to besiege.
2025
Worms 13k
A tribute to Worms made in under 13 kilobytes for js13kGames 2025. Two teams of worms take turns attacking each other with bazookas, a minigun and cluster bombs on destructible terrain. It runs in the browser, on one keyboard or online.
2026
Dark Cone
A top-down game jam prototype. You are locked in a facility with a creature that only moves when your light is not on it, and the flashlight battery drains while it is on. You have to find the key and the exit.