Project - A retro arcade in the browser

Overview

This one started as a question: how much of an arcade cabinet fits in a browser tab? The answer is a hub page with two games on it, free to play, nothing to sign up for.

The first is Asteroids, built close to the 1979 original. White vector rocks on black, inertia you have to fight, rocks that split into smaller rocks, saucers that start aiming at you once you pass ten thousand points, and a hyperspace button that kills you about a third of the time. Scores go on a top ten table where you type in three letters, the way you used to.

The second is QuadRacer, a 3D kart racer around a track called Sunset Ridge. Take a corner hard enough and the back end lets go, and holding the slide charges a boost through blue, yellow and red. Five AI drivers race against you, each with their own habits, and they brake for corners rather than following you around on rails. Rain and snow change how much grip you have. On a phone you steer by tilting it. Every sound in the game is made in the browser, so there are no audio files at all.

Behind both games sits a small Express server that serves the files and keeps the high scores in a JSON file. It's a hobby arcade, so there's nothing more to it than that.

What I built