ASCII Games: free text-based browser games
Play 9 free ASCII games right here in your browser: a snake, a paddle duel, a brick breaker, an alien shooter, a memory match, a tap-to-fly game, an ore-merging number puzzle, an endless runner and a lane dodger. Every sprite, wall and particle is drawn with text characters on a glowing terminal screen. These text-based browser games need no download, no account and no plugin, work with a keyboard or touch, and save your best score on your own device.
New every day: the daily ASCII challenge gives everyone the same seeded level and a shared leaderboard.
Pick a game
daily challenge
play ›One seed for everyone, one ranked try, a streak and a leaderboard.
snake
play ›████████ █ █ *
Eat food, grow, don't bite yourself.
paddle duel
play ›║ ║ ║ ● ║ ║ ║
First to 11. Beat the CPU.
brick smash
play › [==][==][==]
●
═════
Bounce the ball, clear the wall.
glyph invasion
play › W M W
│
▲
Defend the line, wave after wave.
memory
play ›[?][?][?][?] [?][A][?][?] [?][?][A][?]
Match the pairs, then match faster.
flap glyph
play › █
≫ ███
███
Tap to flap, slip through the gaps.
ore-merge
play ›[ 2][ 2][ 4] [ 4][ 8][16] [16][32][64]
Slide equal ores, double their value.
runner
play ›@ /|\ # /_\ ### ===========
One tap to jump. Don't stop running.
dodger
play ›| * | | | | # | | ▲ | |
Three lanes. Swap. Survive.
What is the ASCII Arcade?
The ASCII Arcade is a collection of short, replayable games built for the same audience as the asciify.art ASCII art generator: people who like the look of a glowing terminal. Each game takes a familiar arcade idea — steering a growing tail, returning a ball, clearing a wall of bricks, holding a line against descending aliens — and rebuilds it from text instead of sprites. Rounds last from a few seconds to a few minutes, so they work as a quick break.
How the games are rendered in text
Every object on screen is a string of monospace characters. Duel paddles are stacks of ##, bricks read [####], aliens are the letters W, M, X and K, and the runner is a single @. The games run on Phaser.js and draw those glyphs in JetBrains Mono with the same phosphor glow and CRT scanlines used across the site, so the whole arcade looks like it is playing on an old green-screen monitor.
Play on your phone
Every game in the arcade is built for touch screens too. Open a game on your phone and tap anywhere to start: the canvas fills the screen, the start prompt and controls hint switch to touch wording, and a Fullscreen button hides the browser bars on Android. Snake gets an on-screen joystick, the paddle games follow your finger, the merge puzzle reads swipes, and the runner, dodger and tap-to-fly games need nothing more than a tap. Android phones vibrate briefly on a crash, and landscape games ask you to rotate the device. To keep the arcade one tap away, add asciify.art to your home screen from the browser menu.
Controls: keyboard and touch
On a computer, the arrow keys or WASD move, SPACE starts, jumps or fires, P pauses and R restarts. On a phone or tablet the games add touch controls automatically: a joystick for snake, drag-to-move paddles, swipes for the merge puzzle and simple left or right taps for the runner, dodger and tap-to-fly games. Each game page lists its exact controls, scoring rules and strategy tips.
No install, no account
Everything runs client-side in your browser. There is nothing to download or install and no sign-up — open a page and play. Your best scores are saved in your own browser storage, so they stay on the device you played on.