A lo-fi retro arcade shooter in the browser tab: fight your way through a dark underground server facility, blast robot spiders and sentries with a plasma gun, and reboot the systems level by level. The whole game is about 120 KB - no install, no account, nothing uploaded.
An award-winning 13-kilobyte game: low-res 3D, synthesized soundtrack, three levels of robot-blasting. Loads instantly - then it runs entirely in this tab.
Retro Arcade Shooter
Press Play and you are dropped into a dark underground server facility rendered in chunky low-res 3D: move with WASD or the arrows, aim with the mouse, and hold click to hose plasma at the robot spiders and sentries hunting you. Reboot every system CPU in a level to open the way to the next - three levels stand between you and the way out.
The remarkable part is under the hood: the entire game - the 3D renderer, the enemies, the levels, and even the soundtrack - was written in 13 kilobytes of code for a competition where that is the hard limit. Levels are read from tiny image files, and the dark-synth music and every sound effect are synthesized live in the tab rather than downloaded. What you get on this page is the readable, unmodified source of that game, about 120 KB in total, loading instantly even on a slow connection.
Controls at a glance:
| Action | Input |
|---|---|
| Move | W A S D or arrow keys |
| Aim | Mouse |
| Shoot | Hold left click |
It plays with a keyboard and mouse - phones and tablets can load it, but there are no touch controls, so a desktop or laptop is the way to play. Health packs drop in the levels; run out of health and the level restarts by itself a few seconds later, so runs stay short and arcade-fast. Nothing is saved to your browser and the game makes no network calls after loading.
The game is Underrun by Dominic Szablewski (MIT license), with music by Andreas Loesch and the zlib-licensed Sonant-X synth; the license ships next to the game files and the full credits are in the source.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Retro Arcade Shooter do?
It is a lo-fi arcade shooter that runs entirely in the browser tab: move through a dark underground server facility with WASD or the arrows, aim with the mouse, hold click to shoot plasma at robot spiders and sentries, and reboot every CPU in a level to advance. There are three levels.
Why is it called a 13-kilobyte game?
The original game was written for a competition where the entire zipped game - engine, levels, enemies, and synthesized soundtrack - must fit in 13 KB. This page ships the readable, unmodified source of that game, which totals about 120 KB with its level images, still small enough to load instantly.
Does it work on a phone?
No - the game needs a keyboard to move and a mouse to aim and shoot, and it has no touch controls. On a phone or tablet the page and the game load, but you cannot play; use a desktop or laptop.
Is anything saved in my browser?
No. There are no saves, scores, or accounts - each session starts at the first level, and if you run out of health the current level restarts. The game also makes no network calls after its one-time load, and the music and sound effects are synthesized on your device rather than downloaded.