OpenArcade

An open source, super helpful arcade system, by E2

All the best games, 2D and 3D, in one place. Play instantly in your browser. Remix anything. Add your own game in minutes. Free forever, built by the community, kind by rule. This page is the brand archive: every logo variation, every site mockup, the colors, and a big pile of ideas, so we can come back and pick.

The player is already live: a YouTube-style page for games at openarcade-epu.pages.dev, one big player, a red Shuffle button, an Up Next sidebar, and 39 games that load right there. Its logo today is a placeholder red play badge. The logos on this page are the candidates to replace it.

Play Coral#FF5A4E

The Play button, the cabinet, the invitation. Warm, never angry.

Sun Yellow#FFC61A

Marquee lights, coins, stars. The joy colour.

Teal Cabinet#1FB6B0

The mascot's body, links, the friendly machine.

Open Green#2FA84F

Open source, free, go. Only for things that really are open and free.

Navy Ink#14213D

Text, dark mode, the night sky behind the neon.

Cream#FFF6E5

The helpful pages, paper, daytime. Where learning lives.

Neon Purple#7B2FF7

Arcade mode after dark. Parties, launches, neon rows.

Sky Blue#2EA8FF

3D worlds, water, sky. The colour of going somewhere.

The hero pick: Oppie

My pick for the mascot, from Logo sheet 2. A teal arcade cabinet who waves hello and holds up a PLAY sign. Friendly, fun, for everyone is literally written under him. He can be a favicon, a loading friend, a plush, and the face a kid trusts before they can read.

Oppie, the OpenArcade mascot cabinet holding a PLAY sign
hero-pick.webp: Oppie, the mascot. Dave, this is the one to name, keep, and put on everything fun.

The clean mark

My pick for the official logo, from Logo sheet 1. A controller opening like a door, lowercase openarcade, open source underneath. It works at 16 pixels, it works on a document, and the idea is the whole company: the controller is a door, and the door is open.

The minimal openarcade logo: a controller opening like a door
clean-mark.webp: the minimal mark. Official logo candidate number one.

Logo sheet 1: First four

Modern, pixel, minimal, and neon. Four completely different answers to the same question, so the choice is about personality, not quality.

logo-1.webp
logo-1.webp: the full sheet, 4 designs in one
Modern / Friendly
Modern / Friendly. An open cabinet, a joystick, and a glowing Play button, with E2 underneath. The safest, most app-like logo. Great for the site header.
Pixel / Retro
Pixel / Retro. Rainbow pixel letters, a joystick mascot, and a stack of cartridges. Pure arcade joy. Great for retro games, stickers, and the loading screen.
Minimal / Open Source
Minimal / Open Source. The door-controller. The smartest idea in the set, and the most ownable. Great as the official mark.
Neon Marquee
Neon Marquee. A real arcade marquee with bulbs, a rocket, and a controller. Pure night-time energy. Great for Arcade Mode and launch art.

Logo sheet 2: Badge, mascot, 3D, wordmark

The second four: a badge for honour, a mascot for love, a 3D portal for the future, and a pure wordmark for documents.

logo-2.webp
logo-2.webp: the full sheet, 4 designs in one
Badge / Free Forever
Badge / Free Forever. Winged cabinet over an open book, FREE FOREVER on the ribbon. This becomes the seal every truly free game earns.
Mascot / Oppie
Mascot / Oppie. The hero pick at full size. Chunky yellow letters, friendly, fun, for everyone. The kids and merch logo.
Isometric 3D Portal
Isometric 3D Portal. A glossy cabinet with its door open and pixel ghosts, hearts, stars and 3D cubes floating out. 2D and 3D in one image: that is the library.
Wordmark / open [ arcade
Wordmark / open [ arcade. Typography only: open in green with an open bracket, the A in arcade is a joystick, E2 in a green dot. The maker and developer logo.

Site mockups, sheet 1: Four homepages

Four ways the front door could look. They are not rivals so much as modes: Dark Hero for gamers, Light Helpful for everyone, Sidebar Player for playing, Neon for party mode.

mock-1.webp
mock-1.webp: the full sheet, 4 designs in one
01 Dark Hero
01 Dark Hero. Starry navy, OPEN ARCADE in sky blue, Find a game search, and real covers: Beach Run, Coin Dash, Super E2, Starvard Campus 3D. The gamer homepage.
02 Light Helpful
02 Light Helpful. Cream, calm, Every great game, free and open, with 2D / 3D / Racing / Cozy / Puzzle pills and the mascot waving. The everyone homepage, and my pick for the default.
03 Sidebar Player
03 Sidebar Player. Games in a sidebar, the game playing big, Play / Remix / Fork / Download, kind comments underneath. The product idea that makes OpenArcade different from every other games site.
04 Arcade Cabinet Row
04 Arcade Cabinet Row. You walk into a neon arcade and every cabinet is a game: Turbo Dash, Starvard 3D, Puzzle Pop, Beach Run. Insert Coin: Free Forever. This is Arcade Mode.

Site mockups, sheet 2: The pages inside

A homepage is a promise, these are the pages that keep it: playing a game, adding a game, playing on a phone, and walking into a 3D world of games.

mock-2.webp
mock-2.webp: the full sheet, 4 designs in one
01 Game Page
01 Game Page. Beach Run playing large, by its maker, with Play, Fullscreen, Remix this game, and See the code, plus related games. Every game page should feel this generous.
02 Add Your Game
02 Add Your Game. Add your game in 5 minutes: Upload, Describe, Playtest, Publish, with a plain-English license picker. The creator page is the growth engine.
03 Mobile
03 Mobile. Library, a platformer with a real joystick and A / B buttons, and a friends leaderboard, on phones. Phone-first, because that is where the players are.
04 3D World Hub
04 3D World Hub. Pick a world, any game, instantly: an E2 island with Racing, 3D, Cozy and 2D districts. Walk into a district, walk into a game. The dream navigation.

What OpenArcade is

Three sentences we can hold every future decision against.

🔓

Open source

Every game shows its code, its license, and its family tree. Play it, fork it, remix it, download it and keep it forever. Open is not a feature, it is the foundation.

🤝

Super helpful

It helps players find a great game in seconds, helps makers ship in minutes, and helps teachers, parents and friends share games with one link. Helpful is the personality.

đŸ•šī¸

All the best games

2D and 3D, racing and cozy, ours and yours, curated by humans who actually played them. A shelf you can trust, that grows every week.

Lots of ideas

36 ideas, grouped. Chips say what to do with each: FAVORITE is a standout, BUILD FIRST is launch scope, RULE is brand law, NEXT is the second wave, SOMEDAY is a good dream to keep written down.

Logo & Mascot

FAVORITE

Oppie, the open cabinet

Name the mascot. He is a teal arcade cabinet who waves, holds a PLAY sign, and literally has an open door. Oppie works as favicon, loading friend, Discord emoji, plush, and the face kids trust.

BUILD FIRST

One logo, three outfits

Official mark: the Minimal open-door controller (clean, works tiny). Mascot mark: Oppie (warm, works for kids and merch). Party mark: the Neon Marquee (works for launches and arcade mode). Same brand, three outfits, never mixed on one page.

RULE

The open door rule

Every version of the logo must contain something OPEN: a door ajar, an open bracket, an open book, a cabinet with its panel open. If nothing is opening, it is not OpenArcade. That one rule keeps a hundred future designs on brand.

NEXT

Free Forever badge

The winged badge from sheet 2 becomes the stamp we put on every game that is truly free and open: a seal of honour, not a sale tag. Games earn it, they do not just claim it.

NEXT

Pixel Oppie

A 16-bit pixel version of Oppie for retro games, favicons, and the loading screen. He bounces once, waves, and the game starts. Two frames of animation, infinite charm.

SOMEDAY

Logo in every game

Every OpenArcade game gets a tiny Oppie in the corner and a Powered by OpenArcade splash you can click back to the library. The library travels with the games.

The Library

BUILD FIRST

All the best games, one shelf

Launch shelf, from our own fleet first: Beach Run, Coin Dash, Super E2, Grand Tour Island, Starvard Campus 3D, E2 World, Arcade World, Bharat Yatra, the Dinesh games, Tawny Squire 3D, E2 Island 3D, plus the Your First Game starters anyone can remix.

BUILD FIRST

2D and 3D, side by side

No ghetto for either. Filters say 2D, 3D, Racing, Cozy, Puzzle, Platformer, World, 5-Minute. A kid who came for a pixel platformer discovers a 3D island on the same shelf.

RULE

Curated, not dumped

Open does not mean anything goes. Every game is played by a human, checked kind, checked working, checked it loads fast. A small shelf you trust beats a warehouse you do not.

NEXT

The Helpful Shelf

A special shelf of games that teach: typing games, maths quests, language adventures, Starvard course games. Super helpful is in the name of the mission, so the shelf is on the homepage, not buried.

RULE

One game, one honest card

Every card shows: a real screenshot, who made it, the license, how long a session is, keyboard or touch, and one kind sentence about who will love it. No fake ratings, no dark patterns.

NEXT

Dead games get fixed or shelved

A weekly check plays every game. Broken ones get a Fix bounty, not a quiet burial. The library stays alive because someone is tending it.

Play Experience

BUILD FIRST

Click, playing, 3 seconds

The whole product in one promise: from any card to actually playing in under 3 seconds, in the browser, no download, no account, no install. If a game cannot do that, we help its maker until it can.

FAVORITE

Sidebar Player

Mockup 03 is the killer layout: games in a left sidebar like videos on YouBoob, the game playing big on the right, switch games without losing your place. Built for binge-playing and for classrooms.

BUILD FIRST

Remix button on every game

Next to Play, always: Remix, Fork, See the code. Playing and making are one click apart. That is how a player becomes a maker, which is the entire E2 flywheel.

NEXT

Saves that follow you

Local saves instantly, E2 login saves in the cloud when you want it. Your Beach Run time and your island are still there on a new phone. Never forced, always offered.

RULE

Real touch controls

Every game is checked on a phone: joystick, A and B buttons, no tiny keyboard-only traps. Half the world plays on phones, so OpenArcade is phone-first, not phone-also.

SOMEDAY

Arcade Mode

A toggle that turns the whole site into mockup 04: neon, cabinets in a row, Insert Coin: Free Forever. Same library, party clothes. Kids will never turn it off. Neither will Dave.

Open Source & Creators

BUILD FIRST

Add your game in 5 minutes

Mockup 02 is the creator promise: Upload, Describe, Playtest, Publish. Drag a zip or connect a repo, pick a license (we recommend MIT, in plain English), go live. No server needed, we host the play page.

FAVORITE

Forks are celebrated

A fork is not theft here, it is the point. Every game page shows its family tree: original, remixes, improvements, with credit flowing up forever. The best remix can become the featured version, with the original maker honoured.

NEXT

Plain-English licenses

MIT, CC, public domain, explained in one kind sentence each, with a green check for truly open. Nobody should need a lawyer to share a game with kids.

BUILD FIRST

Starter kits that ship

The Your First Game starters (World 3D, Coin Dash, Space Shooter) become official OpenArcade templates: clone, change the art, change the goal, publish. A first game in an afternoon, a real one.

NEXT

Bounties for the boring parts

Ports, touch controls, thumbnails, translations, accessibility: the unglamorous work that makes a library great gets E2 bounties. Open source runs on paid kindness, not just vibes.

RULE

Download everything, forever

Every game downloadable as a simple zip, playable offline, no DRM, no phone-home. If OpenArcade ever disappeared, the games would not. Print that promise on the About page and keep it.

Community & Kindness

RULE

Kind comments only

Comments are for help, praise, and good bug reports. The prompt even says so: Tell the maker one thing you loved, one idea to try. A games library where makers actually read the comments happily is a moat.

NEXT

Maker pages

Every maker gets a page: their games, their remixes, their helpers. Follow a maker, not just a game. Sally, Dinesh, Harsh and the crew launch as the first makers, then the doors open.

NEXT

Game of the Week, by humans

Every Monday a human pick, with a paragraph about why. Not an algorithm, a person, with a name and a face. Tuesday it gets a homepage banner and a Discord bell.

SOMEDAY

Classroom mode

A teacher view: pick 10 games, get one link, no chat, no ads, works on school laptops. Super helpful means a teacher in Manila or anywhere can run game hour in two minutes.

SOMEDAY

Helpful Achievements

Achievements for helping, not just winning: First Remix, Helped a Maker, Found a Bug Kindly, Translated a Game, Taught a Friend. What a library celebrates is what it becomes.

RULE

The Open Gangplank

Anyone may submit. Curation is for kind, working, and safe, never for famous, expensive, or connected. A 12-year-old's first platformer and a pro's 3D world sit on the same shelf, with the same respect.

Names, Tags & Events

FAVORITE

Tagline: Play anything. Build everything.

The sharp one. It says library and open source in four words. Runner-ups below, this is the one for the homepage hero.

NEXT

Tagline bank

Every great game, free and open. / Insert coin: free forever. / The arcade with the doors open. / Click. Playing. That fast. / Made by anyone, played by everyone. / An arcade that helps you make the next game.

SOMEDAY

OpenArcade Day

Launch day becomes the yearly holiday: new games drop, remix winners are crowned, Oppie gets a birthday hat, everything is free (again, louder).

NEXT

Remix Week

Once a quarter: pick any game, remix it, publish by Sunday. Winners board the featured shelf. Beach Run with boats, Coin Dash in space: the library grows by play.

SOMEDAY

Merch that is mostly jokes

Oppie plush with a squeaky joystick. Insert Coin Free Forever tee. Open [ Arcade hoodie for makers. A sticker that says I forked this game, kindly. Merch is a bonus, never the business.

NEXT

Sister shelves

OpenArcade is one shelf in a bigger kind library: Starvard for courses and books, YouBoob for videos, GameBoat for the storefront voyage, E2 World to walk around in. Cross-link them all, one internet, many doors.

Taglines, ranked

1. Play anything. Build everything.
2. Every great game, free and open.
3. Insert coin: free forever.
4. The arcade with the doors open.
5. Click. Playing. That fast.
6. Made by anyone, played by everyone.

My recommendation, if you want one pick

Official logo: the Minimal door-controller (Logo sheet 1, panel 3). Mascot: Oppie (Logo sheet 2, panel 2). Homepage: Light Helpful as the default (Mockups 1, panel 2), with the Sidebar Player as the actual playing experience (Mockups 1, panel 3), Dark Hero for game pages, and the Neon Cabinet Row saved as Arcade Mode, a toggle kids will love. Tagline: Play anything. Build everything.

That combination is kind on the surface, serious underneath, and it can grow from 30 games to 3,000 without changing its face.