₿AD ARCADE

THE GAMES YOU REMEMBER · REBUILT FOR THE BROWSER · EVERY STAGE IS A NEW GENERATION

TODAY'S BEST

BAD RACER · DAILY RACE · UTC

RANKSCORENAMEREACHED
1ST--------------
2ND--------------
3RD--------------

EVERY RUN IS REPLAYED ON THE SERVER BEFORE IT COUNTS

BALAGA · ONLINE BOARD COMING ONLINE

SELECT GAME

54 COLOURS · 8×8 TILES · 64 SPRITES

BAD RACERINSERT COIN BALAGAINSERT COIN

HOW THE LADDER WORKS

One road. Every checkpoint swaps the console under you: resolution, colours, effects and the car all step up a generation.

  1. 1987 · NES

    384×216 in the 54-colour NES palette, banded sky, a red/cyan 3-D glasses mode, an 80s wedge as a sprite.

  2. 1991 · 16-BIT

    480×270 with a Mode 7 ground, an HDMA sky gradient, three parallax layers and heat shimmer.

  3. 1995 · 32-BIT

    640×360 from a software rasteriser: flat-shaded polygons, wobbling affine textures, snapped vertices, a 90s body.

  4. 2000 · 128-BIT

    800×450 with Gouraud shading, environment-map shine on the car, the first bloom and a wet, specular road.

  5. 2006 · HD

    960×540 and WebGL takes over: a real 3-D road, HDR bloom, dynamic shadows, motion blur, a cyber wedge.

  6. 2013 · NEXT-GEN

    1280×720 with PBR materials, ambient occlusion, god rays and reflections, and a hover car on thrusters.

  7. 2026 · TODAY

    1600×900 with screen-space reflections, volumetric light, depth of field and GPU particles. The car flies.

₿ALAGA1978 → TODAY

The vertical shooter, one arcade generation per era. The fighter never changes; the machine around it does.

  1. 1978MONOa 1-bit march under cellophane bands
  2. 1981ARCADEdives, escorts, capture and rescue
  3. 1984GROUNDbombs for turrets and bunkers
  4. 199016-BITweapon pods and a multi-part boss
  5. 1997BULLET HELLpatterns, graze and chains
  6. 2001POLARITYabsorb your colour, charge a burst
  7. TODAYHDa three.js playfield, every gun at once

2000 · 128-BIT

Gouraud shading, environment maps, the first bloom. The last generation the games still draw by hand on a 2-D canvas, one triangle at a time. This torus is 480 of them, lit per vertex in plain JavaScript.

₿AD ARCADE

Two cabinets are live. Each one climbs the generations as you play.

₿AD RACER 1987 → 2026

One road through seven console generations. A daily race with a verified board, and ghosts of the runs to beat.

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₿ALAGA 1978 → TODAY

Seven generations of the vertical shooter, from a 1-bit march to a lit 3-D playfield. Same waves for everyone each day.

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EXCITE₿IKE 1984

Side-scrolling motocross. Overheat, nail the landing, build a track and share it.

COMING SOON
THE SWITCH Checkpoint 4 → 5 in ₿AD RACER: mid-race, the software rasteriser hands the road to WebGL and the picture jumps a generation.

2013 · PHYSICALLY BASED

Materials stop being colours and become metal, rough and wet. Light bounces, shadows soften, reflections show what is really there.

TODAY

PICK A CABINET

Both machines are lit by their own screens. Every era is one run away.

₿AD RACER INSERT COIN ₿ALAGA INSERT COIN