ABOUT RETROCENTER

RetroCenter is a love letter to the shareware disks, Flash portals, and neon-lit arcade cabinets of the late 1990s — rebuilt as a modern, local-first web application. It looks like a lost premium arcade OS from an alternate 1999, and it runs entirely in your browser.

Everything here is original

Every game on the floor is an original creation, written from scratch for RetroCenter. The mechanics are inspired by classic genres — deduction grids, falling-block puzzles, paddle action — but the titles, characters, artwork, level designs, sound effects, and music are new. There are no ROMs, no emulators, no ripped sprites, and no copied audio anywhere in this project.

Each game also adds mechanics you would not have found in its genre's classics: probability scanners, reactor heat systems, magnetic shot-curving, and more.

Local-first, private by default

Your favorites, scores, achievements, and settings live only in this browser's storage. There are no accounts, no analytics, no ads, and no tracking of any kind. The arcade is installable and keeps working offline.

Technology

Built with Astro, TypeScript (a native TypeScript 7 toolchain for the game engine), Canvas 2D, a WebGL2 post-processing pipeline, and the Web Audio API for fully procedural sound. All fonts and assets are self-hosted. See thesource repository for details.