Jimmy's Arcade

A collection of chalkboard games for kids that plays like an app on phones and tablets. It installs to the home screen, works offline, and needs no account or server. Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no build step.

• Hangman:
  • Single player has four levels: Easy, Medium, Hard and Impossible ("evil hangman").
  • Multiplayer is pass-and-play: a Word Master picks the word and everyone else guesses.
• Silly Stories: fill in words without seeing the story, then reveal it and have it read aloud.
  • Play solo, or pass-and-play for 2–6 players.
  • Save favorites to reread later.
• Connect Four: play the computer at four levels, or two players on one phone.
  • Undo is unlimited on Easy, 3 per game on Medium, and off on Hard and Impossible.
• Tic-Tac-Toe: play the computer at four levels, or two players on one phone.
  • Choose X or O, and play one game, best of 3 or best of 5.
  • Impossible never loses, so tying it is the bragging right.
• Dots and Boxes: play the computer at four levels, or pass-and-play for 2–4 players.
  • Four board sizes, from Small 3×3 to Huge 6×6.
  • A game in progress is saved and resumed.
• Chalk Snake: classic Snake with power-up foods, a 2-player battle on one phone, and the daily twist.
• Pong Party: Pong with weird balls and power-ups.
  • Play the computer at four levels, or 2 players with the device flat between you.
  • 4 players on a tablet.
• Brick Bash: Breakout with 30 levels, boss monsters every 5th level, power-ups, and a level editor for the family's own levels.
• Critter Crossing: hop across roads, rivers and train tracks, in endless mode or 15 rescue missions, with four critters to pick from.
• Galaxy Defenders: a space shooter with alien waves, bosses and an upgrade card after every wave, for 1 player or 2 as a team.
• Toy Tower (in progress): a climbing platformer. Climb Bandit the raccoon's hideouts, dodge the toys he rolls down, and catch him to get your toys back. The Garage, The Toy Store and The Backyard are playable, with four power-ups.
• Shared by every game:
  • player profiles with chalk avatars
  • settings (sound, vibration, read-aloud, reset stats)
  • picture themes (Classic, Snowman, Balloons, Monster, Pumpkin, Rocket, Random)
  • a "Pass the phone to…" screen

Hosting it on GitHub Pages

1. Push this folder to a GitHub repository (for example jimmys-arcade), so index.html sits at the repository root.
2. On GitHub, open the repository's Settings → Pages.
3. Under Build and deployment, set Source to Deploy from a branch, pick main and the / (root) folder, then Save.
4. After a minute the arcade is live at https://<your-username>.github.io/jimmys-arcade/.

Any static host works the same way. It needs HTTPS for the offline mode and install to work. All paths are relative, so it also runs from a sub-folder. Free GitHub accounts can only use Pages on public repositories.

Don't put these files in a repository that sends *.woff2 or *.png through Git LFS: GitHub Pages serves LFS pointer files instead of the real fonts and icons.

Adding it to a home screen

Open the arcade's web address once while online so it can save itself for offline play.

iPhone / iPad (Safari)

1. Open the address in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button (the square with an arrow).
3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen, then Add.

Android (Chrome)

1. Open the address in Chrome.
2. Tap the ⋮ menu.
3. Tap Install app (on some phones it says Add to Home screen), then confirm.

It now opens full-screen from its icon, and it keeps working with airplane mode on.

Running it locally

Service workers need http://, so serve the folder with any static server, for example:

python -m http.server 8000

Then open http://localhost:8000.

Updating the arcade

The service worker serves everything from its cache. After changing any file, bump the version in sw.js:

const CACHE = "jimmys-arcade-v4"; // was jimmys-arcade-v3

Installed copies pick up the new version the next time they're opened online (close and reopen once more to see it).

Game files are cached automatically from games/index.js. If you add a file to the shell (shell/ or icons/), also add it to SHELL_FILES in sw.js.

Files

Path	What it is
index.html	The shell's screens: home, players, settings, who's playing, pass the phone
shell/shell.js	Home screen, players, settings, sound, dialogs, pass screen, player picker, game loading
shell/storage.js	Saved data under the jimmys-arcade: prefix, plus the one-time move of old Hangman data
shell/avatars.js	The 12 chalk player avatars
shell/themes/*.js	Picture themes, one file each, plus registry.js
shell/style.css	Chalkboard look and shared components
games/index.js	The list of games, one line each
games/hangman/	Hangman: rules (engine.js), word lists, screens (game.js) and styles
games/silly-stories/	Silly Stories: screens (game.js), story templates (stories.json), word types and ideas (words.js)
games/connect-four/	Connect Four: rules and computer players (ai.js), screens (game.js)
games/tic-tac-toe/	Tic-Tac-Toe: rules and computer players (ai.js), screens (game.js)
games/dots-and-boxes/	Dots and Boxes: rules, chain analysis and computer players (engine.js), screens (game.js)
shell/action.js, shell/action.css	Shared kit for the action games: canvas loop, pause, countdown, swipes, high scores, daily twist
games/chalk-snake/	Chalk Snake
games/pong-party/	Pong Party
games/brick-bash/	Brick Bash (levels.js holds the 30 campaign levels)
games/critter-crossing/	Critter Crossing (missions.js holds the 15 rescue missions)

Saved data

Everything is saved in the browser's localStorage under keys starting with jimmys-arcade::

• settings, players, lastPlayer, lastTheme
• hangman:stats: per-player wins and streaks
• hangman:mp: a multiplayer game in progress
• hangman:lastWords and hangman:lastSetup
• silly-stories:favorites: up to 50 saved stories
• silly-stories:stats: stories made per player
• silly-stories:recent and silly-stories:lastSetup
• connect-four:stats: for each player, wins, losses and ties against each computer level and against each other player
• connect-four:lastSetup
• tic-tac-toe:stats: same shape as Connect Four's
• tic-tac-toe:prefs: X or O and match length
• tic-tac-toe:lastSetup
• dots-and-boxes:game: the game in progress, saved after every line
• dots-and-boxes:stats: for each player, wins, losses and ties against each level on each board size, pass-and-play wins, and most boxes in one game per board size
• dots-and-boxes:prefs, dots-and-boxes:rotation (who starts next) and dots-and-boxes:lastSetup
• action:best: action-game personal bests (game → level → player)
• action:top: each action game's household top 5 for each level
• action:daily: today's daily-twist top 5 (older days are dropped)
• chalk-snake:battle: battle wins per player
• chalk-snake:prefs: arrow pad on or off for each level, plus the last battle settings
• chalk-snake:lastSetup
• pong-party:record: wins and losses against each computer level, per player
• pong-party:wins: 2- and 4-player match wins per player
• pong-party:lastSetup2 and pong-party:lastSetup4
• brick-bash:progress: the furthest campaign level each player has unlocked
• brick-bash:prefs: each player's last difficulty
• brick-bash:levels: up to 50 household levels from the editor, each with its maker and best score
• critter-crossing:missions: stars (0–3) for each rescue mission, per player
• : each player's last critter and difficulty

The first time the arcade opens on a device that had the old stand-alone Hangman, it moves that app's hm.* data over:

• settings and the game in progress carry over
• the old stats go to a new player, whom the arcade asks you to name

Adding a game

1. Create games/<name>/ with a game.js that calls Arcade.registerGame({...}):

   Arcade.registerGame({
     id: "my-game", name: "My Game", accent: "#9fd3e8",
     icon: `<circle cx="24" cy="24" r="14"/>`,      // chalk drawing in a 48×48 box; class="acc" uses the accent
     open() { /* show the game's menu (build screens into #game-root with class "screen") */ },
     tileStat(playerId) { return "Wins: 3"; },        // optional: text on the home tile
     resetStats() {}, forgetPlayer(id) {}, autoResume() { return false; }  // optional
   });
   

2. Add one line for it to games/index.js, listing its files in load order.

Games use the shell through Arcade.*:

Helper	What it does
store	Saved data
settings	Sound, vibration, read-aloud and theme settings
whoIsPlaying()	Asks who's playing a single-player game
playerPicker()	The multiplayer setup's player list
pass()	The "Pass the phone to…" screen
confirm(), toast()	In-app "Are you sure?" dialog and short messages
sfx, buzz()	Sound effects and vibration
themeView(), themeSvg(), buildThemePicker()	Picture themes

Give every game screen a Home button in the top-left corner (<button class="icon-btn" data-home aria-label="Home"></button>). Scope the game's CSS under its own class, the way .hm does for Hangman.

Adding a picture theme

Copy one of the files in shell/themes/ and change it. A theme is one object:

Arcade.registerTheme({
  id: "dragon",            // unique id
  name: "Dragon",          // shown in the picker
  accent: "#c9a0ff",       // tints the board, keys and buttons
  optional: [2, 5],        // the 2 of its 8 stages that are small optional details
  render(view, outcome) {  // SVG markup for a 240×220 picture
    // view.has(n): stage n (1..8) has happened; view.last: the stage this miss added;
    // view.core: non-optional stages so far (0..6). outcome is null, "win" or "lose".
    return `<circle class="c" cx="120" cy="110" r="${20 + view.core * 10}"/>`;
  },
  css: `/* optional keyframes; prefix class names with the theme id */`
});

Every theme has 8 stages, and each wrong guess adds exactly one:

• Easy Hangman allows 8 wrong guesses and uses all 8 stages.
• Games that allow 6 wrong guesses skip the theme's 2 optional stages.

Either way, the last allowed miss lands on the final stage, and the picture starts with nothing added.

Then add a <script src="shell/themes/dragon.js"> tag in index.html (before shell/shell.js) and the path to SHELL_FILES in sw.js.

Drawing tips:

• Chalk classes:
  • c is a chalk line, d a dim line and a an accent line; thin makes any of them thinner.
  • fc, fa and fb fill with chalk, accent or board color.
  • t is chalk text.
• Animations: make an element's normal style its final pose and animate from the start. That way people with reduced motion turned on still see the finished picture. Keep win and loss animations under 1.5 seconds.

Adding a Silly Stories template

Add an object to games/silly-stories/stories.json:

{
  "id": "museum",
  "title": "A Night at the Museum",
  "text": "Our class visited a museum full of {plural noun}. A {adjective} statue of {name of a person in the room|guide} waved at us..."
}

• {type} is a blank. The type must be one of the types in words.js, which hold each type's explanation and "Give me an idea" suggestions.
• {type|key} reuses one answer everywhere the same key appears, like a hero's name used three times.
• Aim for 6–10 words to fill in.
• "a" becomes "an" before a vowel automatically, and words at the start of a sentence are capitalized.
• Bump CACHE in sw.js so installed copies get the new story.

Connect Four computer levels

Level	How it plays
Easy	Random moves, but blocks an immediate win about half the time
Medium	Takes a win, blocks your win, otherwise plays near the center without handing you a win
Hard	Searches 5 moves ahead
Impossible	Searches as deep as it can in 0.5 seconds (usually 12–17 moves)

How Impossible gets its strength:

• Center-first move order: it looks at center moves first, so it finds good moves sooner.
• Position memory: it remembers positions it has already analysed instead of working them out again.
• Endgame threat rule: it favours positions where its "almost four" threats sit on the right rows. The player who moved first wants them on odd rows, the second player on even rows.

With the short pause before it moves, the computer always answers in under a second.

Tic-Tac-Toe rules

• You pick X or O for the first game. After that, players swap letters every game, so X always goes first and the first move alternates.
• Matches are one game, best of 3 or best of 5:
  • Ties count as games played.
  • A match ends early once the leader can't be caught.
  • If wins are level after the last game, the match is a tie.
• The computer levels:

Level	How it plays
Easy	Random moves
Medium	Wins or blocks when it can, otherwise random
Hard	Perfect play 70% of the time, random otherwise
Impossible	Perfect play (full minimax), so it never loses. Tested against every possible game.

Dots and Boxes rules

• Players take turns drawing a line between two neighbouring dots.
• Drawing the fourth side of a box claims it and gives you another turn. Two boxes with one line still gives one extra turn.
• When every box is claimed, the most boxes wins. Equal top scores is a tie.
• Who goes first rotates each new game.

Undo against the computer is unlimited on Easy, 3 per game on Medium, and off on Hard and Impossible. It goes back to before your last line.

Level	How it plays
Easy	Random lines, and takes a free box only about half the time. "Show safe moves" can mark the lines that don't give a box away.
Medium	Always takes free boxes; otherwise avoids drawing a box's third side when it can
Hard	Medium, plus when no safe lines are left it opens the smallest chain or loop
Impossible	Hard, plus chain control (details below). Stays within 350 ms per line.

Impossible's chain control:

• Endgame solver: once no safe lines are left, it works out the exact best play for any shape of chains, loops and junctions.
• Double-cross: it declines the last 2 boxes of a chain, or the last 4 of a loop, when that keeps control.
• Late safe moves: it searches the last safe lines so that you're the one who has to open the first chain.

Action games (6–10): the shared kit

shell/action.js gives every action game the same building blocks through Arcade.Action:

• createScreen({ id, cls, onRestart, onQuit, onResize }): the play screen.
  • Home sits top-left, the HUD in the middle and Pause top-right, with the canvas below.
  • The canvas is sized to the screen and kept sharp on high-resolution displays.
  • start(update, render) shows a 3-2-1 countdown, then runs update(dt) exactly 60 times per second of game time (the same speed on every device) and render(alpha) every frame.
  • The game pauses itself when the app goes to the background, with a Paused screen offering Resume, Restart and Home. Escape or P also pauses.
  • Page scrolling and zooming are blocked during play.
  • It also provides message(), burst("New best!") and showPanel(). A panel's split option rotates the top half to face a player across the table.
• swipes(element, { onSwipe, onTap }): swipe directions, re-armed during a long drag.
• scores: personal bests per player, game and level, plus a household top 5 per game and level and a separate top 5 for today's daily twist. Guests aren't saved.
• daily(): today's daily twist, worked out from the date so every device agrees. Only built action games take part: a game joins by listing twists when it registers. Its home tile shows a "Daily twist" badge through the optional badge() hook.
• chalkLine(), dust(): light chalk drawing and dust particles.

Chalk Snake

Level	Speed	Walls	Lives	Round
Easy	Slow	Wrap around	3	2 minutes
Medium	Normal	Solid	2	2 minutes
Hard	Fast	Solid	1	Until you crash
Impossible	Faster, speeding up as you grow	Solid	1	Until you crash

• Controls: swipe anywhere, or use the arrow keys. A swipe straight back into yourself is ignored.
• Arrow pad: can be switched on for each level on the level screen. It starts on for Easy.
• Foods: apples appear all the time. Every so often a special food appears for 6 seconds:

Food	Effect
Golden apple	+5 points and a 5-second slowdown
Chili pepper	5-second speed burst with double points
Ghost pepper	Pass through your own tail for 5 seconds
Scissors	Tail 3 shorter

• Battle:
  • Two players, with the phone flat between them.
  • Each player swipes on their own half, with directions from their side of the table. On a keyboard, the arrows steer one snake and WASD the other.
  • Pick a level (for speed and walls) and best of 3 or 5.
  • A head-on crash replays the round.
• Daily twists: runaway apples, a shrinking board, speedy apples, or portals. The twist plays at Medium settings with its own top 5 for the day.
• Look: the snake follows the picture theme: a pumpkin-headed snake, a snowball snake, balloon segments, and so on.

Pong Party

• Modes:
  • Vs computer: you at the bottom.
  • 2 players: the device lies flat, and each player drags anywhere on their own half.
  • 4 players: tablets only, and the button is hidden on phones. Players sit bottom, top, left and right, and each has 3 lives. A player who's out becomes a wall, and the last one in wins.
• Matches: first to 7 points.
• Controls: multi-touch, so everyone plays at once. On a keyboard, the arrows move the bottom paddle and A/D the top one.
• Computer levels: the ball speeds up level by level, and the computer gets quicker and aims better:

Level	How it plays
Easy	Slow ball, slow computer that misses about half its shots, and your paddle is longer
Medium	A fair match: the computer misses about 1 in 5
Hard	Quick ball, sharper computer
Impossible	Very fast and very good, but it still misses now and then

• Weird balls: about one point in three:
  • Splitter: splits into three on its first paddle hit.
  • Curveball: bends in an arc.
  • Speedster: 12% faster with every hit.
  • Ghost: invisible in the middle of the court.
• Power-ups: they float in the middle, and the last player to hit the ball collects them:
  • Big paddle (your own) or tiny paddles (everyone else's).
  • Shield: blocks one goal.
  • Freeze: everyone else's paddles slow down for 3 seconds.
  • Each lasts about 8 seconds, with a timer next to the paddle.
• High score: the longest rally (paddle hits in one point) against the computer, per player and level, with a household top 5. Wins and losses are kept too.
• Daily twists: two balls at once, shrinking paddles, or bumpers in the middle. The twist plays against the computer at Medium.
• Look: paddles follow the picture theme: a snowman paddle, a balloon paddle, a pumpkin paddle and so on, each outlined in its player's color.

Brick Bash

• Controls: drag anywhere to move the paddle and tap to launch the ball. The aim arrow swings from side to side, and the ball goes where it points. On a keyboard, the arrows move and space launches (and fires lasers).
• Campaign: 30 hand-made chalk pictures, from a smiley and a rocket to a castle and a dino. Each player picks any level up to the furthest one they've reached. A run carries on level after level until the balls run out, and after each level you can keep going or stop and bank your score.
• Levels of difficulty: these change the ball speed, paddle size and lives, never the bricks:

Level	Ball	Paddle	Lives
Easy	Slow	Big, with extra reach at the ends	5
Medium	Normal	Medium	3
Hard	Fast	Small	3
Impossible	Very fast	Tiny	2

• Bricks: normal (one hit), tough (2 or 3 hits, cracking as they go), explosive (clears the bricks around it and sets off other explosive bricks), steel (can't be broken and is never needed to finish a level), and power-up bricks (marked with a star).
• Power-ups, caught with the paddle:
  • multi-ball
  • wide paddle
  • lasers for 8 seconds (tap to shoot)
  • sticky paddle (catches the ball so you can aim again)
  • slow ball
  • extra life
• Bosses: levels 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 are chalk monsters built from bricks. They slide side to side and drop slow blobs to dodge. Hitting the glowing weak spot takes a chunk off the health bar, and the weak spot jumps to one of the monster's eyes (the dark dots). On Easy and Medium a blob makes the paddle slow for a moment; on Hard and Impossible it costs a life.
• Level editor: pick a brick kind and tap or drag on the grid, then name and save the level. Saved levels show under Our levels with who made it and the best score on it, for everyone in the house. Up to 50 levels can be kept. Try it plays a level before saving it.
• High score: points in one campaign run, per player and difficulty, with a household top 5.
• Daily twists: the ball grows with every hit, every brick explodes, or the whole game is upside down with the paddle at the top. The twist runs the campaign from level 1 at Medium.

Critter Crossing

• Controls: tap to hop forward, and swipe left, right or down to hop that way. Each tap or swipe is exactly one hop. On a keyboard, use the arrows (or WASD), with space to hop forward.
• Critters, picked before each run:
  • Frog: the regular hopper.
  • Chicken: swipe up for a double-long hop, sailing over the row in between. On a keyboard, Shift+Up.
  • Turtle: hops a little slower, but never slides on rainy logs and holds on when a log reaches the edge.
  • Duck: floats for 2 seconds when it lands in water, with a timer ring to show how long is left.
• Endless: grass, roads, rivers and train tracks come in random order and get faster the further you go. The score is rows hopped plus 5 for each coin. A chalk eraser creeps up from the bottom of the screen, so standing still too long gets you erased. Trains are announced by a blinking red light.
• Weather changes every 50 rows: sunny, rain (logs are slippery), fog (cars show up only when they're close) and night (only headlights and a small glow around your critter).
• Rescue missions: 15 short levels with a finish line: bring a baby critter home, collect all the stars, or deliver a letter to the mailbox. Finishing earns up to 3 stars for speed, and each mission unlocks the next. Some missions have rain, fog or night.
• Levels of difficulty:

Level	Traffic	Bumps	Lives
Easy	Slow, with wide gaps	Small bump box, longer logs	3
Medium	Normal	Normal	2
Hard	Busy	Normal	1
Impossible	Rush hour	Big bump box	1

• High score: endless points per player and level, with a household top 5. The home tile also shows the mission stars earned.
• Daily twists: backwards day (cars speed up the longer you wait), a giant critter, or always night. The twist plays endless mode at Medium.

Galaxy Defenders

• Controls: drag anywhere to steer. The ship follows the finger's movement rather than sitting under it, so small fingers don't hide it. It fires by itself. On a keyboard, use the arrows or A/D.
• Sectors: 5 waves of aliens, then a boss. Aliens fly into formation, sway side to side, drop slow shots, and break off to dive at you. Each wave adds rows and new kinds of aliens.
• Aliens:
  • Grunt: stays in formation and drops slow shots.
  • Dodger: slides sideways when a shot is lined up under it.
  • Splitter: splits into two small aliens that zip around.
  • Diver: swoops down toward your ship.
  • Shield alien: straight shots bounce off its shield. Moving while you shoot tilts your shots, and a tilted shot (or a spread or side shot) knocks the shield away.
• Upgrade cards after every wave: pick 1 of 3 (tap or click a card, or press 1, 2 or 3). They stack for the rest of the run:
  • double shot, spread shot, faster fire, piercing shots, side cannons
  • a drone buddy, a shield bubble that blocks one hit, a magnet for score gems, and an extra life (offered after about 1 wave in 5, up to 6 lives)
• Bosses: Mothership Mo, Squiddo, Star Crab, Comet King and Galaxy Brain. Each has a health bar and 2–3 attack patterns: fans of shots, aimed bursts, shot rain, spirals, laser beams (a dashed warning line comes first), charges, and calling in divers. After the fifth they come round again, tougher.
• 2 players: two ships on one screen. The first player steers on the left half, the second on the right. Each upgrade goes to both ships, and the players take turns picking. The run ends when both ships are out of lives.
• Levels of difficulty: these change alien speed, how often they shoot, your ship's bump size, boss health and lives (Easy 3, Medium 3, Hard 3, Impossible 2).
• Score: points for aliens (more in later sectors), score gems and a bonus for each boss. The furthest sector reached is recorded too, and both show on the home tile. The top 5 is for playing alone.
• Daily twists: aliens twice as fast but huge shots, surprise upgrades instead of cards, or a one-hit run with triple points. The twist plays at Medium.

Toy Tower (in progress)

Bandit the raccoon (a prankster, never mean) swiped the kids' toys and hauled them to the top of his hideouts. Climb up, dodge the toys he rolls down, and catch him: he looks sheepish, hands that level's toy back, and scampers up to the next hideout. Done so far: the hero's movement, power-ups, The Garage, The Toy Store and The Backyard. Still to come: The Box Fort, the Treehouse showdown, and the level editor.

• The Garage (Ramp Run): 3 levels (Workbench, Paint Shelves, Car Ramp) of sloped girders with ladders between them.
  • Bandit rolls bouncy balls and paint cans down the ramps. They drop off the low end onto the ramp below, sometimes take a ladder down, and end up in the toy box at the bottom.
  • Every level has a slow, safe route up the ladders and a riskier one (vines, ropes, coins next to where the toys fall).
  • Every level has a hidden gold star on a high ledge, reached with a running jump over a gap.
  • Jumping over a toy scores points.
• The Toy Store (Conveyor Chaos): 3 levels (Checkout Lanes, Toy Aisles, Stockroom) where timing matters more than climbing.
  • Conveyor belts move both ways and carry you and the toys. You can walk against a belt, just slower.
  • Lifts ride up and down between floors, pausing at each end. Some floors are only reached by lift.
  • Bandit sends wind-up robots (slow, and they run down after a while; one walking against a belt can be carried backward) and toy cars (fast; they drive off the ends of floors).
• The Backyard (Vine Swing): 3 levels (Treetop Trail, Tire Swing Hill, Big Oak) of vines, ropes, springboards and tire swings.
  • Vines: holding two side by side climbs faster; a single vine climbs slower but slides down faster. (This applies to vines everywhere.)
  • Stuffed-animal keys are scattered around (2 or 3 per level). Bandit's toy is locked in his chest at the top, which has a padlock for each missing key, so you need them all before you can catch him. Keys are kept if you lose a life.
  • Springboards launch you about 5 tiles up, enough to skip a floor.
  • Tire swings hang from branches over gaps too wide to jump. Jump into the tire to grab it, ride it, and jump off; you keep the swing's speed.
  • Yo-yos bob up and down on their strings, and Bandit rolls bouncy balls.
• Power-ups float in the levels. Grab one (you hold one at a time; it shows on the Use button), then tap Use (or press X):
  • Bubble wand: for 8 seconds, bubbles float out in front of you and pop any toy they touch.
  • Super sneakers: faster running and higher jumps for 10 seconds.
  • Shield: a bubble around you that blocks the next bonk.
  • Double jump: a second jump in mid-air, for the rest of the level.
• Hearts and checkpoints: a bonk shows the hero dizzy for a moment (never hurt) and costs a heart, and so does falling off the bottom. Losing every heart sends you back to your last checkpoint flag with full hearts while Bandit does a silly dance. There's no game over.

Level	Hearts	Toys	Checkpoints
Easy	3	Slow, thrown less often	Yes
Medium	3	Normal	Yes
Hard	2	Quicker and more often	Yes
Impossible	1	Fast and often	No

• Stars: each level has 3: catch Bandit, find the hidden star, and beat the target time. The level select shows them, and finishing a level unlocks the next.

• Score: coins, toys jumped over or popped, catching Bandit, the hidden star, and a bonus for each second under the target time. The high score (and the household top 5 for each level of difficulty) is the total of each player's best score on every level, so replaying a level to do better counts.

• Toy Shelf: the 12 stolen toys (comic book, video game, crayons, movie, trading cards, toy robot, stuffed bear, kite, soccer ball, skateboard, puzzle, race-car set), with silhouettes for the ones still missing.

• Practice: the original test level, with no Bandit, for trying out moves.

• Level files: one JSON file per hideout (games/toy-tower/garage.json, store.json, backyard.json). Each level's rows are text, one character per tile: . empty, = flat girder, > and < girders sloping down to the right and left (a run of them is one ramp), # solid block, H ladder, V vine, R rope, c coin, * hidden star, F checkpoint, T toy box, S start, B Bandit, } and { conveyor belts moving right and left, the power-ups w bubble wand, n super sneakers, h shield, j double jump, and k key, X toy chest, Z springboard, Y yo-yo. A level also sets its toy, target time, which toys Bandit throws, his pace, its lifts (column, width, the two floor heights it stops at, speed, and pause), and its tire swings (the branch's position, rope length, how far it swings, and how long a swing takes).

• Controls: a strip under the tower, so thumbs never cover the action.

  • Left thumb: one big pad. Where the thumb sits sets the direction (8 ways), so it can roll between directions without lifting.
  • Right thumb: a big Jump button and a smaller Use button (no power-ups yet).
  • Keyboard: arrows, space to jump, X to use.

• Moves:

Hangman multiplayer scoring

• A guesser gets +1 for each correct letter they guess, however many times it appears.
• The guesser who reveals the last letter gets +3 more.
• The Word Master gets +2 if the guessers run out of wrong guesses.