ABOUT

WHAT IT IS

Daily Challenge is a daily arcade game: every day there is a new challenge, the same for everyone, with a single try per person. At midnight the day closes and the top 10 is published.

It started on 11 September 2026 and has not missed a day since. The calendar deals the games like a deck of cards: none repeats until all have come out, but the order cannot be guessed.

WHY A SINGLE TRY

Because that way a score means something. With endless tries, whoever has the most time wins; with one, whoever plays best that day wins. Before your run you can practise any game in practice mode, which doesn't count towards the challenge.

Everyone plays the same map with the same seed: the same enemies, the same pieces and the same items, in the same order. Nobody gets an easier challenge than anyone else.

HOW SCORES ARE VERIFIED

Your browser doesn't send your score: it sends the keys you pressed, tick by tick. The server replays the whole run with exactly the same game code and only accepts it if it reaches the same result. A made-up score matches no possible run, so the leaderboard cannot be faked.

Since every run is stored as a list of keys, after playing you can watch the leader's run replayed on your screen, exactly as it was played.

THE GAMES

There are 31 arcade games and 4 board games. 24 of the arcade games are in the daily rotation; the rest, and the board games, are for playing with friends in Party mode. They range from Snake, Pac-Man and Tetris to Boulder Dash, Joust and Pipe Mania. Each has its own guide with the rules, controls, scoring and a few tips.

Graphics and sound imitate the Atari 2600: a 128-colour palette and a 160x192 screen. Everything is written from scratch; Daily Challenge is a tribute to the originals and uses none of their material. The original games belong to their creators.

THE MUSIC

36 public-domain pieces play here, from Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven to Chopin, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Sousa and Scott Joplin, transcribed to chiptune with square and triangle waves. They come from public-domain scores in the Mutopia Project. There are no audio files: the music is synthesised on the fly, like on an 8-bit console, and the bass and drums change with the day's seed.

WHO MAKES IT

It is made in Mexico by an independent developer, as a product of the Ayotl studio. There are no in-game purchases and nothing to unlock: everyone plays with the same things.