Staring at the same file for two hours rarely helps. A five-minute reset does.
I kept opening random game sites between builds — lose the tab, lose the score, context-switch back into the editor with nothing to show for it. So I shipped a small arcade on the same domain as the IDE and tools: Dev Break Arcade.
Nine browser games. No accounts. No installs. Open a tab, play, come back.
Why short breaks actually help
Deep work is real — but so is tunnel vision. After a long stretch on one bug or one PR, your brain stops generating new angles. A short, intentional break (not an endless scroll) is often enough to reset attention without killing flow.
The goal isn’t “gaming as a product.” It’s a frictionless pause that still feels like yours: something you can finish in a few minutes, optionally share, then close.
That’s the bar for Dev Break Arcade.
What’s in the arcade
Nine games, all in the browser:
| Game | Vibe |
|---|---|
| Infinite Drive | Endless road; keep going |
| Neon Snake | Classic snake, neon skin |
| Flappy Commit | Flappy Bird, commit-themed |
| Bug Breaker | Breakout with a bug twist |
| Boring Chess | Chess with shareable multiplayer rooms |
| Cache Hit | Memory matching |
| Bit Merge | 2048-style merging |
| Round Trip | Pong |
| Mine Diff | Minesweeper |
Play them at https://codeground.ai/games/.
Chess rooms (challenge a teammate between PRs)
Boring Chess isn’t solo-only. You can create a room and share the link — same idea as sharing a Figma or a PR: one URL, two players.
Useful when:
- You’re waiting on CI
- You want a quick 1v1 with a teammate without installing a chess app
- You need something social that still ends in five to fifteen minutes
Rooms are the multiplayer hook today. If people use them, more can follow.
Score share (brag without an account)
On Neon Snake, Flappy Commit, and Bug Breaker, you can share a score when you beat a personal best.
No leaderboard account. No signup wall. Just a shareable moment — then back to work.
That’s intentional: the arcade should feel like a break tool, not another SaaS login.
Why it’s next to the IDE
Dev Break Arcade lives on Codeground — same family as the online IDE, language playgrounds, and free tools (epoch converter, JSON, SQL, and more).
The idea is simple: breaks belong next to the editor. You shouldn’t have to leave your developer home base just to reset for five minutes.
When you’re done playing, jump back to a tool or a playground.
Stack (brief)
For anyone curious about how it’s built:
-
Games: Vite MPA + Express (
codeground-games), Socket.IO for chess rooms - Main platform / tools: Angular Universal, split across apps behind nginx
Happy to dig into details in the comments.
Try it
Open https://codeground.ai/games/, pick a game, take five minutes.
I’d love feedback on which one you actually use as a break ritual — and whether chess rooms or score share matter more to you.
