What this site is
Every game here was built specifically for this site. They are not embedded from a third-party portal, they are not licensed, and they are not reskins of one another. Each is a separate piece of JavaScript running on a shared combat engine, and each was designed around a different question: can you read a wind-up, can you keep a crowd in a line, can you decide which of four threats to answer first.
The written guides exist for the same reason. A game that explains its own scoring properly is more enjoyable than one that does not, and a player who understands why attacking first loses duels improves much faster than one who does not.
How the games are built
The whole site is plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with HTML5 Canvas. There is no framework, no build step in the browser, no bundler and no third-party game engine. The pages you receive are static files.
All thirty games share one engine, which handles the game loop, canvas sizing, input, the combat system, scoring, difficulty curves and personal-best storage. That shared foundation is why a light attack feels like a light attack in every game on the site, and why what you learn in one transfers to the next.
Every sound is synthesised at runtime with the Web Audio API - no audio files, nothing licensed, nothing that can autoplay. Every image is generated from geometric primitives at build time by a dependency-free Python script. There is no third-party artwork anywhere on the site.
Originality
Everything here is original. The games, the creatures, the bosses, the environments, the sound effects, the artwork and the written content were all created for Sword Arcade.
Nothing on this site references, adapts or borrows from any existing game, film, book or franchise. No copyrighted characters, sprites, logos, music, sound effects, level designs or trademarked names appear anywhere, and none of the terminology is taken from anywhere it would cause confusion.
The creature names - the Husk, the Flitter, the Platebearer, the Grinder, the Rune-speaker, the Thornball - and the boss names - the Iron Warden, the Ember Choir, the Crownless, the Shadow - were all invented here.
What we do not do
There are no accounts, no logins and no server-side storage. Your scores, favourites and preferences live in your own browser and are never transmitted anywhere.
There are no leaderboards and no global rankings, because a site with no accounts and no server storage genuinely cannot measure anyone's play. That is why the page most sites would call Popular is called Featured here: it holds an editorial selection, clearly labelled as such, plus a count of your own play stored in your own browser.
We do not publish invented statistics, fabricated reviews, made-up player counts or awards we have not received. If a number appears on this site, it is either something the games measure or something that is stated as an estimate.
Content standards
The combat here is non-graphic. Enemies break into geometric shards rather than anything else; there is no blood, no gore and no dismemberment. The intent is a site suitable for a broad audience.
Every guide is written by someone who has played the games it describes, to completion or to a genuine plateau. Where a guide gives a specific number - a parry window, a recovery duration, a scoring multiplier - that number is read from the code rather than estimated.
Where something is uncertain, the writing says so. Where a capability does not exist, the writing says that too.
How the library grows
The catalogue is built from a central data file, so adding a game means writing the game module, adding one catalogue entry and rebuilding. Everything else - the games index, the category pages, search, filtering, related-game links, the sitemap - updates automatically.
That architecture is deliberate. It means the site can scale from thirty games to several hundred without the maintenance burden growing in proportion, and it means no game can be listed without an actual playable module behind it.
New guides are added the same way, and every cross-link between a game and a guide is validated at build time. A broken internal link fails the build rather than reaching the site.
Frequently asked questions
Are the games on Sword Arcade free?
Yes. Every game is free to play, with no download, no account and no payment. There is nothing to unlock and nothing to buy.
Who makes these games?
They are built and maintained for this site by its editorial team, working under the name of the site's editor, Alex Morgan. Every game, image and sound is original work.
Do I need to install anything?
No. The games run directly in your browser using HTML5 Canvas, which every modern browser supports. Nothing is downloaded beyond the page itself.
Are my scores saved?
In your own browser, yes. There are no accounts and nothing is uploaded, which also means scores do not follow you between devices.
Is any of this based on an existing game or franchise?
No. Every game, character, creature, weapon, place and name on this site was created for it. Nothing is borrowed, adapted or licensed.
Do the games work offline?
Once a game page has loaded, yes - it runs entirely on your device with no further network access. The site does not currently install a service worker, so the page itself needs a connection to load.