About this alpha
Mouse and keyboard required. Press A or right-click a rival to fire a Fireball; right-click elsewhere moves. Play starts a match against computer-controlled opponents on your own device; it pauses in menus and hidden tabs, and leaving or reloading ends it. Host a room to play with friends: they join with its code or link, or from the public room list if you choose to list it. Matches are unrated and results are not saved anywhere.
A hosted room runs in the host's browser. If the host leaves, the match ends and the room returns to its lobby with another player as host. A player whose connection drops keeps their seat for 30 seconds while a computer covers it. A ~ before a CPU seat's latency marks simulated response delay, not measured network ping.
Community rules
Use an appropriate public name. Do not harass other players or use exploits to disrupt games. The host can remove a player from their room. You can mute any player's text for yourself from the player list. Profanity is masked on each player's screen; filtering is imperfect. There is no moderation service, so do not share passwords, contact details or other sensitive information in chat.
Privacy and data
There are no accounts and no game server. Your warlock name, age setting and game settings are kept in this browser's storage; a random player ID for reconnecting is kept for the current tab. Chat and match data pass between the browsers in a room and are not stored after you leave.
Players in a room connect to each other directly, so the other players in your room, in particular the host, can see your IP address, as with any peer-to-peer game. Browsers find each other through public Nostr relays run by third parties. Those relays carry the room code, the connection setup messages, which include network addresses, and public room listings (host name, mode and player count). Address discovery uses Cloudflare and Google STUN servers, which see your IP address. Game traffic itself goes directly between players.
Players under 13
Ember Arena is for players aged 7 and up. On first launch the game asks for a birth year. Players who may be under 13 play with a warlock name generated from a fixed word list instead of a typed one, and have no chat: they cannot send messages and do not see other players' messages. They can still mute another player's text.
For these players the game stores only the under-13 setting and game settings in the browser. The birth year itself is not stored or sent. A parent or guardian can remove all of it at any time by clearing this site's data in the browser.
Before a broader launch
This remains a small alpha, not a broadly promoted service. It is intended for ages 7 and up, worldwide, with the restrictions above for players under 13. The public-launch privacy policy still needs a separate legal review before broad promotion. This page describes the alpha's behavior; it is not a claim of regulatory certification.