Do I need to download anything or sign up?

No. There is no account to make and nothing to install — all three run inside this page, and nothing pops up over the board while you are playing.

Did you build these three?

No. All three are open-source games hosted here so they are easy to find, and each keeps the play its original author built, inside a page of ours. Every one of their pages carries an About this version note naming the project and its licence. It also means the things particular to the games we wrote ourselves — the hint that explains its reasoning in plain language, the undo — are not part of these.

Do they speed up on their own while I sit there?

No. Snake and Falling Blocks quicken only in response to what you do — Snake when it eats, Falling Blocks when you clear a line — so a slow, careful game stays slow. None of the three has a countdown clock. What moves is the board, not a timer.

Is my score saved between visits?

No. Nothing about your play is kept on our servers, and there is no account for a score to be attached to. All three show a score while you play, and all three start again from zero. What does carry over is the display settings — text size, high contrast, dark — and whether you turned the sound off in Maze Chase, because your own browser holds those.

Can I play these with a keyboard only?

Almost. All three are steered with the four arrow keys on a computer. Maze Chase needs no mouse at all: N starts a game, P pauses, S is sound on or off. Falling Blocks adds the up arrow to turn a piece, the space bar to drop it and P to pause, but you have to click its Start button once to begin, and that click is also what points the keyboard at the game. Snake likewise opens with a card you click Start on.

What if this pace is not the one I want?

Then the rest of the site is the other kind of game. The puzzles and the card games have no clock in them and no way to lose, so nothing moves until you move it, and a board can sit half-finished until you come back to it. Sudoku, Mahjong and Word Search are all on that side of the line.

Free Arcade Games for Seniors

Three arcade classics: a maze with ghosts in it, falling shapes to slot together, and a snake that grows every time it eats. Each takes about a minute to learn. Unlike the puzzles elsewhere on this site, all three keep moving whether or not you do, and all three can end. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to download.

Which one should I start with?

Maze Chase: Start here. Three lives and a Pause button mean a wrong turn costs part of a round rather than all of it, and it is the one game on this page you can play entirely by tapping.
Snake: One rule and four arrow keys, opening at about three-quarters of a second a step. The gentlest of the three on a computer, though it wants a swipe on a touchscreen.
Falling Blocks: The one to reach for when you want something to work at: turning each shape to fit while it falls asks more of your hands and your eyes than the other two.

These three run on a clock of their own

Most of this site sits still and waits for you. The puzzles and the card games have no clock in them and no way to lose, so you can leave one half-finished and come back to it. These three do not work that way. The ghosts keep walking, the blocks keep falling, the snake keeps sliding, and if you stop giving them directions, something eventually goes wrong.

Each of them ends. Maze Chase ends when your three lives are gone, Falling Blocks when the stack of shapes reaches the top of the board, and Snake when it runs into its own tail — or, a long way off, when it has eaten thirty times and shows a finish card with a Play Again button on it. Then you press Start again. Losing costs nothing else: there is no countdown clock in any of the three, and no score to beat except your own. The pressure comes from the board moving, not from time running out.

Maze Chase and Falling Blocks each have a Pause button, so a round can wait while you answer the phone. Snake has none. A round of Snake is short.

What each one asks of your hands

Maze Chase is four directions and nothing else. Your runner keeps going the way you last sent it, so you tap a turn as you reach a corner rather than holding anything down. There is no button to hold and no combination to remember. You start with three lives, and the big flashing pills in the corners of the maze turn the ghosts blue for a few seconds, which is your chance to stop running away and chase them instead.

Snake is also four directions, and it is the slowest of the three to get going: about three-quarters of a second between steps at the start. It quickens after the third piece of food, and again at the sixth, tenth, fifteenth and twentieth, so the first minute is unhurried. It opens with a short How to play card. Press Start on that card to begin.

Falling Blocks asks the most, because you are doing two things to each shape: sliding it across to the gap and turning it so it fits. On a keyboard, left and right slide it, the up arrow turns it, the down arrow nudges it one row, and the space bar drops it the rest of the way. P pauses. It gets a step quicker every tenth line you clear, so the opening minutes stay slow.

On a touchscreen, only one of them has buttons to steer with

Maze Chase has four large arrow buttons below the board, with Start, Pause and Sound in a row above them, so a tablet needs nothing but taps. Falling Blocks has buttons too, but only Start and Pause, sitting above the board — nothing to steer with. Snake gives you a Start button and nothing else.

So on a touchscreen those two are worked by dragging. Snake is steered by swiping across the screen in the direction you want to go. Falling Blocks takes a sideways drag to move the shape, a downward drag to drop it, and a tap to turn it — a quick tap, since a finger held down longer than a moment does not register as a turn at all.

That is worth knowing because it is the exception here. The games we built ourselves are click-to-place, with nothing dragged; these two are not like that, and a drag the game reads as a tap will turn your piece instead of moving it. If that goes badly, Maze Chase is the one to reach for on a tablet. The other two are easier on a computer, where all three take the arrow keys.

Sound, text size, and clearing the page

Above each game is a Focus mode button. It hides the header, the menus, the panel beside the game and everything written below it, leaving the game, a small Exit bar at the top, and the text-size button in its corner. Escape, or that Exit button, brings the page back. What it gives you is a quieter screen rather than a bigger board, because each of the three draws its own board inside its own frame.

The text-size and contrast controls are in the floating button in the bottom-right corner, marked with an A. It opens a small panel with larger and smaller text, a reset, high contrast, and a dark setting. Those change the page around the game rather than the board inside it, for the same reason. They are held in your own browser, so they are still set the way you left them next time.

Maze Chase is the only one of the three that makes any sound. It has a Sound on and off button, the S key does the same, and it remembers the choice for next time. Falling Blocks and Snake are silent.

Common questions

Do I need to download anything or sign up?: No. There is no account to make and nothing to install — all three run inside this page, and nothing pops up over the board while you are playing.
Did you build these three?: No. All three are open-source games hosted here so they are easy to find, and each keeps the play its original author built, inside a page of ours. Every one of their pages carries an About this version note naming the project and its licence. It also means the things particular to the games we wrote ourselves — the hint that explains its reasoning in plain language, the undo — are not part of these.
Do they speed up on their own while I sit there?: No. Snake and Falling Blocks quicken only in response to what you do — Snake when it eats, Falling Blocks when you clear a line — so a slow, careful game stays slow. None of the three has a countdown clock. What moves is the board, not a timer.
Is my score saved between visits?: No. Nothing about your play is kept on our servers, and there is no account for a score to be attached to. All three show a score while you play, and all three start again from zero. What does carry over is the display settings — text size, high contrast, dark — and whether you turned the sound off in Maze Chase, because your own browser holds those.
Can I play these with a keyboard only?: Almost. All three are steered with the four arrow keys on a computer. Maze Chase needs no mouse at all: N starts a game, P pauses, S is sound on or off. Falling Blocks adds the up arrow to turn a piece, the space bar to drop it and P to pause, but you have to click its Start button once to begin, and that click is also what points the keyboard at the game. Snake likewise opens with a card you click Start on.
What if this pace is not the one I want?: Then the rest of the site is the other kind of game. The puzzles and the card games have no clock in them and no way to lose, so nothing moves until you move it, and a board can sit half-finished until you come back to it. Sudoku, Mahjong and Word Search are all on that side of the line.

More free games to play

Browse another kind of game — all free, no sign-up, and easy on the eyes: