Bitcycles
A modern Web tribute to the legendary Commodore 64 party game Ultimate Tron II (Oliver Stiller / Masters' Design Group, 1989).
The Nostalgia: 6 Players on 1 Keyboard
Back in the C64 era, up to 6 players crowded shoulder-to-shoulder around a single breadbin keyboard, frantically tapping keys as lightcycles turned with pixel precision.
Bitcycles brings back that raw couch-multiplayer energy! Play locally on one keyboard or join friends over the internet across laptops, desktops, and mobile phones.
Controls & Gameplay
- Keyboard: Select your turn keys (
Q/W,Y/X,B/N,K/L,<Down>/<Right>,<Numpad 2>/<3>). - Mobile / Touch: On-screen left/right directional buttons for high-speed thumb reflexes.
- Trail Kills: Score bonus points when an opponent crashes into the active tail segment (killzone) of your cycle.
- Wall Breach & Escape: Explosions blast holes in the arena perimeter — navigate through a breach to escape the arena for bonus points!
- Objective: Trap opponents with your light trail, survive simultaneous crashes, and outsmart rivals to lead the scoreboard.
Color Themes & Accessibility
Personalize your grid from the Settings menu with 12 hot-swappable color palettes across Light, Dark, and Auto system appearance:
- Zenbones Family: Forestbones (default), Zenbones, Zenburned, Tokyobones, Rosebones, Nordbones, Duckbones, and Seoulbones — adapted from mcchrish/zenbones.nvim (MIT).
- Retro Displays: Commodore 64 (authentic VIC-II chip color standard), Arcade Neon (synthwave vibes), and monochrome phosphor CRTs (Amber CRT & Green CRT).
- Accessible Contrast: All palettes are mathematically verified for WCAG 2.1 AA text contrast and Color Vision Deficiency (Deuteranopia & Protanopia) legibility.
Pure Web Tech Stack
Built with zero heavy frameworks: pure ES Modules, deterministic 40 FPS target-timestamp physics loop, binary WebSocket protocol, and an optimized HTML5 canvas delta renderer.