About ArcadeVector

The Story of Vector

In the late 1970s, while most arcade games drew blocky sprites on raster displays, a radical alternative emerged. Vector monitors used an electron beam to trace lines directly onto phosphor-coated glass — no pixel grid, no resolution limit, just pure mathematical geometry rendered in light.

The result was unlike anything else in gaming. Lines that glowed with organic phosphor bloom. Graphics that were razor-sharp at any scale. An aesthetic that felt less like a game and more like staring into the cockpit of a spacecraft.

For a brief, brilliant window — roughly 1977 to 1985 — these machines existed in arcades alongside their raster cousins. Atari's Asteroids became one of the highest-grossing arcade games ever made. Tempest redefined what a shoot-em-up could be. Star Wars put players inside the Death Star trench. Battlezone created the first-person shooter before the genre had a name.

Then raster displays got better, cheaper, and more colorful. The vector era ended. The monitors aged, their phosphors dimmed, and one by one the cabinets went dark.

But the glow never truly faded.

Vector Timeline

Our Mission

ArcadeVector exists to preserve and celebrate the vector arcade aesthetic — not as a museum piece, but as a living, playable experience.

We build browser-playable games with authentic vector rendering: phosphor glow, line bloom, persistence trails, and the unmistakable feel of geometry drawn in light on a pure black void. We use modern web technology to honor a 1983 soul.

Every game we make respects the constraints that made vectors special: lines, not fills. Wireframes, not textures. Restraint, not excess. If a vector monitor couldn't draw it, neither will we.

Between Worlds

The Team

A small crew dedicated to keeping the phosphor alive.