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Arkanews

Today's news, stacked into a wall of bricks.
Break it headline by headline.

▶ Play arkanews

What it is

01

Arkanews is an online browser game that plays the classic retro Arkanoid formula with a twist: the wall you are breaking is made of the news. When you start a game, it reads the live RSS feed of the outlet you picked and turns each of today's headlines into a brick.

So the wall is never the same twice. Play it in the morning and again at night and you are breaking two different front pages. A busy news day gives you a dense, colourful wall; a quiet one leaves you a short game.

The bricks are not decoration. Every one of them still points at the story it came from, so a headline that catches your eye is one click away from the full article on the publisher's own site. That is the whole idea: a way of skimming the news that feels like an arcade cabinet instead of a feed.

How to play

02

Move the paddle with the mouse or by sliding your finger, and keep the ball alive. You start with three lives; when you lose the ball, a button appears to launch the next one.

  • Break a brick with the ball: 300 points, and that headline is gone.
  • Click or tap a headline: the original article opens in a new tab. When you come back to the game, that brick is cleared and you get 1,000 points.
  • Clear the whole wall: 3,000 points.

Reading is worth more than smashing, which is deliberate: the game rewards you for being curious about a headline, not just for hitting it. There are two ball speeds, Normal and Fast, and a sound toggle in the corner if you would rather play quietly.

Screens

03
An Arkanews game in progress: BBC headlines rendered as coloured bricks, with the ball and the cyan paddle below.
A wall built from today's BBC headlines
The Arkanews start screen, with the language selector and buttons to choose a news source such as BBC, Al Jazeera or SCMP.
Pick the newspaper you want to play with

News sources

04

Ten outlets are ready to play out of the box, covering world news, business, technology and entertainment:

  • BBC
  • Al Jazeera
  • SCMP
  • Times of India
  • Reuters
  • El País
  • TechCrunch
  • Ars Technica
  • Futurism
  • TV Insider

That list is only a starting point. The game has a website editor: write one line per source in the form Name - URL with any RSS feed, and it becomes a new button on the start screen. Your local paper, a niche blog, a sports site, a feed in your own language — anything that publishes RSS works.

Your list lives in your own browser, so the game remembers it next time without asking you for an account.

Questions

05
Is Arkanews free?
Yes. No accounts, no sign-up, nothing to install. It runs in your browser.
Where do the headlines come from?
From the public RSS feeds of the sites you pick, read live when you start a game. Every brick links back to the original article on the publisher's own site.
Can I play with my own news sites?
Yes. Open the website editor on the game screen and add any RSS feed as Name - URL. Your list is stored in your browser, so the game keeps it for next time.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Slide your finger to move the paddle and tap a headline to open its article.
What languages is Arkanews available in?
The interface is in English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi. The headlines are always in the language of the source you choose.
Do I need to read the articles to play?
No, you can treat it as a pure arcade game. But reading pays better: 300 points for breaking a brick, 1,000 for opening its story.

Ready to break the news?

▶ Play arkanews