Claude Code Arcade: A Mod Collection That Turns Your Work Into Games
Overview
Claude Code got mods in October 2026: plugins that run inside Claude Code, draw in the terminal and react to every tool Claude runs. I spend most of my day in Claude Code, so the first thing I wanted was something alive in that window that noticed when real work got done.
The Arcade is a set of small games in one mod, in the band above the prompt. Your session plays them: a finished turn, a commit, a sent email or a PDF made is what moves the game on. Each new terminal shows one game, picked by a setting you choose. Most of them never ask you to do anything; the newest one, Bug Command, also lets you join in with the mouse while you wait.
Small, medium and big moments
The Arcade spots the moments worth celebrating once and hands each one to every game. Small: a turn done, a file saved. Medium: a commit, a push, a pull request, passing tests, a skill run, a finished subagent, an approved plan, a message or calendar invite sent. Big: a merge, a release, a production deploy, tests back to green after failing, a PDF or a deck made, a page published, a task list finished, three days in a row.
Most of these are not about code on purpose. Someone who uses Claude Code to write reports, plan work or answer email still sees the dragon breathe fire. Your own important skills or commands can be set as big moments in the Arcade's settings.
The games
Bug Command is the eighth game and the first one you can play along with. Six cities and three silos sit along the bottom of the terminal, and bugs fall on them while Claude works. Every finished tool call fires a counter missile from the nearest silo and most of them hit, a failed tool drops a fast bug, a commit is a sure hit, and a big moment such as the tests going green again fires a salvo that clears the sky and rebuilds a fallen city. A bug that gets through ruins its city, and when the last one falls it is THE END and new cities go up.
While you wait you can join in: click anywhere in the sky and the nearest silo fires there. After a click the sky has the keyboard, so the arrows move a crosshair, space fires, and 1, 2 and 3 pick the silo; Esc hands the keyboard back to the prompt. The score keeps the bugs you shot down by hand apart from Claude's. The other games only draw pictures, but Bug Command's sky is a Client, a part of the band that runs its own small module, which is what lets it take clicks and keys. /arcade bugs shows it in the current terminal.
Dario is the ninth game, a side scroller the full width of the terminal. Dario runs while Claude works, jumping the pipes on his way, and sits down for a nap after two quiet minutes. Every finished tool call brings a ? block that he bumps for a coin, and every hundred coins is a 1UP. A failed tool sends a bug walking in that knocks into him, a commit or another medium moment stomps a bug flat, and a big moment such as the tests going green again brings a flag pole: he slides down it for a COURSE CLEAR and the next course, from 1-1 to 1-2. A merge, release or deploy is a WORLD CLEAR with fireworks. Like most of the games it plays itself; /arcade dario shows it in the current terminal.
Block Town is the tenth game, a town in blocks seen from the side, the full width of the terminal, and it grows with the work the way the octopus's city falls. Every tool call lays two or three blocks on the building going up, a house, a farm, a well, a tower or a hall, with the main agent's villager on the site; each subagent sends a helper villager of its own colour. Animals move in as the town earns them, a sheep and a pig for every farm, a chicken for every house and a cow for every hall, and they wander and graze between the buildings and run from creepers. A failed tool brings a creeper that blows a hole in a building, and the villagers rebuild it first. Small moments plant trees that grow as the work goes on, a commit finishes the building going up, a big moment raises a third of the castle and a merge, release or deploy builds the whole castle with fireworks. The town is kept, so a glance halfway through a long session shows how much got done: it grows from Camp to Hamlet, Village, Town and City.
Since version 0.8.0 every game keeps its score per project: each repository you work in has its own town, its own Tetris score and its own Tamagotchi, and every worktree of a repository shares them. Two terminals in one repository add to the same score instead of overwriting it, and nothing is written into the project itself. Every game has a reset that asks first, for example /town reset and then /town reset yes, and /arcade reset starts every game in the project over. Typing a game's command on its own, such as /dario, lists every move it can preview.
Octo Invader is a pixel octopus in a city that runs the full width of the terminal. It hovers over the rooftops while Claude thinks, walks the streets while a file is read, and pounds the nearest building down a storey at a time while Claude edits or runs a command. A medium moment snatches a plane out of the sky, a big one is a rampage through the streets, and a merge or a deploy ends with a flag on the rubble. Every subagent is a baby octopus swimming behind it.
Duck Hunt is the seventh game, the full width of the terminal: a marsh where a dog sniffs through the grass while Claude works and now and then flushes a duck. A medium moment shoots it down and the dog pops up holding it, a big one is a double, and a merge, release or deploy is a perfect round. When a tool fails the duck flies away and the dog laughs.
dragon-lair is a one colour pixel dragon in the terminal's own ink. It hops when you send a message, bends over the page while Claude reads, paces while it edits, flies while it fetches from the web and falls asleep after two quiet minutes. Medium moments make it breathe fire, big ones make it roar, and every subagent hatches a little dragon that flies home when its work is done.
jackpot is a slot machine. Every finished turn pulls the lever, medium and big moments queue golden spins with better odds and double pay, and five clean turns in a row raise the multiplier until a tool error resets it.
outlaw is a tribute to Atari's Outlaw from 1978. Your gunslinger fires on a medium moment, three times on a big one, and the bug fires back when a tool fails. Missed shots chip the cactus between them, pixel by pixel.
tama is a classic Tamagotchi that lives in real time, even with Claude Code closed. Finished turns feed it, commits and other wins cheer it up, failed tools leave a mess. It hatches, grows up into a different adult depending on how it was cared for, and if it goes hungry for too long it packs its bags and leaves an egg behind.
tetris is a small handheld style well. Every tool Claude runs drops a piece, a failed tool pushes up a garbage row, and medium and big moments clear rows. The next piece is never shown.
Choosing the game
Every new terminal picks its game from a setting: random (the default), rotate through them in turn, always the same one, all of them at once, or off. /arcade shows the setting, /arcade tetris swaps this terminal to Tetris, /arcade tetris all pins it for every terminal, /arcade pool dragon tetris limits the choice, /arcade next swaps the current terminal only and /arcade hide clears it. The setting lives in Claude Code's own settings, so two Claude Code accounts on one machine can each show a different game.
Install
The Arcade is one plugin with all the games. Every game is one colour or its own small palette, sends nothing anywhere and has no telemetry. Mods need Claude Code 2.1.287 or later.
/plugin marketplace add mutlumehmet/claude-plugins
/plugin install arcade@mehmetmutlu
# then pick your game
/arcade bugsSource code, README and issues on GitHub: https://github.com/mutlumehmet/claude-plugins/tree/main/plugins/arcade