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These eight projects are CodePen demos featured by HackerNoon on May 13, 2024, rather than games implemented natively in this page. Open a demo below; if an inline preview does not respond, use its CodePen page directly. They are front-end browser projects presented as HTML, CSS and JavaScript examples, but CodePen can also load preprocessors, libraries and external assets, so inspect each Pen before assuming it is dependency-free.
Controls, mobile support and continued availability can change when a creator edits a Pen. Treat the labels below as practical study guidance, not guarantees of production readiness.
Quick comparison
| Project | Creator | Main input | Primary lesson | Difficulty (editorial) | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keyboard Hero | evilpaper | Keyboard | DOM events, state classes and timing | Beginner | Playable learning exercise |
| Menja | Caleb Miller | Not stated in the source article | Inspect current implementation | Unclear | Playable status requires checking |
| AI Chess | Jake Albaugh | Mouse or touch controls depend on the Pen | Board state and opponent logic | Advanced | AI-themed chess demo |
| Tilting Maze | Hunor Marton Borbely | Verify keyboard, pointer or motion controls | Movement and collision logic | Intermediate | Playable game |
| The Cube | Boris Šehovac | Verify controls | CSS 3D transforms and perspective | Advanced | Interactive visual experiment or game |
| Coloron | Greg Hovanesyan | Mouse or touch | Color interaction and responsive scaling | Intermediate | Playable learning exercise |
| Valorous Rabbit | Karim Maaloul | Verify keyboard or touch | Animation loops and collisions | Advanced | Runner-style game |
| CSS Crossword | Adrian Roworth | Keyboard and form input | CSS Grid and HTML validation | Beginner | CSS-focused interaction exercise |
Keyboard Hero
Play and premise
Open Keyboard Hero by evilpaper. The Pen renders a keyboard, highlights a randomly selected letter and asks you to press the matching key. Correct input clears the state and selects another key.
What to study
keyuphandling and mapping a key value to a DOM element.- Random selection, CSS state classes and visual feedback.
- Timestamp-based approximate characters-per-minute scoring.
Limits
Unexpected keys can expose assumptions if no matching element exists. A visual highlight is not sufficient for screen-reader users; add text instructions, focus treatment and non-visual feedback before treating it as an accessible typing game.
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Menja
Play and premise
The HackerNoon article credits Caleb Miller with Menja. Its current CodePen URL was not reliably resolved in the available source, so use the Menja link in the original article rather than an invented address: HackerNoon’s game list.
What to verify
Before studying or recommending it, open the live Pen and record its rendering method, controls, external assets, mobile behavior and reset flow. Because those details are not established here, classify Menja as a project requiring current inspection rather than promising a particular technique.
AI Chess
Play and premise
Open “Cheap AI Chess!” by Jake Albaugh. The project title supports calling it an AI-themed chess demo, not a strong or complete chess engine.
What to inspect
- How board state and turns are represented.
- Whether legal moves, castling, en passant, promotion, checkmate and draws are implemented.
- How the opponent chooses moves and whether search depth or difficulty is exposed.
Do not infer engine strength, complete rules coverage or deterministic behavior without reading and exercising the current code.
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Play and premise
Open Tilting Maze by Hunor Marton Borbely. It presents a maze interaction in which a ball or player must navigate walls; the exact control scheme should be confirmed in the current Pen.
What to study
- Maze representation and level generation.
- Movement, friction and collision detection.
- Completion, reset and game-state transitions.
Do not promise device-orientation support unless the Pen’s JavaScript explicitly implements it. On phones, sensor permissions, clipped playfields and missing touch fallbacks are common failure points.
The Cube
Play and premise
Open The Cube by Boris Šehovac. The name alone does not establish whether this is a conventional game, a puzzle or mainly an interactive 3D visual experiment.
What to study
- CSS transforms, perspective and 3D layering.
- How input, if present, changes cube position or camera.
- Rendering limits, overflow and performance on small or low-power devices.
Use “interactive visual demo” when the current Pen offers animation without a meaningful objective or win state.
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Coloron
Play and premise
Open COLORON GAME by Greg Hovanesyan. Its code includes click handlers for color controls plus window-resize and orientation-change handling, making it a useful example of color interaction and responsive scaling.
What to study
- Event-driven color changes and game-state updates.
- Resize and orientation handling for a changing viewport.
- Whether the Pen uses jQuery or other external dependencies; do not label it vanilla JavaScript until checked.
Color-only signals create a contrast and accessibility problem. Add shapes, text or patterns, and ensure keyboard and screen-reader feedback if you remix it.
Valorous Rabbit
Play and premise
Open “The frantic run of the valorous rabbit” by Karim Maaloul. The title suggests a runner or obstacle-avoidance experience, but confirm controls and implementation in the live Pen before documenting them.
What to study
- Character movement, jumping and obstacle collision.
- Animation loops, timing and game-over transitions.
- Whether the scene uses canvas, SVG or DOM animation, and whether touch input exists.
Check for a reliable reset, pause behavior and reduced-motion treatment before using it as a portfolio model.
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CSS Crossword
Play and premise
Open Pure CSS crossword – CSS Grid by Adrian Roworth. The board uses CSS Grid and one-character text inputs with HTML validation patterns, making it closer to a form and layout exercise than a conventional JavaScript game.
What to study
- Grid-template placement for a crossword board.
maxlength="1"inputs and regular-expression validation.- Native keyboard navigation and completion feedback.
Native inputs are more accessible than clickable generic elements, but a usable crossword still needs labelled cells, instructions and clue text. A grid without clues is not a complete puzzle experience.
Can these games really be played in the article?
There is an important distinction between a game rendered directly by a publisher, a CodePen iframe embedded on the page and a preview that sends you to CodePen. The source article promises direct links and interactive previews, but it does not document browser compatibility, accessibility, mobile behavior or fallback handling. These examples are CodePen demos linked from or embedded in the article. If an inline preview does not respond, open the corresponding CodePen page directly.
What “HTML, CSS and JavaScript” means here
CodePen provides HTML, CSS and JavaScript panels, but it also supports preprocessors, external stylesheets and scripts, npm packages through esm.sh, and optional vendor prefixing or CSS bases. Audit a Pen for jQuery, other libraries, canvas or SVG, Web Audio, third-party fonts, images and scripts before calling it dependency-free or vanilla JavaScript.
Which project should you study?
- Absolute beginner: CSS Crossword for layout and validation, or Keyboard Hero for events and DOM state.
- Responsive interaction: Coloron, with its resize and orientation code.
- Rules and state: AI Chess, while treating “AI” as a project label rather than a quality claim.
- Movement and collisions: Tilting Maze or Valorous Rabbit after confirming their current controls.
- CSS visual work: The Cube if its live Pen is primarily a 3D experiment.
- Larger game study: Menja only after its current implementation and availability are verified.
Troubleshooting a broken preview
- Open the direct CodePen URL instead of the inline frame.
- Enable JavaScript and reload in a current desktop browser.
- Click inside the preview so it receives keyboard focus.
- Use CodePen’s Debug view or full-page preview when available.
- Check for blocked third-party assets, browser extensions, insufficient iframe height or mixed-content errors.
- On mobile, test touch, viewport clipping and orientation separately; do not assume desktop keyboard controls have a touch equivalent.
- If the Pen has been deleted, made private or remains broken, mark it unavailable rather than presenting a dead demo as playable.
Remixing and portfolio use
These links identify creators but do not grant permission to copy or redistribute their code, images or audio. Read the license and asset terms on each Pen, preserve attribution when required, and describe your own changes. For a stronger portfolio piece, add responsive layouts, accessible instructions, pause and reset controls, reduced-motion support, tests and a short explanation of the game loop or state model.
CodePen is the natural place to fork and inspect these projects: open CodePen to view the separate HTML, CSS and JavaScript panels. Public demos are convenient for experimentation, but a local repository is better for version control, testing and production deployment.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
