What's new

Every change to Shardvolt, newest first. New games, fixes and features go in here on the day they ship.

25 October 2026

Squishy Cat Adventure: a free background for everyone who plays it

Squishy Cat Adventure is on Shardvolt. Its page now wears the game's own look: the site turns orange and mint, with squishy cats, little stars and a faint castle skyline drifting behind it.
Play it for 30 seconds while signed in and the Squishy Cat background is yours for free, on every page. It switches on by itself unless you already chose a background, and you can swap it any time from the items menu.
Player feedback on a game now shows the reply email a player left, so developers can answer.

24 October 2026

Games can save in the browser, and developers get double on day one

Games that keep progress in localStorage now just work. Shardvolt gives every game working browser storage, and signed-in players keep their saves between visits. Developers do not need to change anything.
Launch offer for developers: for the first 24 hours after ads go live, your share is doubled. We match what your game earns that day. It shows on your dashboard as the day-one match.
The publish page now shows the size of the file you chose, and tells you when a game saves in the browser.

24 October 2026

Pixel mode, and little pixel guys

There is a PIXEL MODE button in the bottom left corner. It turns the whole site into pixel art: a pixel font, square boxes with hard shadows, game covers shrunk to chunky pixels, and the drifting gems in the background redrawn as pixel gems. It remembers your choice.
Every so often a little pixel guy runs onto the page, stands on top of a game, points at it and runs off again.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: a Pickpocket that fights, fewer gold rooms, and a fairer Bombardier

The Pickpocket could not hit anyone standing still: its two hooks flew either side of you. It now throws three hooks with one straight at you, and it has three more moves: a fan of daggers, snares that mark the floor around you, and a lunge that takes whatever it touches. A hook still comes round every third move, so it can always steal.
The gold treasure room now turns up on about half the floors, not every one.
A Bombardier shell can only be knocked back once it is well clear of the Bombardier. Before, a shot at the muzzle bounced it straight back into its own face. And in the Bumper Court your own shots bounce off the bumpers too, and come back at you.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: six new enemies and four new bosses

Six new enemies, each with its own trick. Leeches latch on and drink until you dash them off or shoot them. Fuselings run at you and light a fuse; their blast hurts other enemies too, and goes off where they die. Menders heal everything around them, so kill them first. Lancers lock a line and fire a beam down it after a long warning. Aegis carry a shield that stops shots from the front: get round the side, or use an ability. Stalkers blink in behind you, with a purple ring to warn you, and lunge.
Four new bosses. The Burrower (floor 1) dives, comes up where you were standing after a long warning, and is stuck in the open for a moment. The Gravedigger (floor 2) is shielded by every gravestone left in the room: break them while skeletons climb out of the graves. The Trickster (floor 2) hides under one of several coloured masks and shuffles them: watch which, follow it, and shoot the right one. The Conductor (floor 3) is immune to everything except the rest at the end of his four-beat bar. Each has an evolved form for the Endless Depths: the Devourer, the Undertaker, the Grand Illusionist and the Maestro. That makes seventeen bosses before the Card Dealer.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: slower progression, harder bosses

You no longer snowball. Shots that bend toward enemies bend less, Auto-Aim lasts 6 seconds and takes 42 to recharge (the Aimbot 9 seconds), Seeker Volley takes 24 seconds, and each kill takes a little less off your cooldowns. Elites and champion rooms drop coins, bombs and hearts, with an item only now and then and an ability gem rarely. Ability gems turn up less often everywhere, and Evolution Cores are rarer: it takes four, two spare copies make one, the forge sells only one, and an evolved boss drops one every other depth.
Bosses that go immune now ask for more. A cloaked Warden, Bombardier or Tempest takes several hits of the map trick before it shows itself, and the count fades if you wait. The Pickpocket moved to floor two, has twice the health, throws faster hooks in wider fans, blinks away when you get close, and takes your coins and bombs if you have no ability. The Hydra regrows its heads sooner, the Clockmaker needs a sixth of its health to break its rewind, and all bosses have a quarter more health.
Evolved abilities say what the keys do: Q and R cast, Z and X only swap between the normal and the evolved form. The swap button is now labelled, and evolving or swapping says it on screen. The Card Dealer opens with a short briefing on how to beat him.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: you can quit, and the Test Lab counts for nothing

The pause screen now has a Quit button. In the Test Lab it says Leave the Lab and works at once. In a daily run it says Leave Daily, and in a normal run it says Abandon Run; both ask for a second tap within five seconds so a stray touch cannot throw a run away. Save and Quit is still there if you want to keep the run. The pack screen has a Back button too, so a phone can always get back to the menu.
Nothing you do in the Test Lab is counted any more: it never posts a score (so it cannot use up a challenge attempt), never ends or records a run, never touches a daily streak or your unlocks, and never saves. Leaving puts your profile back exactly as it was.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: save slots, and a fix for the phone refreshing

Voltcrawl now has three save slots. Each keeps its own unlocked packs, records and daily streak, and the run you have in progress. The run is saved by itself at the start of every floor, every few seconds while you play and whenever the page is hidden or closed, and the pause screen has Save and Quit. Choose a slot on the way in, then New Run or Continue. A saved run puts you back at the start of the room you were in, and dying deletes it. Daily runs and the Test Lab are never saved.
If Voltcrawl kept refreshing on a phone, this should stop it. Only the game canvas used to take touches, so a thumb on the black area around it scrolled the page, and a downward drag at the top of the page is the browser's pull-to-refresh. Now the whole frame is the touch surface, nothing in it can scroll or pull the page, and a signed-out player's run is kept for the visit, so even a refresh costs a room and not the run.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: evolving costs three cores, and you can swap back

Evolving is no longer free. An ability evolves for three Evolution Cores, and you choose which one: press V (or tap the cores counter) to open the evolve screen. Cores come from a spare copy of an ability you already hold (one each), the Evolution Core every evolved boss drops (the Card Dealer drops three), and the Evolution Forge, which now sells cores for coins.
You keep both forms of an evolved ability and can swap between them: Z for the Q slot, X for the R slot, or tap the small badge on the slot. Each form has its own cooldown, and the evolved form recharges 2.4 times slower, so choosing when to use it matters.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: a real soundtrack

Voltcrawl now has proper music, made live in your browser with a small synthesizer: detuned synths, plucks, pads, drums, an echo and a reverb. There is a track for the title screen, one for each of the first two floors (a dark crypt groove and a heavy electro foundry), one for the third floor and the Endless Depths that changes key and speeds up with every depth, one for the bosses, and a noir swing band of its own for the Card Dealer.
The music reacts to what is happening. A cleared room goes calm, enemies bring in the drums, a boss adds layers as it enrages (the riff at phase 2, octave arps and a choir at the final form), and the Card Dealer's band speeds up with every phase. It ducks when you pause. M still mutes it. The Test Lab has a new Music tab to play any track at any intensity.

22 October 2026

Voltcrawl: a Test Lab for everything

Press L on the Voltcrawl title screen, or tap the TEST LAB button in the corner, to open a practice mode with everything unlocked. Pick any of the 27 abilities, normal or evolved, into Q or R, then jump straight to any of the 19 kinds of room (every modifier room, the shop, the forge, the well, the shrine, the secret room, the arena and the rest), fight any of the 14 bosses, normal or evolved, on any floor from 1 to 40, spawn any enemy as a normal or elite one, and take any item.
The lab has god mode, no cooldowns, instant heals and a Kill Everything button that clears the room and pays out its reward, so you can see everything work. Press Tab or L during a lab run to open the menu again. Nothing in the lab counts: no score is sent, no pack unlocks and no stats change, and if you do die the lab just revives you.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: the Card Dealer waits at the bottom

A shady new final boss, the Card Dealer, turns up on depth 10 and every tenth depth after it. He fights in the High-Roller Room: felt tables, stacks of chips to hide behind, four slot machines that pay out a heart when you shoot them five times, and a roulette wheel that lights up half the floor, so step onto the other colour.
He plays any ability in the game as a card from his hand, and nothing you do can hurt him. Every ability you use, he catches and snaps in half, with a different line and a different move for each of the 27, and the slot stays broken.
The way through: every card he plays drops on the felt. Pick one up, then press Q or R to play his own card back at him. That hits him for an eighth of his health, stuns him and gives one of your snapped abilities back. Leave a card lying and he pockets it and heals a little. From his second phase some of the cards he leaves are jokers, which are traps.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: four new bosses, four new rooms, and gentler homing

The Pickpocket (floor 1) hooks one of your abilities and runs away with it: hurt it by a quarter of its health, or kill it, to get it back. The Hydra (floor 2) is guarded by heads that you have to kill first, and a head that was burning when it died does not grow back. The Clockmaker (floor 2) rewinds its own health unless you deal a tenth of it while the clock winds up. The Mimic (floor 3) copies every ability you use and sends it back at you a moment later. All four have evolved forms in the Endless Depths.
Four new rooms: an Evolution Forge where coins evolve one of your abilities, a Wishing Well where three coins buy three gambles, a Trial Chamber that pays well if you clear it without being hit, and a Blessing Shrine where you choose one of three blessings.
Smart Shots and Auto-Aim no longer lock on and curve hard into enemies: shots now only bend toward enemies close to their path, for a little less damage.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: eleven new kinds of room

Common: a Spring that heals you once, an Ice Rink where you slide, a Swarm Pit packed with small enemies, and from the second floor a Storm Room that keeps dropping lightning. A lone chest in an unlocked room is an Ambush: touch it and two waves close in.
Rarer, from the second floor: a Lava Floor, a Dark Room where you can barely see past your own light, a Champion Room with two elites and a guaranteed ability, item and heart, an Arena where a mini-boss guards the best chest on the floor, and a Blood Altar that sells a prize for two hearts. The dangerous ones show on the map before you walk in.
A cracked wall hides a Secret Room. A bomb next to it, or a Quake, opens it.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: evolved abilities and evolved bosses

Every one of the 27 abilities now has an evolved form with a new name, its own signature move and a cooldown a fifth shorter. You need the normal version first: pick up an ability you already hold and it evolves, and you can never find an evolved ability you do not already carry in its normal form. The Black Hole becomes Gargantua: a gargantuan well that drags in everything and then sends it to another dimension. Time Warp becomes Time Stop and stores your damage until time resumes, Lightning Storm becomes a six-second thunderstorm, Quake splits the floor into eight burning fissures, Seeker Volley's missiles split in two, the Disc becomes three orbiting chakrams, Second Wind lets a killing blow bring you back, and every other ability has a trick of its own.
From the Endless Depths on, every boss is evolved: the Arch-Warden, the Hive Queen, the Siege Engine, the Twin Suns, the Archon, the Dreadnought, the Emperor, the Cyclone and the Grand Architect. Each has a new trick, more health, and drops an Evolution Core that evolves one of your abilities.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: boss maps, and bosses that hide

Five bosses now fight on maps built to be used: the Warden's Powder Cellar of explosive barrels, the Bombardier's Bumper Court, the Juggernaut's Foundry of pillars, the Tempest's Rod Field and the Hexer's Portal Hall.
In their second phase the Warden, Bombardier, Tempest and Hexer cloak: invisible and untouchable until you use the map. Set off a barrel, bounce a shell into it, let a rod charge, or step through a portal.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: the sniper fires an explosive shell you can knock back

Snipers no longer fire an instant shot. After the aiming line they lob a slow, glowing explosive shell. Shoot it and it flies back at them and blows up on the first enemy it meets. The Reflector, shield orbs and the Repulsor knock it back too, and a bomb defuses it.

21 October 2026

Voltcrawl: bosses that get harder as you go

There are nine bosses now. New: the Bombardier, who fires shells you can deflect back at it; the Juggernaut, whose front is armoured until it charges into a wall; the Tempest, who calls lightning and wind; and the Architect, who raises pillars and fires lasers that the pillars block.
Bosses speed up and fire faster every floor, the older ones learn new attacks, and from the third floor on every boss has a final form at the very end of the fight.

18 October 2026

Games pause when you leave the tab

Voltcrawl, Redline Trials and Starlane Sprint now pause by themselves when you switch to another tab or window, so you come back to the pause screen instead of to a fight.

18 October 2026

Choose which Voltcrawl ability to replace

When both ability slots are full and you pick up another, Voltcrawl now asks which one to replace (Q, R, or leave it where it is) instead of choosing for you. In a shop you only pay once you have chosen.
The pause screen has a DROP button on each ability, so you can clear a slot yourself.

18 October 2026

New game: Starlane Sprint

Starlane Sprint is a tunnel runner: your gem runs down a tube of floating panels, round the walls and across the ceiling, over gaps and pylons, and off launch pads, collecting shards.
Twenty-five tunnels in five sectors with three-star ratings, plus an Endless Starlane that keeps getting faster. Your stars and best run are saved to your account when you are signed in.

18 October 2026

New game: Redline Trials

Redline Trials is a bike trials game with real physics: twenty-five levels in five worlds, with hills, ramps, ice, spring pads, gaps and low gravity, flips that take a second off your time, and three-star times on every level.
Your best times are saved to your account when you are signed in.

18 October 2026

Smarter bosses for Voltcrawl

Voltcrawl bosses now summon enemies, and most of them change at about half health: a gold shield, a shockwave, reinforcements and a harder second phase. When one of the Twins dies, the other goes berserk.
Two new bosses: the Broodmother, who keeps laying eggs, and the Hexer, who teleports and calls ghosts. The first floor is the Warden or the Broodmother, and the second is the Twins or the Hexer.
The ability bar moved to the bottom right so it no longer covers the door at the bottom of the room, and the boss bar now shows its name, its shield and its phase.

18 October 2026

Auto-aim is an ability, and Voltcrawl gets a pause button

Voltcrawl: auto-aim is no longer a switch you can leave on. It is now the Auto-Aim ability: use it and your ship aims and fires at the nearest enemy by itself for ten seconds, then it has to recharge. The Sentinel pack starts with it.
A pause button now sits next to the score, so you can pause with a click or a tap as well as with Esc or P.

17 October 2026

Fifteen more abilities for Voltcrawl

Voltcrawl now has twenty-six abilities. New: Frost Nova, Phase Step, Decoy, Phantoms, Tesla Coil, Inferno Ring, Quake, Death Ray, Carpet Bomb, Boomerang Disc, Repulsor, Mine Field, Wild Card, Midas Touch and Blood Siphon.
Frozen and stunned enemies stop dead, decoys really do pull enemies off you, and Wild Card fires two random abilities at once.

17 October 2026

Endless Depths and a Daily Challenge for Voltcrawl

Voltcrawl: beating the Sovereign no longer ends the run. The trapdoor leads into the Endless Depths, with bigger floors, tougher enemies, more elites and a relic after every depth boss. Your best depth is saved.
A Daily Challenge (press T on the pack screen): the same seed, the same pack and one twist for everybody each day, with your best score for the day and a streak for playing on consecutive days.

17 October 2026

Abilities, auto-aim and a new HUD for Voltcrawl

Voltcrawl: eleven abilities on Q and R (Seeker Volley, Pulse Nova, Time Warp, Reflector, Lightning Storm, Black Hole, Turret, Overdrive, Rail Beam, Meteor Strike and Second Wind), found in gold rooms, shops, elites and after the first boss.
Auto-aim (press F) fires at the nearest enemy for you, shots now lock on harder with visible lock-on rings, and there are five new items: Smart Shots, Combat Drone, Target Painter, Missile Rack and Overclock Core.
Combos: chained kills multiply your score and trim your cooldowns. Five new packs (Sentinel, Arcanist, Stormcaller, Chrono and Engineer) make fifteen in all.
A new HUD with an ability dock and cooldown dials, an item tray, a combo meter, damage numbers, a boss bar, a low-health warning and a build screen when you pause.

17 October 2026

More packs, soldiers and sound for Gem Legion and Voltcrawl

Gem Legion: four new soldiers (Medic, Frostweaver, Bomber and Warlord) from Soldier Packs, a Team screen to choose six of ten, two new Voidlings (the Popper and the Shieldbearer), free Soldier Packs for clearing stages 4 and 8, hit-stop on big moments, and sound and music.
Voltcrawl: four more starting packs (Frostweaver, Pyro, Vampire and Gambler), eight more items, coins and a shop room on floors 2 and 3, elite rooms that drop an item, two new enemies (the Ghost and the Sniper), and sound and music.
Press M in either game to turn the sound off and on.

17 October 2026

A new look for Gem Legion and Voltcrawl

Gem Legion: every soldier and every Voidling was redrawn with a face, shading and its own animation, each stage has its own sky, the crystals and cannon were rebuilt, and the buttons show your soldiers.
Voltcrawl: three themed floors with brick walls and torchlight, every creature and boss redrawn, glowing shots with trails, and a lit dungeon that darkens away from you.

17 October 2026

Packs and abilities for Gem Legion and Voltcrawl

Gem Legion: three spells (Frost Nova, Mend and Overcharge), a soldier trait for each of the first six, relic packs you can open and wear three of, a free pack for every first stage clear, and an Endless Siege after the eighth stage.
Voltcrawl: choose a starting pack before every run (five more unlock as you play), dash through shots, drop bombs, ten new items and two new enemies, the Mortar and the Splitter.

17 October 2026

Two new games: Gem Legion and Voltcrawl

Gem Legion is a lane battle: send gem soldiers to break the Voidlings' crystal, fire the Volt Cannon, and level up your army across eight stages. Your progress saves to your account.
Voltcrawl is a twin-stick dungeon crawl: three floors of locked rooms, thirteen items that change how you shoot, and a boss at the end of every floor.
Both were suggested by birb_vr_or_birb®.

17 October 2026

Longer guides for every game, and this page

Every game page now has a full written guide: the modes, the exact controls, how scoring works and how to play it well. They were checked against each game's own code.
Added Magnet Maze's guide, so every game on the site has one.
Added this What's new page and linked it from the menu and the footer.
New players now get a starter pack: 100 Shards and Level 1, a background of paper planes gliding across the page, with an Equip now button on their first visit.

15 October 2026

Gifts from Shardvolt

Shardvolt can now send you a gift of Shards or a cosmetic with a message. It shows up as a card the next time you have the site open.

11 October 2026

Nightshift gets a jumpscare, sliding doors and scarier rooms

The two doors in Nightshift now slam down like shutters, and a monster that gets in ends the night with a full-screen jumpscare.
Monsters were redrawn and every camera shows a distinct room.
On phones, the menu now scrolls on its own and the page behind it stays still, and the game page header no longer breaks on narrow screens.

5 October 2026

Written guides, an About page, and a Nightshift overhaul

Every house game now has a written guide under the player: how it works, the controls, how scoring works and how to get better at it.
Added an About page that explains who runs Shardvolt and how the site pays developers.
Playtime now only counts while someone is actually playing: a hidden or idle tab earns nothing.
Nightshift: monsters with faces, a wind-up music box, camera feeds that tear when something moves, and a jumpscare. All six nights were balanced by running a simulated player through them.
Fixed games not taking the keyboard until you clicked inside them.

4 October 2026

Rhythm Game and Deepcore arrive; Overdrive gets items

Rhythm Game is a four-lane rhythm duel with eight songs, two players on one keyboard, bots, sabotage powerups and a combo that catches fire. Its music is generated in the page.
Deepcore is an idle mining game with twelve machines, unlockable minigames, an achievements list and no ending. It saves to your account and was tuned to take hours to finish.
Overdrive, the kart racer, gained items that depend on your position, a wider road and more cars.
The navigation bar now has two rows so the search box reads as a search box.

2 October 2026

Bot difficulty, a safer sandbox and a page for school administrators

Arena, Circuit, Volley and Drop Four now let you choose how hard the computer player is: Easy, Normal or Hard.
Published games can no longer reach any website other than Shardvolt itself, so a game cannot change what it does after it has been reviewed.
Added the Content standards page and a page for school network administrators.

30 September 2026

The Comment Hall of Fame

A podium for the best viewer comments, with a bin you can throw comments into as a downvote.

27 September 2026

Shardfall, a first-person arena shooter

Shardfall is a low-poly shooter drawn by a software 3D renderer, with four hand-written waves that attack in the same pattern every run.
Fixes to mouse aiming and to the view spinning when you turned.

26 September 2026

Slipstream, and Shards for winning races

Slipstream is a circuit racer with race, time trial and elimination modes. Winning a race pays Shards.
Added twenty circuits, drifting and a bot difficulty setting.
Added the Racetrack background, and codes can now hand out a cosmetic as well as Shards.

25 September 2026

Challenge mode, redeem codes and Shards

Challenge mode: one game, one attempt per account and a score to beat, with a reward for beating it. Practice is unlimited and never counts.
Redeem codes let a video or a post hand out Shards or a cosmetic, once per account.
The site currency is now called Shards. Some rewards can only be earned, never bought.
Ricochet gained an on-screen stick for touch players.

24 September 2026

Collect the Shards, game jams and weekly challenges

Collect the Shards was added after a viewer suggested it.
Added game jams, a weekly challenge game and live site stats, and credited the house games to Shardvolt.

20 September 2026

Feedback for the site and for each game

Players can now leave feedback on the site and on any individual game.

18 September 2026

Seven languages and free publishing while ads are off

The player-facing interface was translated into seven languages.
Launch mode: developers can publish for free while ads are not running on the site.

17 September 2026

Phone-friendly play

A taller game frame on phones, fullscreen that works on iOS, and permission handling for motion sensors.

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