Dev Log #1 — Building a Browser Tennis Game from Scratch
March 2026Online Tennis started as a simple question: can a browser-based tennis game actually feel fun?
I'm Defuse2k, a solo indie developer from India. After shipping Space Arcade — a browser space shooter built with Phaser 3 — I wanted to challenge myself with something different. No physics engine. No game framework. Just pure HTML5 canvas and JavaScript.
The result is Online Tennis — a fast-paced arcade tennis game playable directly in your browser, on any device, with no download required.
Why Tennis?
Most browser tennis games are either too realistic and boring, or too simple and forgettable. I wanted something in between — the simplicity of Pong but with real arcade depth: power-ups, combos, difficulty scaling, and a fast ball that demands real reactions.
Technical Stack
Unlike Space Arcade which used Phaser 3, this game is built entirely with:
- Vanilla HTML5 Canvas — no game engine, pure 2D drawing API
- JavaScript — all game logic, physics and AI
- Web Audio API — procedural sound effects without audio files
- Netlify — instant global hosting with zero configuration
Features implemented:
- 🎾 Top-down 2D perspective court with perspective-aware boundaries
- ⚡ 3 power-ups — Wide Paddle, Speed Boost, Freeze AI
- 🔥 Combo system — chain rallies for score multipliers
- 📈 Difficulty scaling — AI gets faster as your score grows
- 💥 Speed tiers — ball speed jumps every 250 score points
- ❤️ 3-life health system
- 🏆 Local high score saved to your device
- 📱 Full mobile support with touch controls
- 🖥️ Keyboard, mouse-click support on desktop
- ✨ Particle effects, ball trail, screen shake and impact rings
- 🎵 Background music with mute toggle
The Hardest Part — Mobile
Getting the game to work well on phones was by far the most time-consuming part. The main challenges were canvas scaling, touch coordinate mapping, and making sure buttons were actually tappable across different screen sizes and browsers.
The final solution uses HTML buttons overlaid on the canvas for menu interactions, and dedicated touch zones over the court during gameplay — a technique I also developed for Space Arcade.
Perspective-Aware Physics
The court background has a slight perspective angle — wider at the bottom, narrower at the top. This meant the ball's wall collision boundaries needed to be interpolated based on the ball's Y position, so the ball bounces off the court lines accurately at every depth. A small but satisfying detail.
What's Next?
- Online multiplayer (WebSocket-based)
- Global leaderboard
- More power-up types
- Tournament / challenge mode
- CrazyGames platform submission
Play now at online-tennis.io and let me know what you think!