Big Run Studios, the independent game developer behind Blackout Bingo, today launched Crash Arcade, a browser-first destination for arcade, puzzle and strategy games designed to make discovering and playing something new as easy as opening a link.
Crash Arcade marks a new chapter for Big Run Studios. After years building short-session competitive mobile games, the studio is applying what it learned about accessible, skill-driven play to a broader collection of games that can be played instantly across phones, tablets and computers without downloading a separate app for every experience.
Launching with 32 games and targeting a new game release every week, Crash Arcade gives Big Run a faster way to put new ideas in front of players, experiment across different genres and use direct player feedback to help inform what it develops next. Since 2019, Big Run’s games have had more than 20 million downloads.
“We’ve spent years learning what makes a game easy to pick up, rewarding to master and worth coming back to,” said Andrew Bell, CEO of Big Run Studios. “Crash Arcade gives us a completely different canvas for applying what we’ve learned. We can get new games in front of players faster, remove the friction of downloading another app, and learn directly from what people actually want to play. We’re not trying to predict the next hit behind closed doors – we want to build it alongside our audience.”
That player feedback is built directly into Crash Arcade. Players can vote on game concepts they want Big Run to develop, creating a direct feedback loop between the studio and its community as Big Run tests ideas and expands the arcade.
“Crash Arcade is a collection of everything from the expertise of our team around short session games that have depth of skill that can bring people back over and over again, but also the tech stack we had built — our entire free-to-play backend as well as our full full stack — and then obviously with modern tooling,” he said.
The team also focused on learnings around speed to market, and the result was Crash Arcade, which is a collection of web games. Bell’s kids play a lot of these web games.
“We’ve got everything from leagues and mastery and different things that we’re all familiar with, but then what all brings it together is our 16-player crash pad, where you can get together with your friends and family, hang out, and just have safe chat or play against one another in any one of our games, as well as fully customize your avatar and the room itself,” Bell said.
He added, “It’s kind of bringing expression, customization and social as the next layer for a variety of games,” he said. “I think about like my son and daughter. What I want is for them to be able to play games that they love, but still hang out in the same room. That’s the ’90s basement experience that we had when we were growing up. I want them to be able to have too.”
Crash Arcade currently features arcade, puzzle and strategy games, with Big Run targeting new releases weekly. Players move between games using a single profile, carry rewards across the arcade and customize their own Crash Pad. Many of the games are built around simple risk-and-reward decisions: bank a score or keep pushing, knowing the next move could improve the run or end it.
Crash Arcade features include:
● A growing game library: Discover arcade, puzzle and strategy games in one place.
● One player profile: Move between games while keeping rewards and progression connected to a single identity.
● Player voting: Vote on game ideas and help influence what Big Run Studios develops next.
● Crash Pad: Choose an avatar and personalize a space within the arcade.
● Friends and score challenges: Invite friends and share scores for them to beat.
● Browser-first access: Play across phones, tablets and computers without downloading an app.
Big Run plans to continue expanding Crash Arcade with new games and experiences, using player behavior, voting and feedback to help inform what it builds next.
Crash Arcade is available now at crasharcade.fun for players ages 16 and older. Sign-in is required to play.
Origins
Big Run Studios is an independent game developer and publisher founded in 2019 by Andrew Bell and Buren Renick. Known for Blackout Bingo, Big Cooking and Word Star, the studio has spent years developing accessible games built around familiar genres, short sessions and skill-driven play. With Crash Arcade, Big Run is expanding that approach into browser-first games designed for faster discovery, experimentation and direct player feedback.
Since founding, the firm has had more than 20 million players over time, with a focus on women over 30. And the new games have broad appeal. The company raised $5.25 million in 2020 and it has five people.
“I’ve been building games for 21 years. I was an NYU dropout at Tisch School,” said Bell. “I didn’t want to be an actor anymore, and became a video game tester at 2K Sports. Then I cut my teeth in production at LucasArts on Lego Star Wars, Lego Indie, Battlefront. I was on 1313.”
Then he went to work on Zynga, working on Farmville and social casino games. Then he went to Warner Bros., working on Harry Potter Wizards Unite, a mobile game that launched in 2019.
During one of the meetings, he was in a room with a lot of execs and honchos. And he thought to himself that he didn’t need to be herding “all of these cats in the room to go make my dream games.”
So he talked with his cofounder Burin Renick and decided to leave in May 2019 to go work on their own. They started Big Run Studios to make games for traditionally underserved audiences, including U.S. women who are 30 years old or older.
The focused on a bingo game because the chatter was the bingo was dead.
“We just said that bingo just never evolved, so we invented the new bingo category, the blackout bingo, and since then have launched over 11 games with over 20 million downloads across skill-based and free-to-play, mobile and web, and now here we are on the web to get started with Crash Arcade,” Bell said.
Big Run Studios made a lot of games for Skillz, which publishes skill-based games where players wager money and compete with each other in games. The company still has skill-based games on the web, powered by Unity. It can launch games on multiple skill-based game platforms simultaneously.
And now the team is expanding beyond that to do Crash Arcade games. Players can join as guests and play games that show ads. Or they can upsell those players, sell them coins for customization. And there are also subscriptions the company can offer early access to games in development. That’s called the publisher’s club.
More details
The Crash Arcade games are built with a set of tools the team has refined to make web games. There’s a voting feature that allows players to engage and ask for more content or more of the kind of games that they like. The titles include “delicious games,” which include both food and sports games. One of the favorites is Unicorn Assault, which is a unicorn extraction shooter.
There’s one called Dead Air, which is a helicopter shooter which is like Hot Shots against zombies. The games are funny with broad appeal, and they’re not hyper violent or bloody. There are cooking, slicing and word games.
Bell said the team is very audience focused, building characters and worlds that really deliver a “reason to be there,” he said.
The team built its own engine for 2D or 3D games with fully customized worlds, shaders, and animation pipelines. The team is trying to build trust with players, letting them know they’re not one-shotting games with AI but are really building great games with real talent. They are using AI in the pipeline, but they’re not focused on churning out slop. They think that the AI tools help give them superpowers when it comes to creating with cross-discipline talent.
To date, the company has raised $5.25 million, and that was in 2020. The company hasn’t raised money since then. The team has just five people, not counting part-time people. They think of the team like a race car crew, where you have the driver and the pit crew and so on.