The Mini Game widget puts a small game on a page. It's made for the 404 page (the page visitors see when an address doesn't exist), but it works on any page. Find it in the Add panel under Effects, or pick a game design in Ready to launch → 404 page.
The two games
- Whack the Glitches: nine spots. A glitch pops up (Bug, Broken Link, Ghost Page, Dead End, Slow Loader, Missing Piece, Old Bookmark, Typo) and the visitor taps or clicks it before it escapes. A hit is 10 points. A miss costs a life. It ends after 30 seconds or when the 3 lives are gone.
- 404 Blaster: the visitor moves a ship left and right with the mouse, a finger or the ← → keys. The ship fires on its own. Each ship stopped is 10 points. A ship that lands, or hits the visitor's ship, costs a life. It gets faster as the score climbs and ends when the 3 lives are gone.
Both start with a Start screen and end with the score, a Play again button and a second button (Back to Home at first).
Change the words and names
Select the game and click Edit Game in its toolbar:
- Start screen: the title, the "how to play" line and the Start button.
- What pops up (Whack the Glitches): each one is an emoji and a name. Change them to anything, for example 🍕 "Cold Pizza" for a pizzeria. Remove takes one out, + Add one adds another (up to 12).
- End screen: the titles, the score label, the Play again button, and the second button with the page it goes to. Leave the second button's label empty to have no second button.
- Labels: Score, Lives and Time (or Level).
- Line under the game (404 Blaster): the one-line instructions.
The heading and the sentence above the game are ordinary Text widgets. Click them to edit them.
Design
In the Design panel:
- Game: switch between the two games. The start and help words switch with it unless you've rewritten them.
- Button style: Primary or Secondary, from your site theme.
- Colors: Accent (score, shots and the visitor's ship), Text, Panel background, Spots (or Play area), Borders and, for 404 Blaster, Incoming ships. Each one follows your site until you set it: the text takes the color of the text around the game, the accent is your theme's primary color, and the panel and borders are light tints of the text color. So it reads on a light or a dark section without any setup. Clear on a color goes back to the site's.
- Shape: how round the corners are.
- Rules: the number of lives (1 to 5) and, for Whack the Glitches, the seconds on the clock (10 to 120). If you change these, change the "30 seconds and 3 lives" words in Edit Game too.
In the editor
In Edit mode the game stays on its Start screen, and clicking it selects the widget. Switch to Preview to play it.
Examples
- A roofer's 404 page: Whack the Glitches with the names changed to "Loose Shingle", "Leaky Gutter" and "Missing Flashing", and the second button going to the Contact page.
- A dark site: add 404 Blaster and change nothing. The ships and words take the light text color of the section and the shots take the theme's primary color.
Limits and what it can't do
- Two games. You can't upload your own.
- The pictures in Whack the Glitches are emoji, not images.
- Scores aren't saved or sent anywhere, and there's no leaderboard.
- The built-in words are in English. On a site in another language, rewrite them in Edit Game.
- Nothing in the game runs until a visitor presses Start, so it doesn't slow the page down.
Troubleshooting
- Clicking Start in the editor does nothing: you're in Edit mode. Switch to Preview.
- The game is hard to see on my background: set Text and Panel background in the Design panel's Colors.
- The second button isn't there: its label is empty, or its link has no page. Open Edit Game and set both.
- The page scrolls while I play 404 Blaster on a phone: drag inside the play area. Dragging there moves the ship and doesn't scroll the page while a game is running.