DeskArcadeThe viral one
Desk Invaders
Aliens are icons of your running apps.
6,340
DeskArcade
for macOS · v1.1
Sneak a game into any meeting.
Sam's MacBook Pro · 14" · Tue 2:14 PM
DeskArcade · live
Download for Mac — Free
Free · 5 MB
macOS 13+
Notarized by Apple
No permissions
Doesn't touch your real apps
The trick
A hotkey. Ten games. Nobody notices.
Press ⌘⌥B in any meeting. A transparent arcade appears over your screen. Flick a basketball, blow up your dock, race an F1 lap around your call. Press it again — gone. Your work is right where you left it.
1
Hit the hotkey
The arcade fades in over whatever you're doing. Your real apps stay exactly where they are.
2
Play for 90 seconds
Pick a game from the menu-bar tray. Score sits in the menu bar — tabular mono, so it doesn't jitter.
3
Hit it again
The overlay fades out. You're back in the spreadsheet. Nobody on the call sees a thing.
Crowd favourite
Screen Pocket Billiards
Your desktop is the table. Screen corners are the pockets.
21,900
Your apps are safe
DeskArcade only draws app icons. It doesn't touch what's behind them.
This is the #1 thing skeptics ask — so here it is, in plain language, with no asterisks.
Notarized by Apple
Signed with a Developer ID and run through Apple's notary service. Gatekeeper opens it straight from your Downloads.
No screen recording. Ever.
No ScreenCaptureKit. No accessibility access. The overlay sits in its own window — it can't read pixels or text from anywhere else.
No permission prompts
Nothing in System Settings → Privacy & Security gets touched. Drag to Applications, hit the hotkey, done.
No data collected
One anonymous launch ping per install — hashed random ID, app version, OS version. That's it. No accounts, no telemetry on what you play.
Blowing up the Slack invader doesn't close Slack. The arcade only reads each app's icon pixels so it knows what to draw. Your apps don't know it exists.
Take a 90-second break. Without leaving your desk.
Free, forever. macOS 13 Ventura and later. ~5 MB. Notarized.
Download for Mac — Free
Free · 5 MB
Universal binary
Apple silicon & Intel
No sign-up