Calibrate the camera, light up your home court. An immersive 3D basketball experience with real-time lighting and camera work.
COURTSIDE 26 is a 3D basketball experience that leans into presentation: real-time lighting on the court, a camera you calibrate before you play, and a home-court atmosphere rather than an arcade scoreboard. It runs in the browser from a single hosted page and does not need any plugin.
Think of it as a shooting-and-movement sandbox more than a full season simulation. The point is the feel of the court under changing light and the way the camera follows the ball.
How to play COURTSIDE 26
- Start by following the camera calibration prompt — it sets where the court sits in your view and where the basket is.
- Move with the keyboard, aim with the mouse, and release to shoot. The lighting shifts as you move around the court.
- Use fullscreen for the best framing; the camera work was designed for a wide view.
- The camera calibration is worth redoing if you resize the window, because the court position is set relative to the view you calibrated in.
Click Fullscreen above the game for the largest play area. If the game does not load, use Open in new tab to play it directly from our copy.
Why it's worth your time
The game is remarkably small for what it draws — the arena, the crowd and the players are all generated in code, so our copy is under 300 KB and loads instantly. It expects a mouse and keyboard (WASD to move, space to shoot, E to pass); trackpads work but aiming is harder, and it has no sound toggle of its own, so use your system volume. The interface is in Chinese, though the on-screen key hints are readable either way.
The lighting is computed live rather than baked into textures, which is unusual for a browser basketball game and is the main reason the court looks the way it does at different angles.
How it was made and where it lives
Hosted on the author's own page. Original: https://huhuhu.page.gd/COURTSIDE26.html. The Play button above runs our own unmodified copy, so the game keeps working here if that page goes down — which on free hosting usually has nothing to do with the author. Nothing about the game itself is changed, and the original stays linked from every page.
If you like COURTSIDE 26, try these
This is the only sports game in the collection. The closest neighbours in feel are the other real-time 3D scenes: RB19 Engineering Lab, which uses similar lighting to show off an F1 car, and SUNBREAK, a low-poly downhill racer where movement rather than presentation is the point.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this a full basketball game with teams and seasons?
- No. It is a 3D court experience focused on shooting, movement and camera work.
- Does it work on mobile?
- It is built for a desktop browser with a mouse and keyboard.
- Where is it hosted?
- The original is on the author's own page at huhuhu.page.gd, which is linked from this page. What you play here is our copy of it, so it keeps working if that host goes away.
- Is COURTSIDE 26 free to play?
- Yes. Everything on Floating Arcade is free, with no account, ads or downloads.
- Can I embed this game on my own website?
- Yes — copy the snippet below. The embedded player links back here, which is how we ask to be credited.
Embed COURTSIDE 26 on your site
Paste this where you want the game to appear:
