Chat Arena down to the last number

01 - Basics

What Chat Arena is

A free overlay game that lives around your stream. Viewers type one word in chat and become a critter on the stands, then earn XP, evolve, collect skins and play events with the whole chat, on screen.

Nothing is installed by anybody. The streamer adds one browser source to OBS; viewers play from the same chat box they were already typing in, phone included. Progress belongs to the viewer, not to the channel, so the same critter shows up on every Chat Arena stream they visit.

02 - Platforms

Two platforms, one set of stands

Kick and Twitch chat both feed the same arena. A multistreamer's two chats stop being separate rooms: one crowd, one boss, one giveaway pot.

One person, one critter

Somebody who follows you on two sites would otherwise grow two half-critters. Link the logins in your panel and they both point at one person: one XP pool, one gold balance, one daily streak, one skin collection, one Chat Arena+ membership. Whichever chat you type !join in, the same critter walks on.

03 - Joining

The stands and the bubbles

One command puts you on screen. From there you are part of the picture until the stream ends.

• !joinYour critter walks onto the stands with your nick above its head, within about a second. No account, no download, and it works from a phone.
• One stand at a timeYou occupy exactly one channel. Typing !join somewhere else moves your critter there rather than cloning it, so several open tabs never stack progress.
• How long you stayThe whole stream. The stands clear when the broadcast ends, not after a few idle minutes. A streamer may optionally switch on an AFK kick that removes viewers who have not said anything for 30 or 60 minutes.
• Speech bubblesWhen you say something in chat, your critter says it in a bubble above its head, trimmed to the first 60 characters. Chat literally reads itself on stream.
• Where the stands sitAround the edges of the picture. The streamer chooses which edges are used, how big the critters are and whether they sit still, roam the edges or mill about as a crowd.
• Your panelSigning in at chatarena.win is optional and adds the panel: skin, colour, weapon, aura, quests, achievements, your public profile and your linked logins.

04 - Progression

XP: every source and every rate

Lurking earns. Chatting earns a little more. Channel events pay everybody on the stands at once, so the crowd wins together rather than racing each other.

• Daily streak multiplierEarn XP on consecutive days and everything you earn is multiplied by 1 + 0.1 per day, capped at x2 on day 10. From day 7 a flame burns beside your nick on the overlay. Miss a day and the streak resets to 1.
• Daily cap1,000 XP per person per day, counted after the streak multiplier and reset at midnight. It applies to the person, not per channel, so no amount of tab juggling raises it.
• Chat cooldownOnly one message every 3 minutes pays XP. Spam earns exactly nothing, and the bubble still shows.
• Live onlyPassive XP ticks only while the channel is really broadcasting. Activity in chat also counts as proof the stream is live, so a missed platform notification never quietly stops the ticks.

05 - Progression

Levels and the three stages

Levels are unlimited and each one costs more than the last, so a big number on the overlay really does mean weeks of showing up.

The exact cost of the step from level L to the next one is 90 + 35 x L^1.45, rounded. That is 125 XP for the very first level and about 27,900 for the step out of level 100.

• Stage 1Levels 1 to 9. A small young critter.
• Stage 2From level 10. The adult form: bigger, better proportioned, and it unlocks a skin of its own.
• Stage 3From level 25. The epic form, with horns, a halo or an aura depending on the design. Also unlocks a skin.
• On streamEvery level up bursts into confetti above the critter, and both evolutions get their own announcement, live, in front of the chat that watched you earn it.

06 - Progression

Loyalty, counted per channel

Levels travel with you everywhere. Loyalty does not: it is minutes banked on one specific channel, and the badge only shows there.

• How minutes bank+5 for every 5 minutes present while the channel is live, +3 for each chat message that earned XP, and +1 for the !join itself.
• Where it showsOn the overlay of that channel only, and in your panel. A gold badge on one streamer's stands says nothing about you anywhere else, which is the point.
• Four skins ride on itBronze Guard, Silver Guard, Gold Guard and Veteran Colossus unlock at the four tiers. Reaching a tier on any one channel is enough.
• Top 3 watchedYour public profile lists the three channels you have banked the most time on, with links, so people can find where you actually play.

07 - Cosmetics

All 50 skins and how they open

Every skin in the catalogue can be earned by playing. Gold is only a shortcut for people who would rather buy one than grind its condition, and gold itself is only earned by playing.

• Six kinds of conditionReach a level, reach an evolution stage, hold a daily streak, bank loyalty minutes on a channel, or win giveaways. One skin, Rookie, is simply everybody's starting body.
• Nothing is randomThere are no loot boxes and no mystery pulls. A locked skin shows a live preview and the exact condition, so you always know what you are working towards.
• Colour on topAny colour works with any skin, and changing either one in your panel updates the critter on stream immediately.
• Buying one insteadA locked skin can be bought with gold at its rarity price: 800, 2,000, 4,500 or 9,000. That is a shortcut, never an exclusive.

08 - Economy

Gold and the shop

Gold is the cosmetics currency. It is handed out alongside XP for the same actions, and it cannot be bought with money by anyone, at any price.

11 weapons

The thing your critter swings in duels, brawl giveaways and the Rambo shootout. Purely visual: a trident does not hit harder than a baguette.

6 auras

A small effect that plays around your critter all stream long.

Skins by rarity

09 - Events

Giveaways, six ways to draw a winner

The streamer puts up a prize and picks how it should be decided. Entry is free and automatic: being on the stands is the ticket. There is no paid entry of any kind, ever.

• Who is enteredEverybody on the stands when the draw starts. No command, no ticket, no donation. The channel needs at least one more viewer than the number of winners.
• WinnersBetween 1 and 10 per draw, chosen by the streamer before it starts.
• Lottery or level edgeTwo settings, both stated on screen. Lottery gives everyone identical odds. Level edge gives each critter 2% extra weight per level, which is deliberately mild: a level 50 regular is roughly twice as likely to survive an elimination as a fresh level 1, not fifty times.
• Decided before the animationThe full elimination order is computed on the server and stored, then the overlay replays it. Nothing that happens on screen can change who won, and the result survives a refresh or a crash mid-animation.
• Claim windowOptionally the winner must say something in chat within 30 or 60 seconds. If they never reply, the draw re-rolls without them and keeps going until somebody actually claims.
• Pace and cooldownThe animation speed can be set to slow, normal or fast, and a channel can run one giveaway every 5 minutes.
• RewardsEveryone on the stands gets 3 XP and 2 gold when a draw starts, and each winner gets 40 gold on top of whatever the streamer put up.
• Gold GiveawayA one-click draw whose prize is 100 gold, paid automatically with no claim needed. Once every 3 hours per channel, and it needs 10 viewers on the stands.

10 - Events

Boss fights with no timer

A boss looms over the stands and stays there until chat beats it. There is no clock: if it takes two hours, it takes two hours, and it survives a server restart in the meantime.

• Starting oneFrom the Events tab, or by typing !boss in your own chat as the broadcaster. It needs at least one viewer on the stands, and a streamer can turn boss fights off entirely.
• How much HP25 HP per viewer on the stands, plus 50% more for each boss level the channel has already cleared, with a floor of 30. A bigger crowd gets a bigger monster rather than a faster kill.
• Chat is the damageEach message deals 1 damage, with a 12% chance of a 3 damage crit. Only your first 2 messages per minute count, so spam does nothing here either.
• Community volleysA follow fires 1 damage from every viewer at once, a sub or gift sub fires 5 each, and a tip fires 1 per 50 units of Kicks or Bits from everyone at once. The volley is credited to the crowd, not to whoever paid.
• The rewardEverybody on the stands gets 25 XP plus 5 per boss level and 15 gold. A damage top three is shown, and the channel unlocks the next boss level for the following fight.
• Six bosses, then numeralsLord Bonk, Gloomfang, The Muncher, Sir Squish, Mega Grump and Doom Floof cycle in that order. After the sixth, the cycle repeats with II, then III, and so on, each generation tougher than the last.

11 - Events

Duels: !battle

The one event viewers start themselves. Critters never fight on their own, so nobody is ever dragged into a duel they did not ask for.

• How a fight startsType !battle and you go into the queue with a "waiting" marker on the overlay. The next viewer who types it becomes your opponent and the fight begins at once.
• Waiting timeA challenge sits in the queue for up to 3 minutes. If nobody answers, it quietly expires.
• CooldownOne duel per viewer every 5 minutes. Type !battle while on cooldown and, if chat replies are enabled, the bot tells you exactly how long is left.
• Who winsThe server rolls it with the same mild level edge the giveaways use: 2% extra weight per level. Both fighters must still be on the stands, and the weapon each critter carries is decoration.
• The prize15 XP and 8 gold to the winner. Duel wins also feed three achievements and a daily quest.
• Not during a giveawayDuels are ignored while a giveaway is running, so two events never fight for the same screen.

12 - Events

The marble race

A pegged course fills the screen and every entrant is a marble bouncing down it. It is the one event with its own sign-up, because watching your own marble is much better than watching a stranger's.

• Signing upThe streamer opens sign-ups, the overlay shows a join screen and viewers type !race. Up to 40 marbles take part, which is as many as stay readable, and at least 2 are needed to start.
• Deterministic physicsThe server runs the whole race first, with a random seed, and stores the finishing order. The overlay then replays that exact run from the same seed. A race cannot be nudged while it is playing, and a viewer reconnecting mid-race rejoins the same run already in progress.
• The prize40 gold to the winner, plus whatever the streamer put up. A named prize is recorded in the channel's giveaway history.
• CooldownOne race per channel every 5 minutes.
• Also the tie-breakerWhen a blind pick selects two or more critters, they are handed straight to a marble race to settle it.

13 - Events

Polls you can watch happen

Each answer becomes a column on the overlay and critters physically walk into the one they voted for. The result is a crowd moving across the screen instead of a bar chart.

• The questionUp to 120 characters, with 2 to 4 options of up to 40 characters each.
• VotingType !1, !2, !3 or !4. One vote per person, changeable at any time until it closes, and only viewers on the stands can vote.
• How longEither open until the streamer closes it, or on a timer of 30, 60, 120 or 180 seconds.
• Where it sitsAs full-height columns across the picture, or as a compact panel in a corner or the centre.
• The resultCounts and the winning option are shown on the overlay, and a draw is reported as a tie rather than silently picking the first option. The streamer panel keeps the result for 10 minutes.

14 - Events

Drops and !grab

Every so often something lands on the overlay: a treasure chest, or gold rain. Everyone who reacts in time shares the reward, so it rewards attention rather than reflexes alone.

• The heads-upA sound and a short countdown play 5 seconds before it lands, telling chat what is coming and what to type. Grabs are accepted from that moment, so an eager typer is never punished.
• The window45 seconds to type !grab. You must already be on the stands, and each person counts once.
• The reward15 to 30 gold for every single person who grabbed. Nobody is competing with anybody: a bigger crowd does not shrink your share.
• When they fireOn their own on live channels with at least 10 viewers, at random and rarely more than twice an hour, or on demand from the panel. Either way a channel gets one drop per 30 minutes at most.
• Never on top of something elseA drop is skipped while a giveaway, poll, race or blind pick is running, and a streamer can switch automatic drops off completely.

15 - Progression

Daily quests and achievements

Both pay gold, both are granted automatically. There is no claim button anywhere: play, and the reward simply arrives.

Four daily quests

They reset at midnight and progress is counted from what you actually did that day.

Fourteen achievements

Permanent milestones. Earned ones show as badges on your public profile.

16 - Reference

Every chat command

All of them work in the chat of any platform connected to the arena. The first five do something in the game; the rest ask the bot a question.

17 - Membership

Chat Arena+

One optional subscription. It changes how a critter looks and nothing else, because a giveaway that money can tilt is a giveaway nobody trusts.

18 - For streamers

Setting it up

About half a minute of work: connect the channel, paste one URL into OBS. It runs over any game, needs no bot in chat and no category change.

What you can change in the panel

• The standsCritter size from 24 to 140 pixels, which edges are used (bottom, left, right, top) and whether critters sit still, roam the edges or mill about as a crowd.
• GiveawaysDefault format, lottery or level edge, animation speed (slow, normal, fast) and the winner claim window (off, 30 or 60 seconds).
• BossOn or off, corner or top centre, and a compact bar or the full display.
• DropsAutomatic chest and gold rain events on or off.
• Chat repliesOff by default. Switching them on lets the bot answer !exp, !boss, !gold, !skins and !help as your channel, and post an occasional line explaining the game.
• Sound and languageOverlay sound on or off with a volume, and English or Polish for everything the overlay and the bot say.
• AFK kickOff by default. It can remove viewers who have said nothing for 30 or 60 minutes, if you would rather show only the people who are awake.
• Extra sourcesA standalone "type !join" banner with its own position and scale, and a music bridge page: share your PC audio and the whole crowd dances on the beat, which is also what musical chairs listens to.

19 - Rules

Fair play, in five lines

Everything is verified on the server from real chat events. Progress comes from being part of a stream, not from leaving twelve tabs open overnight.

• One stand at a timeWatching five channels does not stack anything. The last !join simply moves your critter, and the daily cap belongs to you, not to a channel.
• Live onlyPassive XP ticks only while the channel is actually broadcasting, and the stands clear when the stream ends.
• Spam pays nothingChat XP has a 3 minute cooldown, the daily cap is 1,000, and your messages damage a boss at most twice a minute.
• Results are decided before they are shownGiveaway eliminations, marble races and duels are computed on the server and only then animated. The overlay is a replay, never a referee.
• Money buys spectacle, never an edgeTips, subs and follows hand a small bonus to everyone on the stands at once, and Chat Arena+ is cosmetic only. Nothing on this site sells XP, gold or luck.

20 - Questions

Common questions