Arena54 Developers
NewTest keys work the moment you make one

Every game made in Africa, behind one key

Games, the studios and people who make them, events and player-voted rankings across 54 countries, from one API. Build on sample data; go live after a short review.

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GET /api/v1/games?genre=racing

Authorization: Bearer a54_test_…

 200 OK
{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "slug": "sample-danfo-dash",
      "title": "Sample Danfo Dash",
      "tagline": "Sample data: not a real game",
      "cover_url": null,
      "genres": [
        "racing",
        "arcade"
      ],
      "platforms": [
        "android",
        "ios"
      ],
      "stage": "released",
      "release_year": 2025,
      "featured": false,
      "creator": {
        "handle": "sample-baobab-games",
        "name": "Baobab Sample Games"
      },
      "country_code": "NG",
      "city": "Lagos",
      "url": "https://arena54.com/g/sample-danfo-dash",
      "created_at": "2025-06-01T09:00:00.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_8f2c41d09b7e4a6f",
    "mode": "test",
    "next_cursor": null,
    "total": 1
  }
}

54

countries covered

11

read endpoints

2

modes: test and live

1

key for all of it

Built for people who point at African games

Stores and launchers

Show African games next to everything else you sell, with cover art, platforms and where to play.

Media and newsletters

Pull what’s new this week, who made it and where they are, without copying it out by hand.

Jams, hubs and schools

List the studios and people in your city or country on your own site, always up to date.

Researchers and funders

Count games and creators by country, genre and year from one consistent source.

What you can read

Take one endpoint or all of them. Nothing depends on anything else.

Games

Title, pitch, genres, platforms, stage, release year, cover, credits and store links.

Creators

Studios, developers, artists and composers, with their roles, city and games.

Places

All 54 countries and their cities, with how many creators and games each has.

Rankings

This week, this month and all time, for games and for creators, from head-to-head votes.

Events

Jams, meetups, tournaments and showcases, online and in person.

Search

One call that finds games, creators and countries by name.

Take only the parts you need

Each module stands alone. A newsletter may only read; a studio may want to publish; a game may want sign-in and leaderboards.

First to open

Read API

Games, creators, places, events, rankings and search. The base everything else sits on.

Planned

Webhooks

Be told when a game is added, a listing changes or a board moves, instead of asking.

Planned

Badges and embeds

A “Listed on Arena54” badge and a rank card a maker can put on their own site.

Planned

Write API for studios

Submit and update your games, releases and events from your own tools.

Planned

Prove you own a game

Put a small file on your domain and your listing is linked to you, no email back-and-forth.

Planned

Sign in and leaderboards

Let players sign in with Arena54 and post scores to boards that span games.

From nothing to live in three steps

  1. 1

    Get a test key

    Sign in and create one. It works at once and returns sample listings in the real shapes, so you can build today.

  2. 2

    Build against it

    Every answer has the same envelope, every list pages the same way, and every error says what went wrong.

  3. 3

    Go live

    Tell us what you’re building. A person reads each request; once approved, swap in a live key and nothing else changes.

curl "https://developers.arena54.com/api/v1/games?genre=racing&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer a54_test_…"

Careful with keys, careful with people

  • A key is shown once. We keep only a scrambled copy, so nobody at Arena54 can read yours back.
  • Published listings only. Places are city-level, and nobody’s contact details are ever returned.
  • Each key has a per-minute limit. Over it you get a 429 and a Retry-After header, not a surprise.

One shape for every answer

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [ … ],
  "meta": { "request_id": "req_…", "mode": "live",
            "next_cursor": "MjA", "total": 42 }
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": { "code": "rate_limited", "message": "…" },
  "meta": { "request_id": "req_…", "mode": "live" }
}

Lists return 20 rows, up to 100 with limit. Send next_cursor back as cursor for the next page.

Endpoints

All under https://developers.arena54.com/api/v1. Read-only, snake_case, JSON.

  • GET /gamesGames. Filter with genre, platform, country, stage, creator, q.
  • GET /games/{slug}One game, with its description, links and credits.
  • GET /creatorsStudios and people. Filter with kind, role, country, city, q.
  • GET /creators/{handle}One creator, with their bio, links and games.
  • GET /countriesCountries that have listings, with counts.
  • GET /countries/{code}One country and its cities.
  • GET /citiesCities with creators. Filter with country.
  • GET /genresEvery genre, with how many games carry it.
  • GET /eventsFilter with kind, country, upcoming=true.
  • GET /rankings/{games|creators}/{week|month|all}The six boards from the head-to-head votes.
  • GET /search?q=Games, creators and countries matching a word.

Call it from your server, not from a web page: a key in browser code is a key anyone can copy.

Start with a test key

It takes a minute, and you can build the whole thing before you ask for live data.

Get an API key