We Built an Arcade to Train Our Techs. Now It’s Yours.
The Open Tier Skills Arcade is free to play: six certification tracks, 1,767 original practice questions, six arcade and brain games, and live high score boards. No sign-up, no email, no catch.
Studying for an IT certification is a grind. Most practice tests are one of two things: a wall of flashcards you stop opening after a week, or a “brain dump” of leaked exam questions that teaches you to memorize answers instead of solving problems. Neither one makes a better technician.
We wanted something our team would actually open on a lunch break because they wanted to. So we built an arcade. In less than 2 hrs. Last night. Vibe Coding? Yes.
What’s in it
Six tracks, each with 250 to 330 questions. Every question has an explanation, the exam objective it maps to, a topic and a difficulty level.
- CompTIA A+ (Core 1 and Core 2)
- CompTIA Network+ (N10-009)
- CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701)
- Microsoft 365 skills, built on the former MS-900 domains
- Microsoft Endpoint Administrator (MD-102): Intune and Windows
- Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator (SC-300): Entra ID
How a ranked round works
Everyone plays by the same rules: 20 questions (8 beginner, 8 intermediate, 4 advanced), 30 seconds each, with the answers shuffled every time. You score points for getting it right and bonus points for getting it right fast. Only ranked rounds go on the boards.
Not ready for the clock? Practice mode lets you pick the topic, difficulty, length and timer. Nothing you do there gets posted anywhere.
Why games?
Because good technicians need more than recall. Alongside the cert tracks there are six games, each with its own board:
- Logic Lab: logic gates and basic circuits. Light the lamp, find the missing gate, size the LED resistor.
- Second Thought: puzzles where the fast answer feels right and isn’t. The speed bonus is the bait.
- Packet Breaker, Cable Snake, Spam Storm and Quack Attack: straight arcade games with an IT twist, for when your brain needs a break between rounds.
Second Thought is our favorite, and it’s not really a game. Slowing down on the answer that feels obvious is the same instinct that catches a phishing email or stops a tech from rebooting the wrong server.
Players pick what we build next
At the bottom of the arcade is a Coming soon list with up and down votes. Each week the clear winner gets built, reviewed, played by a human and then released. On the list right now: a ticket triage game, a speed-subnetting drill, an outage escape room with a fake terminal, a phishing spotter, and new certification tracks for Azure, Cisco CCNA and CompTIA CySA+.
How we built it
We used AI to write it and GitHub to host it. That part was fast. The part that made it trustworthy was slower: every question went through an independent accuracy review, then a “blind solve,” where it was answered cold without the key and checked against it. Questions that failed either check were fixed or thrown out. When we caught an early version padding the bank with reworded duplicates, we deleted them and started over.
It’s the same rule we apply to every automation we build for clients: AI makes the first draft cheap, and review is what makes it something you can rely on.
Why give it away?
We built it to grow our own team. But good training shouldn’t be locked behind a login. If you’re a student, a career changer, a help desk tech eyeing your next cert, or a business owner who wants to know what your IT people actually know, go ahead and give it a try. We’d love to have your feedback.
Play it
A few house rules. Use a nickname or initials, since your name shows on a public board. We keep almost nothing about you, and the privacy page spells out exactly what. And these are unofficial practice questions; we’re not affiliated with CompTIA or Microsoft.
Can you set a high score?
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