5 Keys Lab is a one-person game studio in Peterborough, Ontario. It makes games that run in a browser and are played entirely with the four arrow keys and the space bar. The name is the rule.
The rule
Four arrows and a space, in every game, with no exceptions and no sixth key. Depth comes from the difference between tapping a key and holding it, not from adding more of them. It means anyone can be handed a laptop and be playing in seconds, without a tutorial, a key chart or a controller.
It is a constraint chosen on purpose, and it has never been broken.
What it makes
Alderhoard
A valley you walk, an arcade you earn your way into, and the cabinets inside it. In development since July 2026 and publicly playable. Play it or read the press kit.
The cabinets
Standalone arcade games living inside Alderhoard: breakout, maze, card, chess, digging, flight and exploration games. Some are substantial enough to stand on their own, and some will.
How it works
- Free to start, not free by accident. Four arcade cabinets, the Warlord quest, at least forty Stonebreaker levels and at least ten 3D Waka levels are free and stay free. No account, no expiry. Those are floors, not totals. Beyond them some things are paid, and more will be. The press kit sets out where the line falls.
- Built in public. Every decision and every dead end goes into a dev log, including the mistakes and the weeks that were wasted.
- Browser first. No install, no launcher, no account. A link opens the game.
- Nothing is finished. The valley has grown every month since it started and is not intended to reach a final state.
Who
Scott Covert. Sixty, in publishing and software since 1991, and had made no games at all before July 2026. 5 Keys Lab is the name the work goes out under.
Contact
[email protected] reaches the studio directly. Open to talking about publishing, partnerships, licensing and collaboration, and to hearing from anyone who has played the thing and has something to say about it.
This page is a placeholder. 5 Keys Lab lives at alderhoard.com/studio.html for now so the studio has a stable address for directories and listings. It may move to its own domain later, and this page will point the way when it does.