Welcome to the Barbershop, Wizards

How To Play

What is this?

What happens when wizards all arrive at the same barbershop at the same time? They fight an epic battle to determine who gets to have their beard trimmed first!

Barbershop is a multiplayer wizard battle game where everyone plays together on the same computer or laptop. Each person takes a turn casting a spell, with a short amount of time elapsing between each turn. Each player starts with a basic fireball spell, then moves on from there by writing down the new spells revealed to them at the end of every game. Every spell revealed to you is specific to your username so remember to use the same username each time.

When you play a game with your friends, I recommend making it a rule that you can't record any of your spells. True wizards have their spells memorized by heart!

Setup

To begin a game, have each player type their username into the box. Spaces, capitalization, and everything else MATTERS! So be careful to type your username exactly the same way every time. After all the names have been entered, go ahead and press the start button!

Your turn

You click somewhere on the map to tell your wizard to go there. The farther away from your wizard you click, the faster it will run. The big circle drawn around your wizard helps you know how far your wizard can run before your next turn begins. If you type a spell before you click, your wizard will cast that spell.

Each spell costs a specific amount of mana. You get 5 mana each turn, but you can't have more than 20 (normally). If you cast a spell, and don't have enough mana for it, the missing mana will be taken from your health.

Winning

When there's only one wizard left, the game ends and the line to the barbershop is displayed. Next to each wizard's name, there's a random spell to add to their collection.

Username Chooser

Usernames can only be 16 characters long

Game Over

The Line to the Barbershop is:
#	Name	Discovery		Mana Cost

What's New

July 2, 2025

• The Zap spell now automatically targets other players.
• Many spells that used to be able to be used on yourself now prevent you from targeting yourself. These include stun, blind, swap, and a couple others.
• The invisibility spell now lasts for a few turns after being casted.
• The swap and teleport spells now prevent you from moving after you cast them.
• New spell: Dark Wall.

May 13, 2024

• There's now a what's new page!
• The Arcane Aid spell has been added. Casting it gives half of your mana to the player nearest to your wand.
• The way the spells are organized in the source code has been updated. This makes future development easier, but it also resets any spells you may have learned. Sorry! It probably won't happen again.
• The plain green background has been replaced with a grass texture.
• Each game now starts with a bunch of randomly placed obstacles to make the map more interesting.
• If you type a spell incorrectly, a random side-effect will be selected from a list. It could be anything from being unable to move, to being carried away by a whirlwind, or to casting a random spell. Be careful!

Nov 26, 2022

• The Balance Life spell now sets a wizards health to 13 instead of 10.
• When a spell is being typed, the backspace key will delete letters. Pressing the backspace key three times will clear the spell entirely.
• When a spell hasn't been typed yet, three dashes will orbit the player's wizard instead of three hashtag characters.
• The appearance of the movement circle has been altered slightly.
• From now on, if you try to cast a spell that you don't have enough mana or health to cast without dying, the spell will fail because your wizard is too weak.
• When wizards die, they drop a skull that remains on the map for the rest of the game.