Developed by Firebase Industries
Released for Xbox Live Indie Games (1/2013)>
Also on Android/iOS/PC
ArcadeCraft is a personal favorite from the Indie Games section on Xbox Live. In this title you manage an arcade from the start of 1980, beginning with an empty storefront and you'll progress through the years filling up your arcade as you go. The game sold well (by XBLIG standards) and received excellent support from the developers in the form of content update patches, though in the end there were some unfulfilled promises that kept the game from reaching its full potential.
You'll start off choosing a name for your arcade and will be presented with some choices of arcade games to purchase over time as they are released. Once you purchase a game, you must designate a spot on the floor where you'd like to place it. Each arcade game has a few options, allowing you to adjust price and difficulty settings, each will have an effect on the games earnings. Every so often you'll have to repair your games, which varies in cost depending on the issue with the game.
ArcadeCraft starts off pretty slow initially, when you only have a handful of games for the first few months, but once you start getting a nice selection of machines the fun really picks up. Each month will bring new games out that you can purchase, most of them being inspired by real arcade hits of the era. Veterans of the arcade era should have no problem telling which games these titles were originally inspired by. The cabinets each feature a unique image on the monitor and marquee. It would have been nice if the monitors had some animation, but unfortunately the images on the screens are static. In addition to your standard upright arcade machines, there are also sit-down driving games and pinball machines. During the summer-time you'll have the option to import a Japanese sit-down game. There's also the soda machine and jukebox you can place for some additional revenue. The patrons in your arcade are represented by avatars of people from your Xbox Live friends list. You can't interact with the guests except when one occasionally rages and starts beating up a machine. If you don't select them and remove them in a timely manner, they will beat up your arcades until they require maintenance.
The key to profitable arcade in ArcadeCraft is to keep your popularity high. More popularity means more customers, which of course means more money. There's a five-star rating system at the top of the screen that displays your current popularity and it will adjust in real-time as you manipulate your arcade. The key to getting your popularity up at the start of the game is to have a nice variety of different genres. Each game has its own popularity rating, which will naturally decrease over time but there are other factors that will impact it. When a game receives a port to a home console, the popularity of that machine will decrease significantly. Placing games with sequels next to each other will grant them a popularity boost, helping you breath some life into those older games. There's quite a bit of depth to the popularity ratings and keeping an eye on these will help your overall arcade rating.
In addition to purchasing arcade games, you can also do some minor customizing to your arcade. You can change the color of the floors, walls and pillars. There's also an option to add neon lighting which looks nice and also gives you a nice boost to your popularity. The popularity system works well for the most part, but in the later years once you start raking in the big bucks you won't really have to pay any attention to it. In 1983, the video game crash occurs and the highest popularity you can reach for that year is only 3 stars.
ArcadeCraft is a lot of fun until you reach the in-game year of 1987. Once you reach 1987, new games are no longer released. While you are still allowed to manage your arcade beyond this time, your arcade's popularity is doomed in the coming years due to the fact you can't add new games. I had a great time with the game up until new machines were released, but unfortunately there's just not much incentive to keep playing past this year, leaving the game feeling a bit unfinished once you reach this point. The developer delivered 3 content updates, addressing various issues and adding in some new content. There was a 4th update that was promised, which would allow you to relocate to a larger building where you'd be able to house more machines, but the developer struggled to optimize performance with more games on the screen so this update was ultimately never finished. I'd always hoped maybe the developer would have followed up with future updates on the PC version or maybe even the Xbox One, but unfortunately no such thing has happened at the time of this writing.
ArcadeCraft was originally released for XBLIG in January 2013. The game would later receive a port to PC the following year and would eventually even see a release for both Android and iOS devices. The developer stated on their Twitter page that a Switch port was possible and hosted a survey to gauge interest. The survey results stated that people were definitely interested in the port. This post was back in December 2017 and there hasn't been any announcement from the developer since, so unfortunately it seems like this could possibly be the end of the road for ArcadeCraft.
Part of what I love about ArcadeCraft is the potential in the concept. While what's here is fun while it lasts, the game feels a bit unfinished once you get past 1987. Ideally, the game would have continued on into the '90s since that was a huge era for arcades as well. The fighting game boom would have been awesome to have in here and they could have had an option where you could host local tournaments. The ability to expand the floor to hold more machines or relocate to a new facility would have really helped extend the game's length. There could even be an option to turn your arcade into a franchise, allowing you to expand out to other markets. Understandably many of these ideas are just too big for an XBLIG title, but there's definitely a good core here that sparks the imagination.
This type of game is definitely not for everybody, as the gameplay mostly consists of digging through menus and moving your machine arrangement around. If you dig management simulations such as the SimCity or Tropico games, you may enjoy ArcadeCraft, though be aware it is way more casual than those titles. I have a lot of nostalgia for the arcade era of the 80's and 90's so I was instantly interested in this one as soon as it released. My complaints are that content update 4 never came out and that there's just not much to do after you reach year 1987. ArcadeCraft is lots of fun until you reach the late 80's, then there's really nothing to do but start over again and try to maximize your profits.
Final Verdict: ArcadeCraft is an excellent management-strategy sim game, though a bit short and casual. If the concept of owning your own arcade sounds cool then I'd recommend checking it out.
Related Links:
ArcadeCraft - Steam
ArcadeCraft - GameFAQs
Firebase Industries - Twitter
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