Arcade Paradise follows the story of a son who is given the opportunity to make something of himself by his dad by taking over the family laundrette business.
Every day you will drag your arse into the laundrette on the bus and then the day job will begin. You’ll be presented with the benign tasks of running a laundrette such as unblocking the toilet, emptying the cash hoppers, taking the rubbish out and filling the safe with last night's takings.
Once you’re done with that you’ll have to get as many washes on the go as you can and then be ready to pop those washes in the dryer as soon as the wash cycle ends. Once dried you’ll need to get those clothes back into the collection area for your customers to collect.
Spinning all these plates will ensure that your laundrette business keeps the money rolling in.
Pulling chewing gum from surfaces is a game of golf game-style timing in order to get maximum pulling power and purchase when trying to collect these little sticky rewards from the premises. Picking up rubbish from various parts of the laundrette fills your rubbish sack as you add more to it and then when it’s full it’s time to see if you can hit the bull's eye of the dumpster outside the shop with your bag of litter.
The speed in which you wash, dry and return the dirty clothes to your customers is rated in order that they can give you more cash for a better level of service, unlocking the safe also requires you to do 3 left and right combinations to crack the code each time you fill up with the day's takings and the grimmest of all the jobs, unblocking the toilet, is all about finding the sweet spot on your analogue stick and pressing the trigger to defeat that blockage with an almighty plunger uppercut.
Then comes the main event, the arcade machines...
Out the back of your laundrette is a stock room that has seen better days but it does contain 3 arcade cabinets for your customers to play that can generate cash for the business. You can also play these games yourself! Here comes the thing that hooked me most about this game. There is a constant battle between trying to run your laundrette and earn cash for new machines and also playing the games in your stock room to enable you to complete tasks that are baked into the games.
Can I just say one thing, these games that exist in the arcade room are bloody marvellous! All of the games are made with love and care and obvious nods to the classics. It’s a miracle of game development that these games exist within an already intriguing and amazing video game. There are actually 35 arcade games within the game plus the overall game mechanics, take that in for one moment…
At the moment my favourite one to play is Wood Gal's Adventure which is massively addictive and normally sees me miss the drying cycle timer in order to play just one more go on Wood Gal!
In order to build up your arcade and make it a success, you will need to think about the placement of your existing machines and also which machines to buy next with your hard-earned cash. Placement is a consideration as placing a popular game next to an underearner may increase its potential for earnings. Once you have enough cash in the bank you can then hop onto your old school PC to order a new machine and have the anticipation of waiting until the following day to take receipt of it into your LaundCade.
At some point there is even the opportunity to expand the site and add in more room for more video games and this is where the game gets really exciting and intriguing as you work with your sister and behind your Dad's disapproving back to build the arcade business whilst maintaining the Laundrette front (washing those pants pays for those cabinets).
When I think about my experience with Arcade Paradise it’s the little things that make it an instant classic. The PDA that you use to track goals and make adjustments to how your shop runs, your Casio watch that reminds you of key events such as wash reminders and hammering home the need to unblock the toilet, the perfection in the setting and how it portrays that time in the 80s and 90s when arcade machines lived in laundrettes and taxi rank, the game of Llama on your PDA and of course the arcade cabinets in the game being just perfect!
When I originally saw this game I knew I was going to love it. Playing the game has proven to me that not only does this game tug at my nostalgia strings and my dream to run my own Arcade, but it also delivers more than that and that’s the genius of the devs right there.
The words above only scratch the surface of what awaits you in this video game and I don’t want to take away the wonder of playing the game by giving away anything more as you deserve to experience this labour of love for yourselves. Suffice to say that every day in the LaundCade brings you something new to enjoy and consider as you build yourself a truly awesome arcade.
P.S - Devs if you are reading, please put a Ker Ching till noise into the game when you place money in the safe
*Full disclosure, this game contains a tune from GF's own Senior Reviewer Britt and his band Recluse and in no way does that sway our judgement of the game. Plus the tune (The Quiet Hours) is an absolute stone wall classic, so go and get the soundtrack when that’s released and also take a look at Recluse's work here: https://recluse.bandcamp.com/track/the-quiet-hours
Right, I’m off to sniff some washing detergent while playing Knuckles & Knees with my last remaining 20p!
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