Arcade Paradise

Arcade Paradise is something rather special. Its mixture of playful management sim and arcade gaming works incredibly well, and it’s all so nicely presented that you’ll easily forgive its few flaws. Whether you get swept up in keeping your laundrette and arcade running as well as possible, or whether you find yourself addicted to a particular arcade cabinet, you’re going to love your time here. And considering its bargain price, it really doesn’t get much better than this.

We wholly recommend Arcade Paradise if you enjoy either simulation-style games or spent the '90s with a pocketful of quarters down at the local arcade. The narrative centred on a lazy young adult proving to their father they can run a successful business will never really grip you, and – believe it or not – laundering clothes and peeling gum off the machines becomes a bit tiresome. Yet the arcade games themselves and the sheer creativity and charm Nosebleed Interactive has packed into them more than makes up for the monotony. If we stumbled upon these games in the back of our local laundromat,...

Newcastle-based developer Nosebleed Interactive has been on our radar ever since it released The Hungry Horde for PS Vita, a scrappy action strategy title with a zombie-themed collectible card game built into it. The studio, with its penchant for minigames and genre blending, followed it up with the excellent Vostok Inc, a fusion of Geometry Wars and Cookie Clicker with a frightening array of minigames to unlock. Now it’s realised its potential with Arcade Paradise, a nostalgic 90s celebration that pulls you in so many different directions it’s impossible to get bored.

Arcade Paradise is a superb management sim that puts you in the shoes of both the arcade manager and the player. Whether you are an old arcade head like me or somebody who can only view things through a historic lens, there is so much to enjoy here. Once you get past the necessary grind of the opening hours the game opens up to become an almost encyclopaedic slice of arcade life. Even when you’ve upgraded the arcade, there are always high scores to chase too.

Arcade Paradise is a genius idea for a game. A 19-year-old college drop-out is forced by their Dad to manage a dilapidated, family-owned, laundromat. The back of the laundromat has a storage room, with a few arcade machines. When emptying those for the first time, our hero discovers that those arcade machines make more money than the laundry machines do. The ensuing game is all about managing the laundromat and putting all the profits towards buying more arcade machines and expanding that aspect of the business.

Arcade Paradise is a delightful surprise. Full of wit, heart, and damned fun minigames it’s worth a purchase if the thought of an idle-style laundromat management sim full of fun as hell arcade games sounds enticing. It’s a relaxed, radical tubular time and I can’t wait to see what the devs come up with next.

The 90s nostalgia runs rampant in the new Nosebleed Interactive simulation game, Arcade Paradise. Players take on the role of the unemployed daughter of a businessman, voiced by The Witcher‘s Geralt of Rivia, Doug Cockle, as they attempt to keep the family laundromat afloat. After a brief tutorial on taking out the trash, cleaning toilets, and doing loads of laundry, players are eventually introduced to the back room where three classic arcade machines sit. These few arcade cabinets spark the idea to slowly turn the dirty old laundromat into a fully functional, and profitable, arcade.

I feel like the managerial side of Arcade Paradise needs to better inform the part where you just play games endlessly and vice versa. In the beginning, having to pull yourself away from your high score to move someone’s laundry into the dryer is a fun twist, but there’s nothing similar to that in the end game. You’re just playing games, waiting for the quarters to pile up so you can buy the next upgrade. Even if Arcade Paradise instead tried to present an authentic representation of the arcade experience, I feel that would have added more value. Instead, it sits in an uncomfortable middle gro...

I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that has made me put on a load of washing, yet here we are. Arcade Paradise is a simulation game set in a laundromat during the 90s which gives you ownership of the family business. It’s a real rags to riches game where you’ll be growing the business from day one, learning the tricks of the laundry trade. All the while, there’s an arcade in the backroom that’s begging for some TLC. Go on, give the trailer a spin!

This quirky slice-of-life will transport you back into the past.