30%PC

Boring and repetitive gameplay.

75%PC

The game is okay for the most part. I think they did a great job in making arcade games that aren't licensed. Barkanoid is a game I would buy and play by itself. That said, the management part was a bit lack luster. There was something missing when it came to the laundry aspect of it that i feel like other job simulators would have. It pulled me away from the game a bit. I know the focus is clearly on the arcade side of things, but in the early game some of the laundry things you had to do felt lacking. I had fun with it. the story is okay.

45%PC

At a certain point in this game, it went from a fun simulator to purely grinding out to finish achievements/story missions, I eventually finished the main game, but then got left with achievements that would take me over 20 extra hours of playtime to complete, so I stopped playing instead of digging myself into a pit of boredom with simulator games. | Update, eventually finished the game, I didn't realistically enjoy the ending, but did complete the final sections of the game I originally dodged.

70%Xbox Series X/S

Initially, having to balance the laundry and arcade simultaneously can feel like a slog--but this, in a way, ties into the story. Your character hates the laundromat; it's no surprise you might too. Fortunately, you don't have to progress very far before you can just ignore the laundry all together and focus on the arcade, which is, unsurprisingly, where this game shines. Alongside this you have the story that progresses as your arcade popularity grows. It's never particularly involved, and carries few surprises (few--not none), but having a little narrative depth instead of just being an endlessly growing sim was nice.

Almost every arcade game available is fun at least for a little bit, though many fall off quickly. You'll also find references to real-world games galore. Many games are clones of various classics (I particularly enjoyed seeing Qix and Mr. Digger represented). If you're aiming for 100%, several of the games' goals will make that a slog, but if not, you can safely ignore the more tedious/difficult goals and focus on what you enjoy playing. Or, if you want to delve more into the simulation side, the option to optimize game popularity (through playing certain games and rearranging the arcade) exists as well.

35%PC

Turned out not to be an arcade game, but a washing laundry simulator game. There is still an arcade, which you build slowly up, but the games at least towards the start are crappy or rip off versions of popular titles like pacman but worse. However, you can't even ever go deep into the game as you always will get interrupted by work every single time. It is the most unfulfilling game ever, at least in other simulator games you have stuff to do but all this game is, is literally washing laundry and picking up the occasional trash. Thank god I've never bought this, it was pretty expensive too, its been on my wishlist for a long time. I got to try this with gamepass

80%PlayStation 5

I started Arcade Paradise out of curiosity, thanks to PS+ streaming, without knowing much about its scope and ended up spending way more time with it than expected.
What struck me the most is how satisfying the core gameplay loop is: doing laundry, cleaning trash and managing time just to squeeze in a few precious minutes playing the arcade cabinets in the back. It’s a game about work, oddly motivating and weirdly relaxing.

The story is simple but effective, and the late-game twist hits surprisingly hard (briefly working in your father's meat-packing plant it’s oppressive and powerful in contrasting dreams with family expectations, while reinforcing the idea that building your own path through creative work is a form of freedom) .
The arcade games themselves vary a lot: some are genuinely fun, others less but the sheer variety elevates the whole experience as a meta-tribute to retro gaming.

Some balancing issues and bugs can hold things back and the grind to unlock upgrades or extra music tracks can get tiring.
Still, between the nostalgic setting, solid pixel art, and catchy soundtrack, it’s a unique and charming experience well worth checking out.

20%PC

Arcade Paradise 2/10:
-Expected an Arcade simulator got a clothes simulator with a little bit of Arcade fucking scam
-And the minigames of this game suck as especially the FOV

80%PC

I played a demo for this prior to its full release, and it’s been on my radar ever since. The pitch of owning your own arcade with playable games in them is something I’ve wanted for so long from a video game. This delivered on the premise, all while feeling like a love letter to arcades.

There were some real bangers amidst the 40+ (if you include the DLC cabinets) arcade games and I could see myself booting the game back up in the future just to play them again. Each cabinet drew inspiration from classics and I enjoyed trying them all out. None captured my heart as strongly as Stack Overflow. If it was its own game I think I might go so far as to give it a 5 star rating.

Honestly, one of the big things for me is this felt like it was made by someone who loved arcades and gaming in general. This didn’t feel like some random cash grab simulator game made for someone to stream while the devs make a quick buck. The nokia-esque phone as a menu, the detail on the arcade cabinets, and the design of the laundromat/eventual full arcade were fantastic at immersing me in the experience. I think they genuinely nailed the gameplay loop of progressing the management side through playing the arcade games. Kept me saying “just one more day and I’ll close the game”.

Huge heads up to play this with a controller. Maybe it was just me, but playing on KB+M felt atrocious, and I quickly switched over. I suppose that makes sense for a game focused around arcade games, but still. My biggest issue with the game was how the upgrade system worked. I liked the concept of earning a different currency to buy upgrades through achieving certain tasks. The problem was that it began to feel like a drag due to how small the payout rate was. This same currency was also used to purchase additional music tracks for the jukebox, which meant that I never bought any of them. I get wanting to not make the upgrades super easy to get, but I felt like it was just too unbalanced.

55%PC

É muito reptitivo

75%Xbox Series X/S

I forgot why I like this game so much...

100%PC

Anfangs etwas holprig, aber sobald es dann die ToDo-Liste gibt, jeden Tag ein paar Games zocken, Geld verdienen und Sachen upgraden. Macht richtig Laune. Story hat auch überraschend gut funktioniert dank der Portionierung.
Lieblingsgames:
- Vostok Bullet Hell Dings
- Blockchain, auch wenn ich da bis heute nicht “gut” drin bin
- Grafitti Ballz <3

30%PlayStation 5

A love letter to 8 bit games but it's not my kind of game so I give it a not my game

70%PC

I went into this game thinking it was going to be a sort of business simulation for turning an old laundromat into an arcade. It kind of starts that way, but quickly becomes more of a mini-game compilation with an added chore simulator.

Even though you can operate the laundromat portion of the business, it's slow, boring, and requires most of your attention due to the time-based monetary rewards of washing/drying the clothes. There's also a pretty low cap on what you can earn with it per day. It's obviously designed to be bad so that you'll be incentivized to start focusing on the arcade side of the business, which rapidly outpaces the laundry in terms of earning potential. There are no consequences for ignoring the laundry (and nothing ever breaks or needs your attention on that side of the business) so you can transition to arcades within the first couple days of the game and never look back.

Most of what you do in this game is buy arcade cabinets and then play the arcade games themselves rather than manage the business directly. You're also required to pick up an absolutely HUGE amount of trash that shows up every morning, as well as pull dried chewing gum off of various surfaces (which requires a timing-based mini-game to do.) For some reason, throwing the trash bag into the dumpster gives you money, and throwing it in with perfect timing gets you the most money. Sure, why not? It's not as if you'd really expect any of the business aspects of this game to make sense at this point.

The cleaning up mechanics are not very fun and there's no way to entirely eliminate them. It has the added frustration of some of the trash being almost invisible (looking at you, empty water bottles!) There's an upgrade perk you can do later in the game that seems to give a chance each day of having no trash to pick up that day, but there will definitely still be days when you walk in and it looks like someone emptied an entire dumpster all over your arcade.

The arcade games are mostly just re-flavored classics like Arkanoid, Space Invaders, Whack-a-Mole, various shmups, etc. There's a large variety and a few genuinely good games, but I found that playing most of them was kind of tedious. The way you make money in the game is from the machines generating cash from people playing them. The amount of cash they produce each day is based on their popularity. You raise a game's popularity by playing it and by unlocking achievement-style challenges for that game when you're playing it yourself. Usually there are 2 or 3 moderate challenges and one that's so hard and time consuming that it wouldn't be worth your time to bother. I really would have preferred to manage the business in a more traditional simulation of how a business actually works and is developed. Anyway, that's not how the game is played, so we'll move on.

At a certain point, I started getting pretty bored of picking up trash and shooting pixelated aliens, but I wanted to see where the story was going. The only way to progress the main plot is to buy all the arcade machines currently available in the store's stock. Once you do that, a story scene occurs (usually an instant message conversation on the computer or a phone call from your douchebag father) and then the arcade store gets another wave of machines to buy. Rinse and repeat. Essentially you'll have to just grind it out since each wave of new arcade cabinets is more expensive than the last. After I had exhausted playing all the games in the arcade that I actually liked, I tried to grind out some of the achievements for the games I didn't care for and quickly burnt out. Instead, I just started AFKing in the arcade. I would generate somewhere around $6000-$7000 a day by just standing around, and so I could buy a new cabinet every 2 days or so at the endgame. It was tedious, but there really wasn't anything fun to do otherwise. And.. well, that's the game.

Hands-down the best thing this game has going for it is the soundtrack. It's very nostalgic with lots of sound-alike homages to popular songs and genres of the 80s and 90s. The game really gets the aesthetic down in the visuals as well, so for that it gets some good will from me. Otherwise, it was a bit of a slog and I didn't enjoy it much toward the end.

Overall, I'd say it's an above-average effort from an indie studio and I look forward to seeing what they do next.

85%PC

Really good game! Really makes me feel nostalgic but the games are pretty challenging!

80%PC

An unexpectedly fun arcade management game. And, when I say "management" game, It's more of a compilation of mini-games with a thinly veiled arcade management mask. Most of the arcade games are re-skinned classic arcade games and other mini-games. The only management aspect of the game is choosing where to put your cabinets and cabinet settings, but there is no reason not to pick the optimal choices for both so there's no real management. You can play individual games and complete challenges to boost their profit. This is where I enjoyed it the most, completing game specific challenges kept the game fresh. The story is quaint, basic and predictable. Not bad, not great.

25%PC

Arcade Paradise 2.5/10:
-Expected an Arcade simulator got a clothes simulator with a little bit of Arcade fucking scam
-And the minigames of this game suck as especially the FOV

70%PC

A cool concept about trying to start and run an arcade, where you can actually play all the games. Very grindy (though with a purpose) and the mini games are hit and miss, but it's really hard to put down once it gets you in.

90%PC

Wasn't too sure when I first started this one, but quickly got engulfed. Could easily see myself getting lost for another 15-20 hours working on To Do's and various game goals. Almost every single arcade cabinet was enjoyable.

65%PC

The game starts out quite fun, but never really evolves. It just lacks depth, take the placement of cabinets; the game tells you placing cabinets next to popular ones will boost their popularity, but I never got more than +4, whereas each goal you complete gives +10. So managing placement of cabinets well is just a waste of time.

The minigames vary quite a bit in terms of quality, some are god-awful (Foosball, Darts, Air Hockey) some are just too long, especially the goals (Fruit Crush, Golf) and some are quite decent at least in shorter bursts.

I like the idea of the game, but I was frequently playing minigames I didn't enjoy at all just to get that popularity boost. Because getting all goals more than doubles the income of that cabinet.

It also has an enormous number of smaller bugs and glitches that really hamper the enjoyment, from UI glitches to hitboxes to teleporting pucks in digital airhockey.

I think the game would've been more fun with more management options and a less linear path (and less focus on the god-awful story).

70%PlayStation 4

Great start, but overall it's a too long grind. But perfect for hearing podcasts on the side. :-)

90%Xbox Series X/S

Starts off a little slow and repetitive, and the first games you get are far from the best ones, but things pick up once you get the hang of the daily cycle and you can quickly add more games and more stuff to do. Once things really open it becomes quite addictive and fun, with plenty to do and a lot of variety. The whole thing is also just very charming, and even though there's a handful of annoying controls or minor technical issues here and there, I mostly had a great time, and that's even after I beat the game and felt compelled to beat it 100%. A surprisingly meaty playthrough.

80%PC

A great game, with lots of smaller gems of games inside!

90%PlayStation 5

A fantastic game filled with games inspired by classic games as well as some unique and interesting ones. The game starts off with your Dad putting you in charge of a laundromat and you find some arcade machines in the back that are making good money. You will progress with collecting money to buy new machines and get to play all the games you buy and in fact playing them will increase your revenue.

The game was released for 20 USD and is a steal for this price. The game even includes a pretty good story and I got goosebumps a few times as it unfolded. The one negative is about half of the games are way too easy and don't give much of a challenge but this is made up by the other half that range from decent games to real gems (Blockchain is my favorite.)

The game also has some bugs that need worked but they are minor and I am confident in the developer flicking them away (you'll get the reference if you play the game :-).

40%PlayStation 5

I had high hopes for this one. Building your own arcade, buying new machines and keeping people happy. Theme Hospital style. But that is not what they went with here. The actual managing of the arcade you build is very basic. You have a few fixed spots for the cabinets and all you can do is alter difficulty and price. Not much else is going on. The idea is that the more you play these cabinets, the more goals you get and then the more popular these cabinets get. Thus giving you more income. The problem is that each arcade game is a rip off from a much better game. Arkanoid, Mr Driller, Outrun etc. All done better before. Each arcade game also runs horribly and are mainly focused around playing a lot to get permanent upgrades. So there is just not much fun in playing the games. To reach the end it takes about 25 hours. Most disappointing game of the year.