PixlBit

I started the day by going to Hope’s Cookies for cookies and John’s Village Mart for hoagies. That stuff was darn good!

                                  

                            Look at that slide! What things they can do in these games!

Then my friend Mark hooked up my Intellivision Flashback console. He played Shark! Shark! while I played the same game on Xbox Live’s Game Room. Then he played World Championship Baseball, which was the improved version of Major League Baseball, the game we played as kids. As I watched him play the computer and rack up a score of 140 to 10, I noticed all the little things they added like:  vertical scrolling to allow for more outfield space, infield fly balls, and sliding. The Flashback console worked well once you got it going, but there was some issue with the controllers. Mark had to reboot the system several times to get the darn thing to respond to them – and they’re wired. His final word on the system was that it was a great idea but too much trouble.

                

                        Twinbee and a screen I've never seen because the game is HARD!

While this was going on, I played the rest of my Game Room games on Xbox 360. Highlights of those were Stampede, Time Pilot, and TwinBee.  Then I looked at the list of games on Game Room to see if there were any more I wanted to get. I didn’t find any that really stood out, but I noticed that almost all were very good quality games. I commend Krome Studios for their choice of games (if they had a say in that) and the great design of the software. It put to shame the menus and options in Intellivision Flashback.

Then I remembered about Arcadecraft in Xbox Live’s Indie section. I’ve been wanting to play it for a while now, so I thought this the perfect opportunity. I bought it for $3 and Mark got it too. We played it in tandem the rest of the night. I found it kind of difficult really. I couldn’t get past the second year without going broke, but I kept at it and got a little better over time. Mark did a really good job of it and had a large bustling arcade after year one. It was fun to watch.

                 

                    This is way more machines than I ever got. I'd be a horrible businessman. 

The game works by giving you a building space that you can improve with decor, arcade machines, and vending machines. It looks very similar to Game Room but it’s also a business sim. You start with some money and then watch as your friend’s avatars come in and play your games. Then you repair machines, get rid of rowdy players, and move machines to “hot spots” that appear from time to time on the floor. Machine placement is supposed to be important, but other than the “hot spots” and putting sequels together, I couldn’t figure out what spot was best. The whole object is to boost your popularity rating, which draws more people to your arcade, which in turn gives you more loot.

There are a lot of cool things in this game. The arcade machines are all funny knock-offs of famous machines. It was fun to try and guess what real life arcade games they were. Space Rocks was clearly Asteroids for instance. There’s all kinds of arcade machines from cocktail table ones, to sit-down monsters, and even pinball machines. You can tweak the price and difficulty of each game too.

My best strategy was to buy the jukebox (which is always popular) and the soda machine and then get as many arcade machines as I could afford. This worked well in the short term, but I wasn’t making enough money quickly enough. As machines get older, they get less popular and then make less money. I kept getting into a steady decline that I couldn’t get out of.  Next time I play, I’ll look up some strategies. Maybe I’m missing something.

And that wraps it up. I think now I can really focus on my new game Fantasy Life on 3DS. So have a merry Cob day and a happy Yaksmas!