An early access code was provided, many thanks to Prosper Forge.
Arcade Manager is a simulation game in which you manage an arcade. You can add new games, machines, decorations, prizes, and more to make customers happy while they play.
Arcade Manager: An Isometric Simulation Game
You begin Arcade Manager by selecting your difficulty and game type. In the most current version I am playing, you have access to a Career game mode as well as Sandbox mode. Both offer you the ability to change the difficulty to easy, normal, hard, and very hard. You can also choose which location you want to start it. In Sandbox, you have a lot more freedom; you will get to choose how much money you want to start with and even a backstory.
Once you load into a game, you are responsible for hiring people to run your arcade, getting new machines, and also buying prizes for your current customers. There is a way to pause and speed up time to make sure you have the time to look over everything and get all the machines properly set up.
After that, you fast forward through most of the day, watching as people come into the arcade and actually play your games. Each customer NPC has little game-playing animations, so people actually dance on the DDR-like machine, move the levers for the claw machine, and things like that. As long as you continue to expand your business, unlock new games, choose new upgrades, and keep buying new prizes and cabinets, you will ramp up your customers’ happiness, making them want to tell all their friends about your arcade. This makes you more popular and brings in more customers to continue the cycle.
Pros and Cons of the Arcade Manager Early Access
Arcade Manager is colorful, cute, and has a lot of options. I tend to prefer the Sandbox versions of these types of games, so I was super happy that it was an option for playing. There were so many decorations and cute little games that I enjoyed digging through the menu to see all my options.
Overall, it was pretty fun, even though I’m not usually a huge fan of these types of simulations. However, it did have some issues. My main concern with Arcade Manager was the awkwardness of the menuing. Normally, in these types of games, you interact with the menu in a pretty standard way: you select the items with left-click, place them with left-click, rotate with R or the mouse wheel, and then dismiss them with right-click.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t a way to dismiss the item you are holding without leaving the menu entirely. Also, the menu buttons don’t always respond to clicking, and I’m not sure why. I think it is because you have to click on the icon, and you can’t click on the text, that makes it so awkward to play; it’s unintuitive to figure out and get used to.
The sound design is good, but the music is a little repetitive and bland. I would suggest spinning up your own songs to play in the background and muting the in-game music. I did notice a little bug(?) while I was playing; every time you place an item, if your time is frozen, time moves forward briefly. I’m not sure why the devs would do this on purpose, so I assumed it was a bug.
Final Thoughts
I think Arcade Manager is cute and fun for what it is. If you enjoy these types of games and like the aesthetic, I can tentatively recommend it. However, it feels unfinished in the way that a lot of Early Access indie titles do. Also, the price point is a little high for what it is. I’m interested to see how this game progresses, but it feels a little too unfinished to recommend to anyone not really devoted to the genre already.
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