'Arcade Paradise' is now available on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.

On the face of it, Arcade Paradise seems to promise too much: an indie management sim boasting a story-driven and evolving environment, 35 pseudo-original games, and a price tag of just $25. Surely some mistake?

After 25 hours of playtime–and despite only clearing the main “campaign”, without really digging deep into its plethora of challenges and unlockables–Arcade Paradise is an absolute gem of a game. Despite its slack handful of bugs, glitches, gripes, and box-ticking exercises, Nosebleed Interactive’s spiritual successor to debut Vostok Inc might be the best value for money you’ll get from a game in 2022.

At its heart, Arcade Paradise is a profit simulator in a similar vein to House Flipper: an adventure that is, for the most part, as banal as it is exciting. You assume the role of Ashley, tasked with making a laundrette profitable. It happens to have a trio of old arcade machines in a glorified closet. Through force of will, a raft of menial jobs, and the support of your sympathetic sister Lesley, you soon diversify your business–and transform it, and the game itself, into a whole different experience.

The owner of the laundry is your dad. He’s a condescending dick who doesn’t believe in you, sunning himself in Europe while and you’re stuck in the city Grindstone–a relatively broken place that channels 90s Detroit, Cleveland, or Luton. Voiced by none other than Doug Cockle–Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher game series, and ambassador for gaming mental health charity Safe in Our World, which publisher Wired Productions supports–you’re immediately given a cartoonish yet credible foe to prove wrong.

In truth, the story that underpins Arcade Paradise follows the principle of Chekhov’s gun, but without being bland. The game uses chat windows, answering machine messages, and emails to advance a simple, straightforward plot that has near-zero fat. You buy machines, get more cash from said machines, invest in new machines, get a story-progressing message, and knock through the occasional wall for more machines. All the while, you’re assessing, adjusting, and gathering income.

Throughout the game, you’re expected to clean, wash clothes, take out the trash, empty hoppers and, of course, play games. You’re on the clock from morning through to 11pm, when the arcade closes, though you’re able to stay and play until 2am. All the while, your watch regularly interrupts whatever you’re doing to remind you of the tasks that need doing–even blocking your view of the game you may be playing, often at a critical juncture.

Another job needs your attention.

You start with three seemingly crappy arcade machines. There’s a very basic digital air hockey game, as well as the oddly intriguing Racer Chaser: Pac-Man meets Grand Theft Auto, where power-up pills turn your car into a tank, but getting caught isn’t the end of your run, as you stop policemen from catching you by firing music notes from your boombox in the lowest-def take on Saints Row IV’s Dubstep Gun.

However, you immediately realize just how compelling these games can be–and, by extension, just how mesmerizing the entire Arcade Paradise experience can be.

For me, my first real infatuation came through the third starter machine, Woodgal’s Adventure–a match-three, Candy Crush Saga-style escapade which first exemplified my slowly growing attitude of “f*** your washing.” Owing to my own, brief, crushing addiction to CCS in 2017, this soon became a focal point of every day at King Wash, and it’s soon clear that your investment in gaming pays dividends.

Playing machines for a long time increases their popularity and, therefore, income. Soon, hoppers need emptying daily, powering future purchases. After finally completing Woodgal’s main story–which, to its credit, is easily three or four hours–I escaped its clutches and started to enjoy the other games on show, driving up revenue.

Of course, you can’t just play the games to your heart’s content unless you’re happy for constant interruptions; you have real-life work to do. Luckily, even the most boring tasks are thoroughly gamified, from tossing garbage into the bin and removing bubblegum from fixings, all the way through to picking up trash, unblocking the toilet, or flicking literal bugs from broken-down arcade machines’ motherboards. You’re graded, rewarded, and incentivized at nearly every turn.

In 'Arcade Paradise', bugs are both literal and figurative.

Soon, your laundrette is dwarfed by your arcade, you have a dozen or more machines, and while a lot of them obviously ape famous games–Missile Command, Dance Dance Revolution, Frogger, Final Fight, Whack-a-Mole, Space Invaders and more all get send-ups–others prove to be strokes of genius, which you find yourself going back to again and again.

Zombat 2, for example, is a simple but arresting twin-stick shooter which, as with other games in the arcade, it allows you to gradually unlock weapons or upgrades that persist when you replay them. UFO Attack is Space Invaders in reverse: a one-button bombing mission that demands accuracy and strategy. Blockchain is a seemingly original maths-based Tetris game that initially seems impossible, but you soon come to figure it out–after which you can barely leave it alone.

Elsewhere, other games can excite in one-off doses, and you’ll probably not go back to them after completing them. Slime Pipes (a version of Pipe Mania), Bugai (Puzzle Bobble), and Vostok (Xevious) are a lot of fun, and continue to be nice little money-spinners after you’ve cleared them completely.

Nonetheless, Arcade Paradise tries to give you new reasons to try a new title or return to one after days away from it through its secondary currency system. Pound sterling is wired by your dad for completing up to three daily tasks, such as playing certain games or cleaning, with which you can unlock a number of slow-to-earn perks: shoes that give you sprint abilities, books that unlock new systems on your computer or the ability to slow down time, and much more.

For me, nothing improved my quality of life as much as hiring an assistant manager to empty the hoppers–a real bane of my existence–plus double-sized bin bags, reducing daily trips to the dumpster by half. Different playing styles are catered to, but few others seem quite as important in those early stages.

Alas, it’s not all fun and games (and cleaning). Arcade Paradise is, right now, quite buggy and in need of some refinement. While a number of bugs appear to have been ironed out in the days since the review copy was issued, there are clearly a few problems that still need to be addressed– understandable, if you’re an indie developer that’s decided to create three-dozen games at once.

While the occasional bit of untouchable garbage or hidden gum can be an annoyance–and certain daily challenges can’t be completed because you simply don’t get the opportunity to do them–nearly all major issues seem to be restricted to the games themselves.

Hustler, the pool game, is unforgivingly difficult and inaccurate; Bomb Dudes (Bomberman) has serious lag on explosions, which seem to kill you long after the dust’s settled; Table Football’s camera breaks after your first goal, meaning you can’t see a damn thing; Space Race Simulator has turns that are near impossible to take at any speed; Gravichase is seemingly unplayable, but chances are I’m just absolutely rubbish at it.

'Space Race Simulator' is one of a handful of games that doesn't quite hit the mark.

Meanwhile, the act of placing new, unpopular machines alongside very popular ones–something Arcade Paradise insists you do to raise revenue quicker–seems to have little effect. Still, probably just as well; the blueprint map you use to shift them around is locked at its dead center and can’t be moved, though this problem will hopefully be fixed in due course.

And yet, in the grand scheme of things, these niggles don’t really matter. As with all arcades, if you’re bored, annoyed, or maligned by one thing, you just move onto the next. You have your favorites, you constantly try for a new high score, and occasionally you’ll discover a new love. Even if you’re not in the mood for arcade action, there’s also a superb soundtrack available via the jukebox, which you can add to through small vinyl purchases.

Ultimately, Arcade Paradise is the love letter it promised to be, and one that’s just as imperfect as the games we loved growing up, both in arcades and on home consoles. To put such a huge amount of content into such an unassuming game is an incredible achievement, and if Nosebleed continues to patch the problems, it could well be a contender in awards season–all the more impressive, given how strong the year has already proved to be among indie developers.