Arcade Paradise VR has released a new trailer for the game, and we caught up with the creative director of Nosebleed Interactive to learn more about this adaptation of the business simulation game.
Announced at last month's Winter Showcase, Arcade Paradise VR lets you turn an abandoned laundromat into a '90s arcade. Publisher Wired Productions has announced that 12 of the arcades have been fully adapted for VR, joining the 27 traditionally-operated games from the original release. In the middle of shooters, basketball and more, here's the new trailer:
All of our games from The Hungry Horde onwards had mini-games. We were working on a prototype racing game with RPG elements, so we wanted to have a lot of unlockable content. One aspect of this involved unlocking the game in order to play it on a computer. We made the prototype with a lot of playable games, and when we showed it to [Wired Productions], they said, "Why don't you just do the gameplay part?" So we actually started making a collection of arcade games.
Firnigl解释说，工作室需要一个“强大的元游戏”，超越了像Sega Ages这样的街机收藏，希望能够有故事情节和玩家代理，让玩家不断回来。我被告知，自助洗衣房的背景设定是由Firnigl以前从事“乏味”工作的经历启发的，他在那些工作中会“思考有趣的游戏创意”，并且“将你做的所有事情游戏化以加快时间的流逝”。目标是找到一个不具有雄心壮志的起始工作。
On the question of how Nosebleed balances the development of nearly 40 arcade games, Firnigl told me that they categorize them into three different types. "There are display games, which are like shopping centers, and they're like anchor stores. We spent a lot of time developing four or five of them," he replied. The rest of the arcade games are "medium" and "small" games, with varying degrees of complexity.
Was a VR port always Nosebleed's plan? Firnigl says he's "always wanted to do it," and in the original proposal document he mentioned that it was "perfect for VR.
我们的计划是让你感到身临其境，让它真实地感觉像一个街机厅。 不是80年代的全盛时期，而是90年代初期，街机在完全衰落之前找到了自己的脚跟。如果我们能模拟出粘粘的地毯、香烟味和口香糖味道，我们会这样做的。
"Beyond the arcade games themselves, we found that these activities felt much better in VR compared to a flat screen," he later explained, employing touch controllers for physical actions in action games rather than pressing buttons on a standard gamepad. One example is that light gun games feel better in VR than on a flat screen because "you can shoot directly at the screen" rather than controlling a cursor.
In Arcade Paradise VR, you will not be able to play with friends. The flat screen version only supports local multiplayer, and theQuestThe feature was completely removed on the
"We didn't have online multiplayer because it would have extended the development time by a year ...... It would have cost more but brought little benefit, which is a bit of a shame," Firnigl said.
He said he prefers to leave the multiplayer for another game, and thinks players will prefer the original arcade games built for VR - which features six new games made for the VR version. The update also includes new voice lines from Doug Cockle (The Witcher 3), although Firnigl also mentioned that some arcade games from the flat-screen version were also removed.
"We lost a couple, and we tried to get pool to work, but it didn't work well in VR," he told me, adding that darts "aren't that fun to play."
While Quest 2 is the target platform, I asked if they'd offer broader VR support, since the PC and PS5 already have flat-screen versions. "We may work on it in the future, but we don't plan to at this time," a Wired rep told me. As for performance, Firnigl isn't ready to officially confirm the details of Quest 2 and Quest 3.
A release date has not yet been set, but Arcade Paradise VR is "coming soon" to the Meta Quest platform.
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