Name | Arcade Spirits | ||
Developer | Fiction Factory Games | ||
Publisher | PQube Limited | ||
Tags | |||
Release | 2019-02-12 | ||
GameBillet | 16.57 / € | ||
Steam | € £ $ / % | ||
News | |||
Controls | Keyboard Mouse Full Controller Support | ||
Players online |  0  | ||
Steam Rating | n/a | ||
Steam store | |||
SteamSpy | |||
Peak CCU Yesterday |
| ||
Owners |  0 .. 20,000 +/-   | ||
Players - Since release |   +/- | ||
Players - Last 2 weeks |   +/- | ||
Average playtime (forever) | 0 | ||
Average playtime (last 2 weeks) | 0 | ||
Median playtime (forever) | 0 | ||
Median playtime (last 2 weeks) | 0 | ||
DLC | Arcade Spirits - Artbook |
Arcade Spirits fans, rejoice! Our next visual novel is on the way... |
[h2]Welcome back retro romancers![/h2] |
[h2]Welcome back challengers![/h2] |
Hello gamers and retro romantics! |
Ah anniversaries, one of the greatest (and most romantic ) occasions to celebrate, especially this close to Valentine's Day! |
Hello fellow Arcade Spirits Enthusiasts, |
Ah, summer. Sundresses, ice creamand, of course, some crazy discounts on games! With everything from pixel platformers to furr-tastic RPGs, there is something for everyone in the PQube catalogue. Check out some of our top picks below! |
Hello, hello! |
Arcade Spirits 2.0 contains a bucketful of polish to shine things up real nice. Nothing major, but you'll get a better experience overall.
|
Hey, folks -- MidBoss let us into the cool kids club and now we're happily a part of the Summer of Pride steam sale! That means you get the same amount of arcade goodness at a low, low price. Save your quarters! |
A minor patch was issued today for Arcade Spirits, as we tune and tweak the game for its upcoming May 1st release on Switch, XBox, and PS4. |
This update provides general housekeeping for bugs and typos, and introduces an extensive new system to make the game more accessible to visually impaired players.
For visually impaired players, we have improvements to our audio-only mode! To activate, press the V key on your keyboard while on the main menu. This is a beta test of this feature, so your feedback is welcome. With this turned on before you start the game, you'll get access to these features:
(Note that the DEMO of the game does not yet have these features, just the full game.) All of this is to bring the game up to speed with the upcoming game console release, coming to Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4, and XBox One. And stick around in 2020, when we'll be announcing our next game project, currently code named "Next Fiasco." Great stuff is on the horizon! Watch our Twitter, @ArcadeSpiritsVN, for more news. |
We're pleased to announce that Arcade Spirits, a tale of love and quarters and pixels from the year 20XX, is coming to PlayStation 4, XBox One, and Nintendo Switch in early 2020! |
Patch notes time! Share and enjoy.
|
Patch Notes:
|
This version brings some fixes, UI improvements, and as always... less typos.
|
The game's in good shape, 99.97% of bugs and typos are gone, and any significant story edits we wanted to make are now made. This patch is mostly polishing things up, with one feature addition to make loading save games easier.
|
Welcome to version 1.05! This includes a few minor edits to the story for flow and pacing, a number of bugfixes, and some adjustments to the Iris tutorial. We're aiming to have one more patch coming up in a week or two which makes saving games between chapters a bit easier (right now when you reload the save you have to then click 'return') but wanted to get these fixes out the door sooner. Almost all typos are gone by this point -- if you still spot any, let us know!
|
This version of Arcade spirits introduces a few fixes and enhancements...
|
Welcome to Arcade Spirits v1.03! It's a minor patch, as we seem to be quite stable now; just doing some little tweaks and tunes to keep things smooth. I've been watching streams to figure out where our trouble spots are, and anywhere I can improve the text without changing story elements, I'm happy to do so.
|
Welcome to Arcade Spirits v1.02! We've added a big feature, changed a few things, and fixed up a bunch of minor issues along the way...
|
Patch notes, y'all! We fixed a few things tonight.
|
Arcade Spirits is RELEASED! |
Database system online. Iris personality matrix engaged. |
Dee da dee doo, dee da dee da dee... |
Been some time since our last developer blog post. Honestly? Not much to report, since we wrapped up the game and are just waiting for the release. But we're not TOTALLY resting on our hopefully-arriving-in-the-future laurels. Let's recap and discuss the doings and goings on. |
It's been some time since I did a rambly developer blog update about our actual progress on the game. Today I'd like to do one of those, effectively wrapping up our game in a neat little bow, as we're going to be sending it off to be certified and prepped for the February 12th launch. (And we'll be launching at $20 for the game and $25 for game plus soundtrack and artbook. Details here.)
Hats off to you all for two and a half years of hard work. I've chronicled the ideas leading up to those two and a half years on the blog -- that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk in hindsight, as we're into the last days of this project. We're moving into 2019 and moving away from post-production, and it's a good time to take stock. As my first true indie game project -- I don't think MS-DOS shareware from the 90s counts -- I wanted to make this as professional as I possibly could. We funded art, music, coding, and all the support needed to really make this game soar. It's a passion project, riding no particular trend, digging into subject matter rarely explored in visual novels and using interactive storytelling in ways we haven't seen very often in the genre. Everything we wanted to do, specifically to make the sort of game we wanted to play... we did it. And soon, we release it to you. Since it's our first project, well, there are some shortcomings. I can be honest about that. A more in-depth character creator would be great, having stricter narrative consistency would be great, and we didn't plan on voice acting from day one meaning our scenes weren't always structured in a way that accommodated it. The fifth identity trait ("Basically") was never quite what I wanted it to be. Behind the scenes, files and code could be structured better, making it easier to write and less prone to errors. These are all great lessons to learn moving forward, all things we're taking into account for future games, should we get to make them. But a lot of other things went spectacularly well. I wanted this to feel like an 80s workplace sitcom -- and it does. I wanted romance to be at the heart of the game, but not drive every single decision you make -- and there's variety here. I wanted to support and include as wide an audience as possible, every person no matter who they are -- and we've done that without sacrificing anything. I craved a game that spoke to wistful nostalgia without being entirely trapped within it, which was respectful of arcade culture but understanding of the modern era -- got it. And lastly, I wanted to tell a tale of hope and optimism in a dark time, where one could achieve their dreams if they were pragmatic about it and didn't give up. I believe we did that. So. Some things we could've done differently. Some things we got *chef kiss* spot on. And overall, I'm damn proud of the work we're about to release into the world. Will it soar? Will it sink? That's not for me to say -- that's for you to say. If it soars, then we are ready to take these lessons and make something bigger and brighter, a game which explores player choice and narrative in new ways. If it sinks, I can still say with pride that I did what I set out to do. Few people can say they truly chased their dreams. We still have a month and a half to go, so things are pretty intense for you right now, in anticipation. I get that. For me, we're winding down, we're packaging up and shipping things out... and I feel a kind of melancholy, letting this finally go. A bit of anxiety for how it will be received. But above all, happiness. We did this. And soon, we'll be able to show you. Thank you. As I always say, if you're reading these words, you're farther down the rabbit hole than you expect -- most people don't chew through developer blog posts, don't engage this deeply. You, however, are here with us. And for that you have my gratitude. So, who's ready to quarter up on February 12th? You got next. |
Good news -- the updated version of the Arcade Spirits demo is now available! Here's a list of what's new.
The full game releases February 12, 2019! So enjoy the demo, and we hope to see you then! |
Weve got a release date February 12th, 2019! Woo your arcade partner just in time for Valentines Day. And along with that announcement weve got a new trailer which features some of the great voice acting youll be hearing! |
Here's a conveniently desktop wallpaper sized poster of all the voice talent behind Arcade Spirits! Click to embiggen, share and enjoy.
So, what do you think? Any voices you're excited for in particular? Anyone new to you that you're interested in hearing? Let us know! |
I want to thank everyone who sent in an audition for Ashley, from last weeks open casting call. And judging from the number of entries, by everyone I mean a double digit percentage of the total population of the world because WOW did we get a lot of auditions! Were combing through them now its going to take some time before we can find the absolutely best Ashley we can in all this amazing talent. But hey, thats the kind of problem you want to have, right? Its a great problem. Thank you for giving us this problem. We love you. |
For those waiting to hear about open casting calls for Arcade Spirits, the time has come! Ashley Wolf, dedicated cosplayer and floor attendant for Francine's Arcade Funplex, needs your help!Are you a voice talent who thinks they have what it takes to help Ashley express her love of cosplay, arcade games, and weekend bingo night fiestas? Let's find out.
|
First up, I want to say Woohoo! and Thank you! to everybody who responded so positively to our announcement of voice acting. I also know a lot of you want to audition but we aren't doing open casting calls at this time. We may open up one or more roles in the future, and if we do, you'll hear it here first. We promise. Until then, thanks for your patience. |
Good news, everyone! We’re adding voice acting to Arcade Spirits! It’s our number one requested feature by far, something people kept coming up to us at conventions asking about. And now that we’ve got it in the works, I feel confident talking about this new feature with you all! |
As production winds down on Arcade Spirits — we’re aiming to be content complete by December, to allow some time for testing and implementation before our Q1 2019 release window — I’m finding I have less stuff to talk about in the dev blog. Fortunately, we’ve got a strong community, and they had a good idea for this week’s entry: What are some of the key differences between our alternate timeline and the real world? |
We’ve been asked this quite often — “Will Arcade Spirits be coming out on Switch or PS4 PS VITA or XBox One or Ouya or Intellivision or the Fairchild Channel F?” Console gamers like their story-driven games too, and it’s perfectly understandable to want a port. |
Apologies, forgot to upload last week's dev blog -- and it was a doozy, so let's make sure we don't pass it completely! I'll roll last week and this week into one post. |
This small update adds two new features: |
As I was preparing last week’s blog post, which refers to The Pillars of Arcade Spirits, it brought to mind a topic I’ve been pondering lately — signposting success and failure. |
Ever since the PQube announcement, we've had new folks tuning in to see what Arcade Spirits is all about. Hello, new folks! We've got a blog (which we mirror to Tumblr and Steam), we've got a Twitter for announcements and arcade culture tidbits, a Discord to connect with other arcade fans, a Patreon if you want to support us on a deeper level, and finally a website. That's a lot of stuff! Just pick your favorite way to follow us, and enjoy.
We're aiming to deliver one heck of a tale for you, a story that you participate in rather than passively read, a story you can insert yourself into or play whatever other personality type you like. Play things straight, romance or don't, get wild, be snarky, do as you want. And we hope you enjoy that story. ... Okay! That's our introduction out of the way. Let's talk this week's actual (slightly depressing) topic, based on Recent Topical News -- specifically Nintendo squishing several ROM and emulation sites with legal papers. Pirated retro games are no longer quite so easy to find, thanks to their actions. In Arcade Spirits we've added a mini-documentary hosted by Naomi which is all about building your own emulation cabinet. It's pretty detailed on the hardware and software you'll need, but one thing we skim over is obtaining ROMs -- because let's be totally honest here, Nintendo and their ilk have every legal right to say "Hey, uh, please stop giving away our games for free, okay?" You just can't condone that sort of thing, not if you work in the game industry like I do. There's no ethical leg to stand on. But unfortunately, this also poses a serious problem for video game preservation efforts. Many of these games are a tangled mess of copyright holders, many of which are out of business or were sold again and again, to the point where it's unclear WHO owns the copyright on a game anymore. Therefore, there is no legal way to play some of these games short of tracking down original arcade hardware and spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on it -- and if that hardware is just flat out gone, cabinets junked and sitting in landfills, a game can be lost forever. Look at the movie industry, where the majority of films from the dawn of cinema in the 30s are simply gone, because nobody thought to preserve them. Emulation and abandonware archives were one way to keep those dimly lit and flickering candles alive. Legal? No, but given the copyright holders cannot -- or in many cases, will not -- provide a legal means of obtaining the game, not many options remain. Even games which aren't exactly in danger of vanishing can be withheld... Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a good recent example. It never had a physical release, only digital downloads, and as licenses expired it was pulled from digital storefronts. You literally cannot legally obtain this game anymore and likely never will be able to again, and because it was loaded on DRM-locked modern game consoles, any act of preservation runs afoul of the DMCA. So... what to do? There's really not a good solution in the hands of gamers. And again, I can't and won't condone piracy. It's up to the companies involved to be willing to loosen their grip on these games, and many refuse to budge. As noted, they're even actively fighting websites that preserve games. And thus, an impasse. Hopefully we as an industry will find a way past this issue, to make these classic games available conveniently and without legal problems. Either that, or as fans of arcade classics, we'll have to mourn the passing of more and more great games. |
Welcome to the Arcade Spirits developer blog. Each week I post an in-depth look at some aspect of the game, or of arcade culture in general. Today, let's talk about one of the slightly more obscure influences behind Arcade Spirits -- the classic 1980s workplace sitcom. |
Hello, hello! Stefan here, co-author and project manager (oooh, official sounding) for Arcade Spirits. Thanks for dropping by. And thanks to our publisher PQube for helping us get to this point! Everybody reading these words just earned a few free tokens. |