As a little kid I remember spending countless hours in video arcades with my big brother. We would play the latest arcade games and, of course , our favorite classic coin ops over and over again. Then, something happened. The arcades started to disappear one at a time.  As kids we were of course disappointed to see this take place. Of course also ,as kids , we never really thought about why they went away. When I discovered the Xbox Indy game Arcade Craft, it really brought back those fond memories while also allowing me to experience the actual business side of running an 80’s arcade without going bankrupt like most arcade owners eventually would do. Arcade Craft is a fun, lighthearted “80’s arcade simulator” that for about three dollars, is a pretty fun time waster. I’m glad I discovered it this morning on a rare trip deep into the hard to navigate Xbox Indy games section.

The game starts you off with basically nothing but a bank loan, so basically, you’re already in debt before you even open for business. This is something that I personally would not do going into a new business. I would find a business partner or work in the industry untill I had enough money for a deposit, but hey it’s just a video game so who cares. You get to name your arcade and then start buying a few arcade games. Remember you don’t have any money, so you can’t fill your arcade with the latest and greatest right away. I had three or four games for most of the time, that’s it. The placement of your games and the popularity of your games determines how much money you raking in quarters.  You can adjust the difficulty and also the amount of quarters to play. But if you make it say 2 quarters instead of 1, or put it on hard  difficulty, your customers will actually say comments such as it is a “rip off” and leave. This makes your Arcade less popular and less people will visit.  Also ,things like power failures , machines breaking down and even customers who abuse the machines all create headaches for you, the arcade owner. Still,this little Indy game never loses its sense of fun, charm, and of course nostalgia  so it always stays entertaining.

My favorite part of this three dollar indie game is being able to use my own avatar as the business owner. Also, all my customers are  avatars from my personal friends list. This makes it entertaining watching the likes of  Gunsage, Bruce McGee, Carlos, heck even family members playing in my arcade via their avatars. Watching the avatar of my wife saying “Rad” while playing an arcade game made me laugh out loud.  I did have to throw out my sister-in-law twice so far for kicking my machines when she ran out of lives. Sorry, but after all my avatar paid for that machine.  Check Arcade Craft out for some old school 80’s arcade nostalgia along with some very simple and fun simulation gameplay. I am not big on strategy games and simulation games, so if I like it then you know it must be both easy and fun. There’s a short free trial of Arcade Craft on XBL, so you have nothing to lose ,except for maybe a few quarters?