5 Fantastic Features of an Arcade Game

Noduffershere/ December 15, 2021/ Entertainment Options, Gaming History/ 0 comments

If you’re someone who has enjoyed playing some exciting games in the 1990s, you’ll be familiar with arcade games. The very sight of an arcade gaming console today will take you down memory lane. You’ll remember all those flashy lights and thrilling sounds of these machines. Here, we’ll take a deeper look at some of the characteristics of arcade games. 

This would also remind you of the legacy that these games have left behind. An arcade game can be defined as a coin-based machine that’s designed to play a game based on motion graphics. It is also referred to as a video game. Some of the interesting features of arcade games are listed below:

1. There’s no story involved

Most of the classic arcade games have never tried to tell a story. These games usually have easily recognizable settings and revolve around certain themes. Some are into sports, while others explore the experiences of war. One thing worth noting is that there’s plenty of creativity involved in the gameplay. 

The designers of classic arcade games were not required to come up with great stories. They just picked an exciting theme and developed an entertaining game around it. There were, of course, a few games that broke the conventional settings.

2. Gaming takes place on a single screen

Most of the gameplay is classic arcade games that took place on a single screen. It was largely owing to the limitations of technology. Players, therefore, had to make their moves only in a certain portion. One can always remember Pac-Man, Joust, and Mario Bros from the 1990s.

3. Number of tries

Classic arcade games typically follow the pattern of allowing players only a finite number of tries. When the player reached that number, the game would be over. This pattern was possibly derived from the pinball games. They had given players three or five balls for decades. Most of the arcade games evolved over a period of time. 

Now multiple lives were given, which allowed new players to learn the game’s mechanics before it was over. With this, they were given the chance to understand how the game worked. Getting extra tries our lives serve as a motivation for players to play again and improve their game.

4. Simple games

Players could easily learn classic arcade games because of their simple features. When it came to mastering these games, things became quite tough. Players could enter the game of Centipede and get an idea about how the game worked. This happened mostly by the time they reached their third try. One could easily learn these games through trial and error. 

Of course, there were some that had tricky concepts like shields and health. Commercial aspects of these games were probably one of the biggest factors behind their simplicity. Besides, when the classic arcade games were initially introduced, there was hardly any competition. So, there was no need for the developers to create highly complicated games.

5. Scoring

All these games included a scoring feature. It allowed players to accumulate points for accomplishing a variety of objectives. Let’s take the example of Centipede. In this game, the players score a point for destroying one mushroom and 10 points for a centipede segment. 

Such scores also allowed players to know how well they were doing in the game. Arcade games also had the feature of allowing players to enter their name next to their score. This happened when they reached the highest score ever made by a player on that machine.

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