HOW DIFFERENT DOES THE RELEASED GAME LOOK FROM HOW IT WAS ENVISIONED? It doesn’t.


AS THE ART CAME TOGETHER, DID IT INFLUENCE THE GAME DESIGN IN ANY WAY? To be honest it’s always been the other way round for our studio. We’re a coder heavy, design led studio, where the art serves the gameplay. I’m happy with how the game looks, but for us it’s more about getting good framerates and putting player experience above everything else. I’d rather cut stuff if it doesn’t serve


“Rather than explicitly telling them via a tutorial to start ignoring the washing we want the realisation to dawn on them naturally that they can concentrate on the fun of the Arcade machines themselves. Doing so increases the popularity of machines and means they’re more profitable.”


52 | MCV/DEVELOP September 2022


gameplay. Obviously for marketing shots and so on we want a nice-looking game, but for us as a studio, it’s all about gameplay. One of the things that did influence the direction of the game though was the 90s setting.


A lot of the game and atmosphere comes from my hazy recollection of the time and being a teen who was into arcades. Certainly, reading some of the reviews, I think we’ve been successful in nailing that aesthetic. It was always the plan to set the game in the early 90s, but by doubling down on an authentic portrayal of it, from memory rather than from popular cultural representations. I think this has meant we’ve managed to capture something that feels right and heightens what we set out to achieve.


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