(Pictured: Castle Crashers Arcade cabinet from a previous PAX event)
The game news site Polygon.com is giving some love to arcades, albeit with a focus on some “indie” developments that have been going on out there. More stories are on their way tomorrow, just catching up after having the day off.
The Penny Arcade Expo, also known as PAX was held this past weekend and there were some actual arcade cabinets there. Nothing from our sector in terms of a Sega or Raw Thrills cabinet but games designed by some companies whose main focus is usually the console sector. The prop cabinets promote their games from a unique angle and at least one developer, Behemoth really seems to enjoy making pieces like this. Polygon has a piece on their efforts to put the games together. One has to wonder if they have ever considered taking the next step and doing some wide-spread manufacturing of one of their ideas.
Next is something pointed to me by The Stinger Report, an interview by Polygon with the designers of the indiecade game Killer Queen. This game was mentioned as a part of this multi-news post back in May. It looks like the developers have kept up with holding tournaments for the game and they have further plans although they don’t seem to be too certain about where it is headed at this point in time. They do mention that they would like to make some cabinets so that student unions and universities can pick them up; with that being the case I think they should do some testing at a few arcades or FECs and see if the concept would draw attention there too. I’m sure there’s a facility or two that would be happy to work as a testing ground for the game in the NY or surrounding areas.
The chances of the products in the stories hitting the mass market anytime soon seem minimal but I would not say impossible. The interest seems to be there to some degree and proper testing, if that step was taken, could lead to a larger investment from those in the industry to make it happen.
Killer Queen was present at CAX (California Extreme) this past July, in the huge projection screen format. Even though in the video they say there is more of a sense of team in the dual cabinet format, I saw lots of smack talk being thrown out between the teams when all 10 people were lined up in front of the projection screen.
Although I only attended CAX for one day, Killer Queen was pretty much going full 5 on 5 during the entire day. Quite impressive.
Castle Crashers would make a great arcade game, but the developers just assume the arcade industry is dead. The game sold around 2.5 million copies on XBLA so they just stick to that.
I would love to see Killer Queen end up at Dave and Buster’s and such. They’d need to really polish the graphics and gameplay but it’s very doable. I need to play it.
Hi guys, we are going to be bringing Killer Queen to arcades, and other venues like bars. The first one will go in a new arcade in San Francisco “Free Gold Watch”.