This post is discussing a game that has been seen on location test, the arcade equivalent of a beta test. This game might not be released at all or if it does reach production, it may change significantly from what you’ll read about below. Save final judgements for the production model, if it makes it to that point!
H/T to Ted for finding and sharing these on the AH Discord server.
Back in June, Bandai Namco Amusements had registered a trademark for an arcade game called Bike Dash Delivery. Without any more info to go off of, I kind of forgot about it but now that the game has been seen on test in Japan, we can discuss.
This information comes from Twitter (or X… whatever). The translation of the first tweet says: “[It’s] a bicycle version of a Crazy Taxi… or rather, an Uber Eats game. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game where you can move your body. It’s 200 yen per play, but it’s nice to be able to play with two people for the same amount.” The second tweet is less detailed on the text but has a different angle on the pics, and is in what appears to be a different location. Let’s share those then discuss:
The cabinet (first pic has some text on it but is close on the handle bars)
A few things likely come to mind when you see these – Namco’s old Prop Cycle or Downhill Bikers likely being one of them. The first tweet mentions Crazy Taxi, although with the bike and food delivery theme attached to this, I’m thinking a little more Radikal Bikers by Gaelco (which might not have been very common in Japan?). Either way, the style of play is not your typical modern arcade piece, giving the player some freedom of movement around the digital space, while also crossing over into fitness thanks to the real bike pedals that one has to pump to move your digital avatar.
Beyond real pedals, the top part of it appears to come from a real bike frame and presumably there is a chain drive with some resistance to it within the yellow/orange bike shells. I would also presume that the brake handles w/ cables are attached to sensors so that it properly brakes when you pull those. I can’t tell if the seat heights are adjustable but they might slide forward or backward.
Per the banner, you can ride over red or orange squares to launch your bike into the air, even jumping on top of buildings (which you’d probably want to do to reach your destination faster than usual). There is likely a timer at play too, but it appears that you can drive over ingredients you find to enhance the meal you’re delivering, thus earning more points.
The cabinet comes in a twin configuration where both player sides share the same coin door; If it stays like this into production, then a unit sold this way would at least let two people play at once but it is unknown whether or not it will link more than that.
One question of course is: “Will this come to the States?” and as of this moment I don’t have an answer on that (I’ll ask about it to see if there is an answer on that yet, but expect an update to come tomorrow – I don’t like bugging people about these things on weekends) – but if I find out, I’ll be sure to update. Of course if Namco won’t say, then the IAAPA tradeshow come November would likely tell us whether or not this will be joining GoldStorm Pirates as a piece you might expect to find in arcades in 2024.
That all depends on whether or not the game passes testing too.
With my opinion cap on now, this is rather neat – no, it’s not 100% original in that we’ve seen bike pedaling games before but they are so uncommon that it still is a novelty. Fitness is also bigger than ever, so that can be an easy sell. Combining it with Crazy Taxi style gameplay is also a plus – although I’m sure most anyone approaching it will want some Crazy Taxi-like tunes to accompany it, although the alt rock scene is not quite the same as it was in CT’s days.
Granted the operator in me is wondering how much it will cost, but that’s probably too early to tell.
What are your thoughts on Bike Dash Delivery, from what we know so far?
They actually did a news blip on this game in Edge magazine for December 2023, the first gaming magazine article for a current arcade title I’ve seen in a *long* time (although I don’t read Edge much)
yes, i remember pointing this out already in the AH discord server – edge do have a very small regular arcade slot called “arcade watch” though, other stuff has popped up in it over the months