Continuing with our IAAPA 2024 wrap-up, which will soon be completed once and for all, let’s take a look at more of the players within the industry that fit the video game side of amusement more so than the redemption one. We’ve already covered our advertisers and big names like Raw Thrills, Bandai Namco, and Sega Amusements, but there are plenty of others deserving of the spotlight.
For our previous parts, check these links:
Part #1: Raw Thrills; TouchMagix; Amusement Source; Wahlap; Alan-1; Night Heron
Part #2: Bandai Namco Amusement; Sega Amusements; LAI Games; UNIS
Part #3: Pinball (Stern; Jersey Jack; American Pinball)
One thing you will particularly see in this part is that there was a surprising variety of independent arcade game developers at this IAAPA, which was really good to have. I say surprising as it has been a few years since we’ve seen this many at the event, the 2020 pandemic having slammed the brakes on most developments of a smaller scale for quite a while. If there’s any indicator as to how much things have bounced back on that front, this show certainly demonstrated that in spades…
exA-Arcadia
Let’s start off with exA-Arcadia. exA do reject the “indie” label, as they have been established in the market for a good six years now and tend to feature more new arcade video games than anyone else at these shows. That’s in part due to the nature of their business, although there have been others with multi-game platforms before who haven’t shown off quite as many games as exA often has. That said, many of these titles do fall under the “indie” categorization when it comes to their console or PC versions, but as you’ll see here, exA is always helping them level up into fully-fledged arcade games.
Perhaps the biggest deal at their IAAPA 2024 booth wasn’t so much one of the many new titles that they debuted out West, but the arrival of the ARC-32 Japanese-style cabinet on our shores. It was supposed to first appear at Amusement Expo 2024, but missed out due to some overseas shipping issues, so was instead unveiled at EVO Japan the following month and shown off at Japan’s Amusement Expo, where exA quickly jetted from to be here. Fortunately they could bring it this time, so I had my first good look at it.
Inevitably, most will compare this to Taito’s Viewlix cabinets. I have not spent much time with those, but it seems to me that this is comparable in quality to the Diamond Black series. It’s certainly much better than one of the “Chewlix” cabs (I owned one of those for years and it was a constant headache). The ability to swap the monitor orientation is like the Delta 32 Japanese cabs, then it has a riser, independent volume controls, and under control panel LED lighting. All-in-all, I can see these as being very popular among collectors, and any arcade that likes to showcase Japanese-style games. Note that they did not bring the trackball panel that had been unveiled in their last exA-Live stream and shown off at Japan’s Amusement Expo last month, but that will be available worldwide (for both the ARC-32 and the ARC-1).
As for the games, they had a healthy line-up to demonstrate, as we’ve come to expect from their end. I’ll forgo embedding every video for each title besides a few of the standout ones, as that will make this post huge; the rest can be found linked below:
- Airgallet EXA Label – Shoot’em up game, shipping 2025
- Asuka 120% Burning Fest. Exallent – Fighting game, shipping 2025
- Axel City 2 – Fighting game, available now but Season 2 is shipping 2025
- Bunny Bomber Blast! – Retro game, shipping 2025
- Chaos Code Nemesis Experiment – Fighting game, shipping 2025
- Daemon Bride exAgain – Fighting game, shipping 2025
- Donut Dodo Do! – Retro game, available now
- Earthion EXA Label – Shoot’em up game, shipping 2025
- Fixeight EXA Label – Run’n Gun game, available now
- Jamjam’n Jelly EXA LENTE – Shoot’em up game, shipping 2025
- Jitsu Squad Feat. Samurai Pizza Cats – Beat ’em up, available now
- Vanguard Princess R – Fighting game, shipping 2025
Out of all of these, one of the most distinctive for me was Earthion EXA Label. This game has been covered a bit on AH and elsewhere already, but for those unfamiliar with it, Earthion is a new indie Mega Drive/Genesis shoot’em up, spearheaded by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro and his family-owned company Ancient. exA have exclusively secured an enhanced arcade version of it, and are actively helping out with development. As expected from a title by Koshiro-san, the chiptune soundtrack is fantastic, being some of the best music to grace an arcade game in recent years. Things are still early on the release, with it launching next year, but those who can get it will be in for a real treat with this one:
It was also pretty cool to see the Western debut of Asuka 120% Burning Fest Exallent, their new, definitive arcade version of the cult 90s gals fighter from FamilySoft and Fill-in-Cafe. First announced back at EVO Japan in April, this finally brings the title into arcades after the original attempt at it was cancelled, and will up the content ante with all the characters from the series’ previous versions, arcade and training modes, a new theme song done by Reika and Yonao Keishi, and the selection of either original or arranged soundtracks. The build of it seen here remains incomplete, as it will also be releasing sometime during 2025, but like Earthion it should be one of exA’s biggest titles going into 2025:
One last exA highlight is a game that we’ve been discussing for years now, Jitsu Squad Feat. Samurai Pizza Cats. This is finally about to launch (“it begins shipping next week”), bringing beat’em up action to arcades in a way that other newer attempts like TMNT 2017 have shied away from – namely in blood splatter. That can be toggled, but I don’t know how many locations that grab this are going to shut it off. The game has been significantly tightened up and polished, with a new Master Mode for experienced players to run through levels at the highest possibly difficulty. And of course, it now features the titular Samurai Pizza Cats trio of cartoon warrior kittens (although I don’t ever recall watching them back then…):
As mentioned one or two times before, there was another new game on exA’s booth, but it cannot be revealed or shown on here as of right now due to pending licensor approval. That should tell you a little about what it is already though – the IP is big enough to warrant some attention. They were also going to be showing Cambria Sword AC Another Cry, which is now accepting pre-orders, but there was a technical issue which prevented its appearance. The same goes for their trackball games like Cyberblocker R and Wild Guns Rawhide, which they opted not to show without the trackball set up itself.
Looking even further into the future of the platform, I would definitely keep it tuned to the site for Amusement Expo 2025. It sounds like exA will make some very intriguing game announcements there…
Ace Amusement
This rising company out of China had a bigger booth than last year, and not all of their available titles were at said booth either, such as Wave Riders X-Treme, which is being carried by Coastal Amusements, or Skull of Shadow over at Amusement Source International. There are also a number of new games we know of by them that did not turn up anywhere here, such as Air Combat (their bigger, less kiddie-focused follow-up to Air Strike) and Bikers Madness (a two-screen motorbike racer to compete with UNIS’ Neon Rush), but those aren’t being carried in the States as of yet and may have been harder to ship due to their larger size.
Nonetheless, Ace still had a number of other new titles on their booth that could not be found at other companies’ spaces, with them really trying to get a lot of new product out into the global market now. One of the most popular of those at IAAPA 2024 was Rush And Catch, their new safari animal racer. Think of it as Final Furlong meets Jambo! Safari, with the basic gameplay of the former (plus some cues taken from Mario Kart) and the overall theme from the latter. The only thing that needs a bit of work on this one is the framerate, which persists with some (but not all) of their releases. It is also quite kid-oriented.
Another new take on a Namco classic by them is Fierce Chase, attempting to make a new Lucky & Wild for the present day. It’s slightly surprising there hasn’t been another one of those, though maybe the level of violence in it wouldn’t take in the FEC market nowadays. This stab at its formula has a few changes, using a third-person perspective instead of first, a motion seat, and very Borderlands-like animations for some reason. We first saw it at AAA 2024 back in May, and from the looks of their recent YouTube postings they’ve already done a more refined version, but no overseas distribution has been announced for it either:
A game we’d already seen around in Europe a bit thanks to UDC is Super Drill, which they showed off at EAG 2024 back in January. Though this too hasn’t got any distributor in the US right now, it’d be very surprising if it never does – this looked like the most enjoyable effort of theirs shown off here. The gameplay is a surprisingly fun blend of Dig Dug and Bomberman (a mix also interestingly seen in one of exA’s new titles, Bunny Bomber Blast!, albeit 2D sprite-based and without a videmption option), and though it could still do with a little more polish, the overall presentation and graphics of it look pretty decent.
As far as I am aware, all of these games are shipping now, although I think you need to contact Ace direct for availability and pricing. That would be the only real way to find out, as there are no distributors I am aware of who carry their whole line (as mentioned, they are only represented by those who carry few individual pieces each – Coastal, ASI etc).
- Ace Shooter Pro – My video of this was corrupted but it’s kind of the same thing as their own Bullseye Crackshot that Coastal sells, just with plastic rifles instead of pistols
- Balloon Carnival
- Fast Racing
- Fierce Chase
- Galaxy Rangers
- Rush And Catch
- Splash Fun
- Skull of Shadow
- Super Drill
It’s likely we will see more on Ace’s next produce at the upcoming EAG show in London and Amusement Expo over here – besides the ones already mentioned e.g. Air Combat, there is even more in the pipeline, such as their sequel to Wild West Shootout.
DOF Robotics
A big announcement that had hit the week before IAAPA was that this simulation company was jumping into the arcade fray with Angry Birds: Fury Road, which they showcased at the event with a small but very nicely themed booth. This effectively takes Angry Birds Go!, brings the graphics up to speed with modern specs, and puts it into a large sit-down racing cabinet, complete with DOF’s signature motion tech.
I’m not sure when it is shipping, but I do hope for some minor changes, namely moving the action buttons from the control panel onto the steering wheel and adding at least one foot pedal. While it’s true that kids don’t use those often, especially if they can’t reach them, just it being there offers appeal to the user’s imagination. Just the presence of a stick shifter on my Maximum Tune gets people to play that, even though half the time they pick automatic transmission and end up trying to break it anyway…
MonkeySplash Studios
As covered on the blog previously, the innovative new cookery arcade game Chef It Up by Sydney-based newcomers MonkeySplash Studios made its industry debut at the show. MonkeySplash themselves had a good spot (albeit in a tight booth space) right behind Jersey Jack, and it also helped that company founders Hadi and Vanessa had real chef outfits on – at least for the first couple of days. This is talked about in the video (and in the background of at least two other unrelated uploads, as noticed by Ted!), but this really was one of the most interesting new video arcade games seen on the show floor this year:
Chef It Up has also now completed its testing at a Dave & Busters (specifically their nearby Orlando location) with some help from Betson. Expect more detail on it to come during 2025…
Step Revolution
Though the biggest arcade rhythm gaming story of IAAPA 2024 was undoubtedly Taiko No Tatsujin’s official US launch at Bandai Namco’s booth, the other force in this area that deserves a bit of attention is Step Revolution and their successful StepManiaX dance game. The company did not have their own space, and SMX has been around for a little while now, but it is still very much gaining ground in the industry, as proven by it appearing on three separate distributor booths: PrimeTime Amusements, Player One Amusement, and Moss Distributing, with a new version of the game’s standard cabinet also introduced. This easily made it the most prominent dance game of the show (Pump It Up was there too, but only on Andamiro’s booth).
The above updated standard cabinet has a bigger 55 inch screen (more on par with the DX’s size) and increased LED lighting, whilst using the same quality base as the original. At the show, there was additionally a raised/sculpted logo on the panel beneath the monitor, but it seems like that was removed from this official photo. While it looks cool, the problem is that people might think it’s a button and end up damaging it. This should be shipping out very soon, although I haven’t found out exactly when.
As an aside, perhaps SMX’s prominence at events like IAAPA and it riding high in RePlay’s charts of late is part of why a certain Kompany was approaching various outfits on the show floor, and might be attempting a proper US play again… but we will have to wait and see how that all turns out, if it ever does.
Indie Invasion
As mentioned at the top, one surprise from the show was the increased presence of “indie” arcade games that could be found spiced throughout parts of the show. For an example of that, I kept hearing that there was a small booth with a couple of indie games to be found just outside of the Games & Arcade Pavilion – but I looked and looked and couldn’t find it. It was only when a couple of the guys from exA-Arcadia found the booth number that with a little earnest searching (even with the number it was in a weird place that wasn’t following numbering conventions correctly), myself and NSM came across Armed And Gelatinous and Kung Fu Kickball. Each is done by a different developer but they really meshed well being in the same booth. There was also a DIY Artcade game there, but it was off.
Armed And Gelatinous has been around for a decent while now, and it comes in a Konami four player upright-style cab. There are three game modes available in it, but the one I played took the form of a deathmatch arena type game where you are a blob in space and need to gather guns, which attach to the part of your blob where you make contact. You grow larger as you grab more guns, which gives the blob a lot of firepower with the risk trade off of becoming an easier target.
KungFu Kickball reminds me of Worms, but also a somewhat obscure PC game called Soldat (more for how the camera moves and how the levels are set up), then with soccer thrown into the mix. Played best with four players, it entails 2v2 battles where you want to kick the ball into the opposing team’s giant bell. There are various characters to choose from and the matches get frantic, fast.
Alan-1 could also be considered “indie”, although they are quickly moving on up, with an aggressive release plan for new games coming in 2025. While Asteroids got most of the attention at their booth and won the Brass Ring award, some people were drawn to another game on hand, Avian Knights. While we’ve seen AK a few times in the past, this time it had a completely new skin that looked really good. If you’re into Joust, then it’s a game you won’t want to miss – the arcade version is aiming to launch by March of next year (note however that it will not be the only game to launch in March from them).
Killer Queen Arcade was another prominent one we’ve talked about many a time and oft, given its status as the granddaddy of indie arcade games. It was at the PrimeTime Amusements booth, along with Mike of BumbleBear Games helping guide people through the KQ experience.
It’s not a video game as such, but also at PrimeTime’s booth was the return of Subsoccer, now in its Arcade model last seen at IAAPA Europe in September. This includes a scoreboard, ePayment system, and some very cool polarized glass tech that prevents people from playing it when it’s not been paid for. Plus, as mentioned, a DX version of StepManiaX was at their booth too.
We could easily bring up VR, with many companies of which fall into the indie category, although I’ll wait to cover that, perhaps in one last post.
Unico USA
One of the booths I had missed at IAAPA 2023, but rectified for 2024, was Unico USA. Last year they had debuted a prototype model of their Nova Blast cabinet, and this year they had a production version on display. Taking a similar idea that they had with the MVSX, this is offered as a big bartop game, but, you can also get a riser to make it operate just like a standard Japanese candy cab. It is also compatible with JAMMA and JVS, so you can throw any existing board that you want into it. It uses their 4:3 LCD Phoenix panel and comes with Sanwa controls. These are shipping now, with the next batch arriving next month.
Yuto Games
Lastly, China’s Yuto Games had a small presence at the show. It’s still hard to tell whether they are making more original games or sailing the seven seas, so to speak, but pirated or not one thing that was interesting on their booth this year was Ocean Warriors, a massive four player fishing game. They also had a four player sniping game, a couple of redemption pieces, and a VR Agent-style piece.
That wraps up this fourth post on IAAPA 2024. Pretty much all the arcade video game and pinball companies are out of the way now, leaving just one final part or two to clear up any odds and ends in redemption, simulators, and everything else that’s in-between. Until then, which of this latest part’s new arcade games interest you most?
