An arcade game is a coin-based machine designed to play one, or more games. Arcade games also refer to video games with similar characteristics to those played on those machines. For this purpose, and because we have a lot of the best vintage ones from the ’70s, ’80s & ’90s, were covering coin-based machine play.
Arcade games are defined by several characteristics that you’ll notice in each arcade machine or arcade video game you may come across.
- Intuitive controls. A beginner will have no issue understanding how to play an arcade game. These games were not age-specific. Hence, anyone could play them.
- Short levels. Each session is designed to keep the play short and exciting enough for the individual player to attempt play again.
- High scores. The skills of the player for any specific game were highlighted by the individual’s best score. The higher the score, the better he/she was considered in the game. At the end of each game, you put your initials by your score, if you were in the top 10, you were featured on the leaderboard until someone beat your score.
- Increasing difficulty. Most arcade games have no endings. The game starts at first relatively easy and, over time, becomes more challenging. This allowed players to challenge themselves to surpass their previous score or any of those set by other players.
- Lives. The player got several attempts (lives) to try and improve their score, or to complete an objective before having to input another credit, quarter, or token to continue play.