After Arcade Paradise VR starts you get a small sequence explaining that you have started to work in a family launderette owned by your father and he wants to have you manage it. You’re reluctant to do this but do it anyways and you start through a beginner tutorial showing you various tasks you can do in the launderette. You start off by learning to work the washing machines were you must grab a basket of dirty clothes and open the washing machine and put the clothes inside it and pick a mode that is geared towards which clothes is in the basket, like whites or colours mode. You’re instructed by your father that you must also walk about the launderette picking up trash during the workday. It took me a while to figure out how you did this as no bag or bin is actually visible but realised later on you just pick it up and throw it away to auto bin it. You can then go outside when the bin you’re carrying is full and throw it in the bigger trash bin but with a twist. You can earn extra money by throwing the bag into the bigger bin in a basketball type throw from difference distances that offer various pay outs.

You then get the task of cleaning the toilet in the launderette and it’s not exactly hard to do or offer any challenge so I just moved on quickly after that task and then had to take the clothes out of the washing machine after the set timer was finished and had to deposit the wet clothes into the dryer and again had to pick a mode now depending on what colour the basket is that I have the clothes in. While this task was completing you can also go about removing chewing gum from various places in the laundrette and check out the arcade machines in the back. There was like 4-5 default arcade machines back there but you can purchase more the more you make money. There is over 30 cabinets available in the full game. Not all games use VR controls so some are just controller based. Officially at time of this review there is 6, full list below.

What is the Story?

You play a female character called Ashley who has been asked to manage the family business by your father called Gerald who contacts you in various parts of the story by audio played dialogue with either tasks or reminding you on how bad of a daughter you are it seems. You get the chance to upgrade the arcade in back of the launderette while your father is out of town. You make money and can purchase new arcade cabinets to improve the business and make it more profitable. At the end of each day you empty the cabinets of currency as well as the launderettes washing machines and dryers and use the money to purchase the new cabinets which are delivered the next day in the morning. You leave the premises at about 11pm each night and catch a bus outside to set up the next day. During the day you will still also operate the washing machines and dryers and clean up the trash to also make money to further the story. I got several arcade cabinets during my game play, some better than others.

You also have an office that has a Computer that you can get e-mails from your sister Lesley where she can help you out with tasks or set some for you to do like emptying the cash dispensers in the arcade machines and how you have to put the days takings into the safe or it will not register to your cash balance till you do so. This took a while to work for me as it was unclear whether I had to move to that number or the number of clicks, but got it in the end. Arcade machines can also break and you have a small mini-game of sorts to fix them and also is a mini-game in the PDA which you control a llama jumping obstacles.

You can also tweak a lot of the cabinet settings like how much people must pay to play the arcade games and also you can purchase upgrades for certain aspects of your character like speed movement or purchasing a vehicle so you don’t have to take the bus everyday.

Look & feel?

The graphics in Arcade Paradise VR are not bad by any standard but a game that’s limited to just one place could have been better and perhaps made the launderette improve physically also during game play and not be so dark and gloomy. The lighting is almost non existent is most areas. The developer has said the look will be improved in a day 1 patch due on release that will also add characters in to the title. The controls in Arcade Paradise VR are pretty good and didn’t let me down mostly bar a time i was stuck at the safe and could not break away from the sequence and was stuck with no control and also some game controls for specific arcade cabinets was touch and go and could be improved.

Conclusion

I have enjoyed my time playing Arcade Paradise but found myself wanting more from the game with regards to the VR aspect of the game, like there is only 6 arcade cabinets that take advantage of the platform it’s been released on and felt like there just wasn’t enough to keep me there and stay there in the game. A lot of these small things could be fixed in future updates and hope to return to the title in the future and see the progress the developers have done.