Common arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, public houses, and video arcades. Arcade games often have very short levels, simple and intuitive control schemes, and rapidly increasing difficulty. This is due to the environment of the Arcade, where the player is essentially renting the game for as long as whose in-game avatar can stay alive (or until runs out of tokens).
Games on consoles or PCs can be referred to as “arcade games” if they share these qualities or are direct ports of arcade titles. Many independent developers are now producing games in the arcade genre that are designed specifically for use on the Internet. These games are usually designed with Flash/Java/DHTML and run directly in web-browsers.
The origin of many arcade games is rooted in their close cousins, board games. Most popular board games, card games, and the like have been computerized to some degree or another. Computer game programs can be worthy opponents and can help improve one’s skill at traditional games.
Chess, Checkers, Othello (also known as Reversi), and Backgammon have world class computer programs. Mah-jongg and related games are immensely popular in China and Japan. Go is popular in East Asia. It is infamously difficult to program a computer to play Go well. Magic: The Gathering has had computer versions for some time.
Well-known boardgames Trivia are growing in popularity, especially on mobile phones where people may only have a few minutes to play the game. One common trivia game for Blackberry is MobileQs.
Here are some pretty interesting examples of such arcade board games (some of them are for Xbox Live).
Greed Corp is a fun and exceptionally balanced arcade board game that presents only a few minor downsides. The core gameplay is very much like a strategy board game. In fact, the rules and pieces are simplistic enough that it could be published as a board game without being overly complicated. Greed Corp is the first game set in the world of Mistbound. A steamy, Victorian world of floating rocks, where the planet has been devastated by mining efforts, and four corporations compete for the few remaining resources, continuing the demolition of the world in the process.
Players run through a series of single-player campaings which get progessively more difficult, or play against friends either locally or over Xbox Live. Greed Corp is a fun, fair board game. At Arcade pricing, it’s worth it for any strategy board game fan to pick up.
As with any board game, it’s a lot more fun to play with your friends, than against the AI.
Electronic Arts has teamed up with toy and game maker Hasbro to bring some of your favorite childhood board games to the Xbox Live Arcade. Dubbed Family Game Night, this collection of kid-friendly classics can be downloaded to your Xbox 360 hard drive and played on your TV screen rather than your nicked-up kitchen table.
Family Game Night (FGN) is a free download from the Xbox Live Marketplace, but its components are 800MSP each. Each of these $10 downloads unlocks a different game that can be played in FGN. As with all XBLA games, trial versions are also available for each title.
Join your host Mr. Potato Head as you play classic Hasbro games as well as exciting new versions. Hasbro Family Game Night features family favorites such as Connect Four, Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, Sorry! and the all new, Sorry! Sliders.
You will be able to choose the game room theme that is right for you and earn new game themed trophies, furniture and decorations to customize your game room.
Family Game Night includes classic Hasbro games as well as exciting new versions. They are:
- Scrabble
- Sorry!
- Connect 4
- Boggle
- Yahtzee
- Battleship
- Sorry! Sliders
The Game Of Life by Hasbro is another classic board game comes to life on your PC as an arcade game. Where will Life lead you? Choose a career, build a family, and grow your fortune in this amazing new version of the family favorite board game.
Select your avatar and pick a path in two great game modes.
Find out if you will retire at Countryside Acres or Millionaire Estates in Classic mode, or experience the all-new Enhanced mode with fun mini-games, bonus challenges, and loads of exciting surprises.
Both game modes feature amazing animations, gorgeous full-screen graphics, and hours of original family fun. You’ve never seen The Game Of Life like this before!
Tic Tac Files – computerized ancient board game with totally new game mechanics, which is the best surprise in this game: game board is movable part of the game, tokens inside the completed set are moving ‘from path to path’ instead of from ‘field to field’, token ‘pushed out’ of the game board immediately ‘re-enters’ from the other side of the same row or column.
Relax, click and drag: minute to learn – lifetime to enjoy.
Game has amazing video-effects, it has no tutorial – you just follow the Hint that is able to solve the complete game.
Tic Tac Files games are auto-saved, full-screen option enriches your experience. You can review and correct all moves by using the backward and forward arrows.
Settlers of Catan, the legendary board game from the mind of Klaus Teuber, has come to Xbox Live Arcade. Developed by Brian Reynolds and Big Huge Games, Catan is now internationally available.
Catan places the player in the role of colonists on the newly discovered imaginary island of the same name.
Through strategy and trading, 3-4 players vie for control over the valuable territory and resources of this uncharted wilderness. With ten million copies already sold, Settlers of Catan is the rare board game that appeals to casual players as much as hardcore enthusiasts.
Catan for Xbox Live Arcade continues the tradition of great gameplay and easy accessibility. Precision AI offers realistic challenges to even the most seasoned players.
Monsterz is a little arcade puzzle game, similar to the famous Bejeweled or Zookeeper. The goal of the game is to create rows of similar monsters, either horizontally or vertically. The only allowed move is the swap of two adjacent monsters, on the condition that it creates a row of three or more. When alignments are cleared, pieces fall from the top of the screen to fill the board again. Chain reactions earn you even more points. Monsterz is written in Python and requires Pygame. First install these two pieces of software on your system.