Teeny Tiny Freebie Arcade
So anyway, back to videogames. A gold spotter's badge goes out to WoS-approved Antipodean correspondent Gabe McGrath for picking up on this little gem, which is going free (normally $16) until Monday 26th July. And it's not even an iPod game!
It's called Totally Tiny Arcade, it's for the PC, and it's an extremely cute minigame compendium reliving the 1980s glory days of the video arcade. You take the role of Joystick Johnny, a character so authentically 80s he wears his baseball cap the right way round while he's listening to his Walkman.
JJ finds himself in an arcade that's been infested with the Video Virus, and something something plot something. The only way to achieve whatever your goal is is to play your way through a dozen different games in the arcade in 10 minutes, thereby gaining access to the secret room where the Video Virus can be defeated. And since it's the 80s, they're all 80s classics.
Each arcade (there are three in the game, each with a varying mix of the 27 different basic games that make up TTA) has three "rows" of machines, and you play four games in each row (one is usually occupied by another player).
You can choose the order you tackle the four games in, which is a tactical decision because you only play one level of the first game, two levels of the second, three levels of the third and you can probably work out how many of the fourth.
You have (essentially) infinite lives in each game, but being killed costs you five seconds of your 10-minute overall clock. That seems a very small penalty, but when you work out that you've got to play through 30 stages (1+2+3+4=10 stages, times 3 rows), that only gives you an average of 20 seconds per stage, and losing a quarter of that at a time will deplete the clock surprisingly quickly.
(When you run out of time, you can keep playing until you lose that life, then it's Game Over Fail.)
Get through all 12 games and you get a bonus for your remaining time, then you get to play an "Experimental Prototype" machine, which is located in a secret room of the arcade, bathed in a reverential spotlight and surrounded by spectators including what appears to be your terrifyingly blank-faced girlfriend, who offers you helpful tips while you play.
The Experimental Prototype comprises four more minigames – some of them will be new, others may be reskinned versions of ones you've already played, and quickly recognising those is part of the skill.
Instead of being against the clock, this time you have three lives with which to beat the four minigames, and then you've won. (Beating one arcade unlocks the second, beating that unlocks the third, beating all three unlocks the Mystery Mix mode and finally you can unlock 1-Dollar Dash, a quickfire mode where you play four games of your choice.)
The minigames themselves are obviously the core of TTA, and although initially they seem shallow and a bit dull if you're used to the machine-gun fire of Wario Ware (which is obviously one of TTA's inspirations), the more of them you reveal the more fun things become.
Each stage of each game adds new enemies and features, and there are hidden treasures and bonuses to hunt for, such as picking up extra points for getting through a stage perfectly.
Games to which tribute is paid include Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man, Robotron, 1942, Asteroids, Spy Hunter, Missile Command and Lunar Lander, and many of them are depicted in pleasingly funny ways. I won't spoil all the surprises, but my favourite is probably Moonwalk Patrol, which is Moon Patrol except with a little dancer bloke walking backwards instead of a lunar buggy, jumping over body-poppers instead of boulders.
The presentation is lovely throughout, with fullscreen or windowed display and joystick or keyboard controls. The music varies from inspired to horrible – much like the real 1980s – and the graphics are made of lovely pixel art complete with scanlines. (Which means these screenshots might look a bit blobby until you click on them for the full-size versions.)
One particularly nice touch is the online leaderboard functionality, whereby you can create your own high score table for your friends to join, or compete on other people's. You just give your leaderboard a name, then anyone who knows the name can access it.
There's a lot more to discover and enjoy in Totally Tiny Arcade than it seems at first glance, and the structure of it means that it's perfectly built for passing a spare 10 minutes at a time. (Or even less.) $16 is perhaps a smidgen optimistic in these days of race-to-the-bottom pricing – it's already been reduced from $20 – but getting it for free is a heck of a bargain.
