When I spoke with Errant AI (A.K.A. "EAI") about his vendor machine set Errant AI's TGC Store Products review , we discussed our mutual love coin-operated equipment. At that point in time (probably a year and a half ago) he mentioned he'd do an arcade set, which I was jazzed for. I grew up in arcades and spent more than my share of allowance money there.
It was a great time and brought back fond memories. He soon released the kit and... I didn't have any money. NONE. I was flat broke. It sucked. So for months and months bigger priorities would come up and I'd look at the store and see the really impressive looking set for the arcade objects that EAI built.
Recently I've managed to get my finances squared away and could spend some money on new objects for my upcoming sci-fi shooter.
It was at this point... I looked again at the priciest of EAI's growing collections (4, as of this writing) - the Retro Arcade Pack. The Retro Arcade Pack clocks in at 15 USD. It's by no means a cheap purchase. But I'm a believer that if you want to have a quality looking game, you need quality looking assets. This pack delivers - in spades.
The full kit contents. It's like my youth, reborn!
As you can see, the pack comes with a significant bevy of 30 items, which come in about 50 cents per object, depending on if any sales are occurring.
Most of these items are doubles - in many cases they are a blank version which can likely be modified to present your own possibilities. Very cool!
In this case, the billchanger comes in both token and cash money varieties.
Now you may look at these and think "Yeah, that's cute - but how good is it, really?" - what really sold me were the perfectly done animated screens which of course can only be watched in the form of a movie.
The above should show you the sheer and frankly unparalleled level of quality EAI brought to the table. Even his previous offerings are overshadowed but how absolutely perfect these are. While I realize it's not an asset for every game, you'd be surprised how you can work them in. The biggest difficulty in using assets like this is that they tend to make your other assets LOOK WORSE. It's a bit like taking your ugly friend to the bar to make you look better. It doesn't help their case to have you standing there, that's for sure. So if you are planning on using assets like this, prepare to have other assets - LIKE THIS. It doesn't hurt that I have the snack attack pack and some other really high quality stuff that I've gotten through the community. I meticulously filter and comb my assets to ensure that the quality is at bare minimum, consistent.
What's interesting is I was discussing 2-D "mode" for Game-Guru with Synchromesh - a forum user.
After some experimentation, he had discovered a way to fake a 2-D mode for Game-Guru. He shared the secrets with me and filled in the blank spots in my own testing. So the plan is to make a virtual arcade and then have it warp you off to another level when you use the machine - the level will be a two dimensional simplified mockup of one of these games! I intend to do a walkthrough later after I've made a functional version of a few. The driving one should be simple enough.
The bottom line: The simple version is are you going to need this for all your projects? No. It's far more specialized than other packs he offers. Is it one of the highest quality assets on the store? Absolutely. If you can manage it, then by all means - find a way to work it in. I for one, will be using it.
The Retro Arcade Pack can be found here: https://en.tgcstore.net/pack/10474
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