Any game that has the phrase “coin-op” in its title is sure to pique the interest of  we arcade fans here at Retro Faith, and Coin-Op Vice certainly looks like it’ll be right up our indie retro street! Coin-Op Vice is a 2.5D top-down retro-inspired action game with deckbuilding elements, as well as  over 100 arcade mini-games. Coin Op Vice’s short mini-games will provide different weapons and enhance the hero’s characteristics, which sounds like an intriguingly novel gameplay mechanic.

The plot of the game is also pleasingly retro, sounding somewhat like an 80s video shop horror movie: You play a 1980s detective who is investigating a case involving arcades being damaged by a cosmic beam, with the arcade’s patrons turning into monsters, and the arcade machines launching unusual versions of legendary games.

The deck building element works like this: for each completed arcade, you receive a reward in the form of two random cartridges. Cartridges enhance skills, provide weapons, and endow abilities. By combining cartridges in a deck, you can take down the toughest monsters. Combining two cartridges creates a higher-level cartridge.

The game will boast a retro aesthetic, with a limited colour palette, monochrome sprites, CRT monitor glow, and even a text mode. The game’s graphic style has been inspired by ZX Spectrum, Commodore, Apple, MSX, Atari, and MS-DOS games in CGA and EGA modes. Coin-Op Vice has been developed by  Andrei Fomin, a solo developer of retro games with 35 years of experience, and it will be released on Steam on 26^th September 2024.