AGE of Joy

A retro arcade gallery experience in VR for Quest 2 and 3

Do you remember when you used to go to the game gallery to play? We know that those days are gone, and new generations are not really interested in this kind of experience, In a world where games have evolved into something different and the game industry takes a different path, those galleries are, logically, disappearing. 

This experience is an attempt to preserve the galleries, that feeling, in a virtual world where anyone with a VR headset can experiment with it.

It's MAME compatible.

Status: in development, open beta. Delays, failures, hangs, artifacts, and other problems are expected. A long list of enhancements and fixes is on the way...

What the Players are saying

🕹️ Requirements

To play the game and upload cabinets and roms, you'll need a Meta Quest 2 or compatible device, as well as SideQuest or something similar.

It’s not PC compatible.

The game runs in the headset without requiring a connection to the PC

You have to download the game, and if you want, some cabinets assets. 

News

• 2023/11: new version 0.4.  Read this post.
• 2023/03: new version 0.3. News in this post
  
• 2023/02: new v0.2.0, Read this post to know the highlights, fixes and remaining errors. If you like Donkey Kong, this new version might not be for you...
• 2022/12: new v0.1.0, read about in this post.

How to install

Upgrade from a previous version

If you already have the version 0.3 installed and you want to upgrade to this new version, please follow the instructions in the manual

Install as new

1. Download from this page,
2. Backup the previous version (from the Quest to your PC).
3. Install the game using Sidequest.
4. Run it for first time (for initialization) if it's the first time .
5. Download cabinet assets if you want (You obviously want it!)
   1. Cabinet Pack 01
   2. Cabinet Pack 02
   3. Cabinet Pack 03
   4. Elleby cabinet's packs
   5. Search more
6. Install cabinets following the instructions in this post.

You can read about cabinets and games AGE of Joy Documentation site.

Contact

A vibrant community is forming on Discord;  Subscribe and write a question in the  #ask-for-help channel. 

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all the Discord users and enthusiasts who assisted with testing, created new cabinets to share, and provided me with unwavering support.

• Reddit community: /r/arcadeVR (remember to join)
• Developer Twitter: @curifab
• GitHub discussion page: GitHub
• YouTube

Donations

You can help the game by making a donation. By doing so, I understand your interest and encourage me to continue developing the game and assets. 

About the game

Game title

I just want to play with words… AGE = (A)rcade (G)ame (E)xperience.

Playlist

How the game works

You spawn in the lobby of the gallery, to your left is an entrance to a “testing area”, we will talk about that later. On your right, you have an entrance where the gallery starts.

The gallery has a lot of rooms where you can play games.

There aren’t any cabinets bundled with the game, but you can download them (or make your own) easily. Collecting cabinets is part of the experience in some way, as many people do it today in real life. The game will deploy the cabinets for you automatically.

If you own game roms, then you can play (like in RetroArch). Just walk to the game cabinet, insert a coin, and start playing.

You can see some parishioners (NPCs) hanging out and playing games, just as in real life. If someone else is playing the game you want to play, you will have to wait your turn; this happens in real life too, right?

There are plenty of rooms in the gallery to accommodate all of the cabinets you want, and the game will deploy them for you. New rooms with each release.

Some rooms are generic, but others are themed or special in some way, so expect surprises.

How to control the game

Read this tutorial.

Realism / Simulation

The experience tries to be as realistic as possible. The lights, cabinets, pictures, all the components try to be as accurate as they were in the middle of the 80s.

Cabinets

Obviously, arcade cabinets are the key factor here. There are a lot of different cabinet designs, each company develops its owns and they are pure art. I want to recreate them as an exact copy of the original, but this is not a easy task, there are thousand of different cabinets.

It’s important to say, in other countries (as the one where I live) the games were mounted in standard local made cabinets (because of the export/import logistic, costs, etc), so many people in the world never saw an original one. For them this is a way to play original games in the original cabinet.

Facing the truth, I can’t make all those cabinets, so I find an easy way to play the games in standard cabinets, trying to personalize each one.

The user can make their own cabinets

It is possible to reuse a standard cabinet, personalize it, zip the files, and copy it to the headset without any special knowledge. Because all cabinets are made in this manner, the game comes with no cabinets; however, you can make your own or download them as assets for the game.

Read more about the cabinet building

Screens

One of the challenges is to have an exact representation of the screen in each cabinet.

Playing games using Mame

👮🏼‍♂️ I don’t want to talk about the illegality of the roms, you can read about that on the internet. I will not distribute any illegal material in any way, and please, don’t ask me where to find roms or anything related.

If you want to play a game, you will need a compatible rom, luckily if you don’t own roms anyway you can still enter the game and see the cabinets that you downloaded, the introduction screens, sounds, etc. It’s a way to revive the experience of being in an arcade gallery.

Because the game includes a libretro (MAME) compatible game engine, you can play it if you have a compatible rom and the cabinet for that rom. If you really want to play a rom and you can’t find the cabinet, then you can make your own; it’s very easy.

Not all roms are compatible, here is a list where you can see which rom is compatible, if a cabinet exists, and more details:

Cabinet database

But you still need coins…

Obviously, I want to accurately recreate the experience... You'll need coins to play the games on the machines... and we are no longer as close to our parents as we were in ancient times to ask them for coins. So, what are our options?

In the game, if you look at your left wrist, there is a coin. Take it with your right hand and put it in the coin slot in the cabinet, the game will start (if you already upload a compatible rom).

Later, a new coin will appear on your wrist, and you will have an infinite amount of money to spend on your favorite games!

Rooms

Technically, the game was designed in such a way that we can add an infinite number of rooms; they will load when you get close to them, so headset memory will not be an issue.

For the time being, room creation is a developer task; players cannot create their own.

You do not need to manually place cabinets in the rooms; the game detects new cabinets (when the player uploads them) and searches for a space for that cabinet. The deployed cabinets will remain in place indefinitely, making it easy to find them every time you play.