{"id":13336,"date":"2015-04-15T00:01:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T00:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=13336"},"modified":"2015-04-03T22:35:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T22:35:04","slug":"dot-arcade-wii-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/15\/dot-arcade-wii-u\/","title":{"rendered":"Dot Arcade (Wii U)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DOT_BOX\"<\/a>I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m going to age myself here, but back when I was a kid in the late 70\u2019s and early 80\u2019s, if you wanted to play a handheld game, you usually had to settle with a primitive electronic device like Mattel\u2019s Football and Baseball games, or Parker Brother\u2019s Merlin.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have those, but I did have one of the mini arcade cabinets made by Coleco (mine was Pac-Man of course).\u00a0 All of these games just used LED lights to simulate game graphics.\u00a0 Recently a game designer made his own dot arcade game, and ported it to Wii U.\u00a0 The story behind all this is pretty interesting; just do a search on YouTube for Dot Arcade and you can watch a video about it.\u00a0 Anyway, Dot Arcade is now downloadable on Wii U and has three simple lighted games you can play: Mr. Snake, Dodge Club, and Rally Driver.<\/p>\n

Mr. Snake<\/strong><\/p>\n

Move your dot around and \u2018eat\u2019 green dots to make your snake grow via a trail of dots behind it.\u00a0 While it may look like your typical snake game, they added moving obstacles that scroll down the screen that you must avoid as well as your own tail.\u00a0 The more you eat, the higher your score.<\/p>\n

Dodge Club<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the most abstract of the bunch, but probably has the most history behind it from what I can tell by looking at the developer\u2019s web site.\u00a0 You play as a 2 by 2 square of dots and must avoid another 2 by 2 square as well as a couple of green dots that encircle or bounce around the playfield.\u00a0 I love how imaginative these old abstract games used to be.\u00a0 Mirroring those titles, in this game you\u2019re supposed to be a dancer avoiding fireballs and sparks on the most dangerous dance floor ever.\u00a0 Okay, sure.\u00a0 The longer you last without getting hit, the higher your score.<\/p>\n

Rally Driver<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably played something like this before, too.\u00a0 Move two dots left and right on the bottom of the screen that is supposed to represent a race car.\u00a0 Drive straight forward and pass other dot cars without getting hit.\u00a0 You earn a point for each car you pass. Kind of like a more simplistic version of classics like Road Fighter, Bump N Jump, or Spy Hunter.<\/p>\n

\"DOT_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All the games have primitive yet authentic sound effects and border art that really reflects how games were depicted back then.\u00a0 The problems I had with this game were very minimal and nitpicky.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t readily apparent at first how to exit games (just press and hold start or select for a second or two).\u00a0 And it would\u2019ve been nice if you could save more than one high score for each title.\u00a0 Maybe you could\u2019ve entered your own initials after your score or something.\u00a0 I’m also surprised this isn’t on 3DS as well, as it seems perfect for a handheld.\u00a0 Plus, I would\u2019ve liked to have seen more than just three games on here.\u00a0 Maybe a Pong or Breakout clone, Pac-Man style maze game, or a simple platformer.\u00a0 Maybe they had other games, but these three were the most fun.\u00a0 At any rate, despite those minor problems, I still really enjoyed Dot Arcade for its interesting charm.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not a bad deal for only five bucks.\u00a0 I think all old-schoolers who have a Wii U should download it.<\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dot Arcade is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Suggestive Themes.\u00a0 The only thing that descriptor would refer to is some of the border art, but it looks about like the art I saw on games as a kid, and I think I turned out OK.\u00a0 Really I\u2019d be all right with any kid playing this.\u00a0 No reading skill is required, and the only bad thing is they might get bored quickly with the simplistic gameplay.\u00a0 But I think the game would be a good start to discussing and sharing with your kids how games were back when we were young.\u00a0 Might be a fun and educational way to spend time with your kids!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m going to age myself here, but back when I was a kid in the late 70\u2019s and early 80\u2019s, if you wanted to play a handheld game, you usually had to settle with a primitive electronic device like Mattel\u2019s Football and Baseball games, or Parker Brother\u2019s Merlin.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have those, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13343,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13336\/revisions\/13343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}