Arcades typically involve wasting far too much money trying to win a stuffed toy you could have bought for half the price elsewhere. However, newly launched Unshine Arcade is a little more sinister.
Solo developer mardt’s roguelite psychological horror game drops you into an abandoned arcade where one machine seems especially keen to keep you playing. Win enough tickets and you might even earn the grand prize…A sentient virtual pet trapped inside the prize cabinet that really, really wants you to set it free.
Of course, there’s also blood, but that’s probably nothing to worry about right?
The Arcade Machine Is Only Half the Game
The clever part of Unshine Arcade is that the roguelite itself sits inside a larger first-person horror game. Step up to the machine and you’ll find a top-down stealth shooter built around procedurally generated levels. You can sneak around threats, start shooting when subtlety stops working, and hunt for colored gacha balls that provide upgrades during the run.
The better you do, the more tickets you earn. Those tickets let you make progress inside the arcade itself, where you can explore in first person and start pulling at the threads of whatever happened there. The whole place is hiding something, and the more you play, the more of that story starts to open up.
Suddenly, chasing a higher score comes with a slightly more important question. Why does this arcade want you playing so badly?
Gacha Balls Are Actually Useful for Once
Inside the roguelite, gacha balls are more than colorful things designed to empty your wallet. Finding them lets you improve your run, giving you new ways to deal with the procedurally generated rooms ahead. That creates the familiar urge to keep pushing a little farther while never knowing exactly what layout or upgrades you’ll get next.
Unshine Arcade was built specifically to give that repetition somewhere to lead. Mardt says the idea came partly from wanting stronger meta-progression in action roguelites. Rather than replaying runs simply to get better at the same challenge, every pile of tickets pushes you toward something bigger outside the machine.
In other words, you’re not just chasing a better run, you’re trying to figure out why there’s blood on the floor.
Please Collect Your Prize
The arcade itself has plenty to poke around in between runs. There are several cabinets scattered around the building, a claw machine, and that mysterious virtual pet waiting behind the glass in the Grand Prize cabinet. Exactly how trustworthy any of this is something you’re going to need to find out.
Unshine Arcade isn’t being shy about the fact betrayal could be waiting somewhere along the way. The psychological horror side also gives the game room to tell a story without slowing down the action inside the arcade machine. Mardt points to Inscryption as an inspiration for that mix of repeatable gameplay and a larger mystery unfolding around it.
It’s a neat solution to a problem arcade-style games don’t usually care about. You can jump straight into another run when you want action, then step back into the building when you need a change of pace.
One More Game?
Unshine Arcade started life as mardt’s graduation project at the Utrecht School of Arts and is now his debut solo commercial release. It has already appeared at Day of the Devs and picked up a Best Student Award nomination at the 2025 Dutch Game Awards along the way.
There’s also still a free demo available, and a recent update added saving plus the ability to carry demo progress into the full game. The setup sounds simple enough. Play the machine, win tickets, claim the prize, and find the exit. I’m sure the sentient creature trapped behind glass has completely innocent reasons for wanting your help…