I’d have been dangerous in arcades. There’s just something about competing for a high score on arcade style games that just digs its hooks in deep and keeps me coming back for more. If I was depositing my change in exchange for another attempt at besting my (or friends) high score and I’d be broke very quickly so at least from an economical standpoint I’m glad I avoided arcades due to my age. Nowadays I can pay once for my copy of Woah Dave! and play the game to my hearts content, the only casualty being the mountainous backlog that accumulates as I waste another night attempting to beat that illusive high score.
In short, go and buy Woah Dave! right now as its a fantastic single screen, arcade style game that I really, really enjoy.
Its a simple game yet like any true great arcade game contains a lot of hidden depth just waiting to be discovered (which is part of the appeal at least for me in the genre). The gameplay loop is very simple as is so often the case in the genre. You play as Dave as eggs and skulls fall down from the sky. Eventually the eggs hatch into enemies and the skulls explode in a deadly explosion. Coming into contact with a enemy leads to death and coin dropped are earned by destroying enemies / eggs by picking up and throwing the skulls into them and by collecting these coins you increase your score. Occasionally UFO’s appear and fire deadly blasts across the stage and should an enemy reach the lava at the bottom of the stage then they evolve into a more advanced, deadlier variant. Finally there are the Woah blocks which also randomly fall into the stage which when destroyed clear the screen of all skulls and enemies.
Like I said its a simple loop but the depth and strategy contained within will have you coming back time and time again. For example, during your first few attempts your likely to throw the eggs from a standing or running position but then you discover that should you jump and throw that the item will be thrown further. You’ll start to strategise where to trap enemies and which parts of the screen to keep completely clear as well as notice the additional coins earned from killing different enemy types. And just as you’ve mastered the slower pace Normal difficulty you’ll unlock the Bonkers difficulty setting which increases the pace and enemy frequency but in doing so allows for the accumulation of coins more easily.
Woah Dave quite simply is a beautifully designed game. It offers no campaign, tutorial or level progression and instead presents a single screen, some basic graphics and sounds with a handful of rules and yet its simply a joy to play. Its fun, addicting and all that it needs to be and one of the best score attack, arcade games I’ve ever played.