Mojang's dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons is getting an arcade cabinet that uses physical cards in place of save files to upgrade weapons and gear. Minecraft Dungeons trades in the series’ survival and creation mechanics for hack-and-slash hunts for loot. Even though Dungeons plays differently than its more popular older sibling, it has the same charm and blocky aesthetic as the original Minecraft. Minecraft Dungeons's recent DLC pack, Flames of the Nether, recently released alongside an update that included a new mode called Ancient Hunts which drops players into the Nether on procedurally generated missions to get end-game gear.
Minecraft Dungeons arcade game won't be the first coin-op to print and scan physical cards. Injustice Arcade, the cabinet version of 2013’s Injustice: Gods Among Us, prints out cards of the playable heroes and villains in the tag team fighter. These cards are mostly for the sake of collection, but they can also be scanned to fight as the character printed on the card.
Minecraft Dungeons Arcade is a new four-player arcade cabinet that was announced today on Minecraft’s website. Mojang is teaming up with Play Mechanix to create a stand-up version of the dungeon crawler. Arcade cabinets don’t have save functions, so Minecraft Dungeons Arcade will print out physical cards to equip players with a variety of weapons, gear, pets, and items. These cards must be earned in-game, but once obtained, they can be used at the beginning of each playthrough.
There will be 60 cards to collect in Minecraft Dungeons Arcade and each player can use five cards per game. The cabinet has a scanner on top of the machine to arm each player with the equipment that is printed on their cards. The Minecraft Dungeons arcade version is similar to the console and PC versions of the game, but the pay-per-play cabinet is a new experience tuned for the new format. Play Mechanix’s creative director, Will Carlin, describes the consumer version of the game as a waltz, while the three-button arcade port is a super speed breakdance.
Implementing Minecraft Dungeons’s loot system into the arcade version could have just meant starting from zero at the beginning of every crawl. Using physical cards as a save system is a creative way to get attract players and to provide incentives to play through the game multiple times. Using cards also adds a collection aspect into play, enticing players to come back to collect all 60 cards. The Minecraft Dungeons arcade game is still in its testing phase but can be currently found in select arcades that follow local health protocols in order for players to be safe. Unfortunately, Mojang did not disclose where it will be playable, and it will probably be a while before the arcade version of Minecraft Dungeons is more widely distributed.
Source: Minecraft