Arkade

What it is

Arkade is an arcade in your pocket: a floor of five machines — LyteByke, Ping, Ascent, Ebb and Koan — each one a game you can learn in six seconds and spend a long time mastering. Swipe along the floor to walk from machine to machine, and tap INSERT COIN to play the one in front of you. A coin buys a play. Every machine keeps its own high score table, and the best runs in the world hang on a public top-ten board.

Coins

The first time you walk in, the house puts eighteen coins in your pocket, and every day it fills its own share back up to ten — so the first day reads twenty-eight. The house's ten refill each day; they don't stack. One coin is one play, and a run lasts as long as you keep it alive. In Ping, when your last ball drains, one more coin buys one more ball, once a run.

To buy more, tap the coin count above the coin door. The store sells three packs: 30 coins for $0.99, 200 for $4.99 and 500 for $9.99 (US prices; the App Store shows yours). Bought coins never expire, and the house's free coins are always spent first. There are no ads and no subscriptions.

Your pocket follows you through iCloud, so a phone and an iPad on the same Apple account share one pocket, and there is nothing to restore.

Free play

Now and then the house opens the whole floor for free. While it's on, every door reads FREE PLAY, the glass says until when, and your coins stay in your pocket. To hear about the next one, tap YOU above the coin door and switch on FREE PLAY ALERTS.

The world board

A top-ten score files under three letters. Tap YOU above the coin door (it shows your letters once you have some) to open your card: under LEADERBOARD NAME you can claim a longer name that stands behind your letters on every board. Names are unique — first come, first served — and you can change yours there. If someone knocks you off a board, Arkade can tell you: switch on TOP TEN ALERTS on your card and say yes when iOS asks about notifications. See a name on a board that shouldn't be there? Write to support@idessa.io and we will take it down.

A new phone, or a reinstall

Your coins, each machine's high score table, your three letters and your longer name are mirrored into your own iCloud. A new phone signed into the same Apple account, or a fresh install, picks up where you left off. A device with no iCloud account keeps its own copy, and nothing else happens.

Playing with a controller

Arkade works with any game controller iOS supports, over Bluetooth or a cable.

Something wrong?

Write to support@idessa.io. The team at idessa reads it over lunch. Tell us the machine, what you expected, and what happened instead, and we will get back to you.

Privacy

What the app keeps, what it sends, and how to take it back: the Arkade privacy policy.