The Last Arcade in San Jose

I’m surprised no one has actually reviewed this yet. Darius must’ve been scared off by the lack of twinks and transvestites.


The Last Arcade in San Jose is a fun, racy, storygame about our protagonist, Ellie, and her attempt to raid Atari HQ in the middle of a nuclear war. It’s full of good one-liners, 80’s references, and charming (albeit morally questionable) characters. It’s a nice, short read and deserves a proper review and a decent rating. I only wish it could’ve been longer.

The storygame suffers from being chock full of characters, locations, and backstories. It’s too much information for a short as short as it is, and too much information in too short of a time. Just on page 1 you’re given four different characters, with no indication between them, to keep track of. A lot of the time the information and some characters aren’t even mentioned afterwards.

I actually read the original story you provided, and it’s good, but It’s been poorly translated to a storygame. Unfortunately, a lot of the choices in the story were meaningless and led to the same result, with a minor change in score. It would’ve been better if there was at least a small change in text on the pages after the choices. You actually did this in the beginning with the drive by shooter but then lost it in the choices that came afterwards. I can only assume that the story was a getting rushed there at the end.

There was also the choice between choosing the med kit and the bulletproof vest. You are given no reason as to why you can’t possibly take both. Even if one hand is occupied, you could just wear the vest and hold the med kit.

The ‘fake’ choice of choosing the submachine gun also bothered me. As lighthearted as this storygame is, it’s not a joke game, and isn’t improved upon by a fake choice.

And, on page 4-13 if you continue to click the courtyard option it will loop you back to the same page.


Alright, enough chipping away at the story. Let’s talk about some things I liked.

The goofy one-liners, descriptions, and characterization were all really good. Ellie’s character is stated right off the bat. She’s sarcastic, strong, and doesn’t let anyone mess with her. One of the best ways to describe her was your line, “You’re Ellie and you fear nobody.” Right here you’ve got a good, solid character that’s consistent throughout the whole story. A little weakness shown could’ve been good, but with the story being as short as it is it can be overlooked this time.

I enjoyed how the HEALTH variable was used. Usually, you’ll see them on more game-like stories so I liked how it was incorporated into a more story-driven game.

I also enjoyed how there were different places I could use the items on during the fighting scene, though I don’t see the logic going into the bullet-proof vest not being able to be used twice.

The splattering of 80’s references was nice, and I wish I could’ve enjoyed them a little more, but unfortunately, I wasn’t alive during that time and didn’t recognize many. I’m sure some of the older members of this site will appreciate them.

Overall, this was an excellent first-time storygame and I’d enjoy seeing this fixed and improved upon. I give it a 6/8.

a gritty story, well-written
I think on an early page, two names were mixed up - Scottie & Clyde?

It's a fun story, but none of the choices mattered and page 4-13 has a broken link. I also didn't appreciate the game berating you for picking the choice to stay and play games. No I'm not ignoring the story by picking an option you included in it.

As one story posted somewhere else I would have liked it more, it just doesn't work as a fake CYOA, you need to add more to do.

Nice! Loved those Choose Your Own Adventure books. Enjoyed the story line and felt the characters and situations were believable. It flowed smoothly as well.

It was a nice game. The plot of the story could have been fleshed out more and I would have liked if you made it longer. But still, all in all, a good story. I’ll let the professionals go into detail but just wanna say it. I was here first.
-FnaFKing