Arcade Spirits is a dating sim visual novel video game released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows and in 2020 for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

Players control a customizable character who can be female, male, or non-binary, and can choose whether they want to approach the seven romance candidates romantically or platonically.

This app has an artificial intelligence named Iris, who helps Ari apply for a job at an arcade called the Funplex as a floor manager.

[1] Arcade Spirits was developed by Fiction Factory Games and published by PQube, with writing done by Stefan Gagne and Aenne Schumann, the former who also served as project director.

Schumann, meanwhile, regarded time management as the most difficult part, owing to their full-time jobs outside of developing Arcade Spirits.

[4] Naomi was the first character that the writers conceived, and was meant to represent the people in those restoration videos, describing her as a person as someone who is "tinkering away and desperately trying to bring a 1980s classic back to life.

[1] Gagne and Schumann identified these characters with a single word early on in development; for example, Naomi, Teo, and Ashley were labelled Fixer, Dancer, and Cosplayer respectively.

He found this limiting, which influenced him to approach Arcade Spirits by bringing western role-playing game standards and feature them in a visual novel, which he did by adding character customization and a "core gameplay loop" about the protagonist "defining" both themselves and how they solve problems.

[4] Gagne identified Naomi as the easiest character to write due to how relatable she was as a "shy nerd" with a "fading hobby."

They designed Arcade Spirits with the desire to make it as inclusive as possible, including allowing people to not pursue romance at all.

[4] While designing the characters, they worked with sensitivity readers in order to avoid "common pitfalls" when it comes to representation and made tweaks when the writing wasn't "clicking.

"[4] They also worked with visually impaired communities in order to determine what enhancements should be made for the PC version of the game that were not available with the engine used.

[11] Washington Post writer Christopher Byrd compared Arcade Spirits to a "beach read," calling it "charming and relatable" and noting that it understands its audience.

[13] RPGFan writer Alana Hagues was "surprised" by the game, noting that while it was not "genre-defining," it left players with a "warm feeling" upon completion.

However, they felt some of the voice acting was poor, focused too much on nostalgia, and had low volume when played in the Nintendo Switch's handheld mode.

[20] Digitally Downloaded writer Matthew Codd found glitches with the Switch release, but noted that this should not make someone avoid the game.