POPGOES Arcade

*This article is about the arcade adventure game in the POPGOES series. For other uses, see Popgoes (disambiguation).*

## POPGOES Arcade

### Release date

June 13, 2020 (Initial release)
July 2022 (Steam release)
TBA (Console, mobile ports)

### Rating

Teen

**POPGOES Arcade** (formally known as **POPGOES Arcade 2020 Edition**, **PA2020** in short) is an arcade-styled adventure video game developed by Kane Carter. The game serves as a prequel as well as an interactive teaser to *POPGOES Evergreen*. The game was released on 13th June 2020 on Game Jolt for Windows, and will be ported to consoles and mobiles by Clickteam.

## Description

***POPGOES Arcade*** (also known as *POPGOES Arcade 2020 Edition* or *PA2020*) is a complete reboot of the original POPGOES Arcade game that was released in April 2016. It is a prologue for the upcoming ***POPGOES Evergreen***.

*This is a brand new game, built from the ground up, that will introduce you to the world of "POPGOES: The Dead Forest", a popular arcade game that exists in The Popgoes Pizzeria. Inspiration has been taken from the original POPGOES Arcade, as well as POPGOES Arcade 2, but nothing more than that; this project is a fresh experience with brand new gameplay and a new take on the story.*

*In POPGOES: The Dead Forest, Popgoes the Weasel is tasked with finding out why the forest's life force has been dwindling recently, whilst battling "corrupt" animals and collecting valuable items that will help him on his journey. Explore the forests, get stronger, and save the world! Featuring...*

* *Around 3 hours of gameplay (depending on your play style)*
* *Full HD gameplay (1920x1080 resolution)*
* *A huge map, twice the size of POPGOES Arcade 2's*
* *A colourful but strict art style, inspired by the FNAF minigames and the Atari 7800*
* *A custom shader that mimics ray traced light reflections (for the arcade cabinet)*
* *An objective system, with a percentage-based completion tracker*
* *A fun and challenging battle system with lots of new and familiar enemies*
* *A set of unlockable "traversal abilities" that you can upgrade*
* *A soundtrack of over 10 full-length chiptune songs*
* *Lots of secrets, and more!*

## Plot

*See also: POPGOES Arcade/Walkthrough*

In *POPGOES: The Dead Forest*, a mysterious power destroys the North Forest and keeps damaging the forests neighbouring to the Garden, where Popgoes and his friends live. Popgoes’ goal is to gather keys to enter the Death Forest and the Castle, to find and defeat Dead King Freddy. Along the way, Popgoes needs to battle Corrupted Animals and King’s minions, Chica, Foxy, Bonnie and BB. To save the forests, he needs to beat the minions, disable corruption machines and finally defeat the King.

### Blackrabbit Ending

A glitch appears on the moat, left from the castle and it goes up, hinting on a location of the secret area. It can be accessed through a fake wall on the left side of the Castle. It has a chest with an additional key named "???". If the player clicks on the fountain in front of the Dead Forest entrance with the key, the screen will get darker, NPCs will disappear and some objects will start glitching as a new directive will appear, "SAVE BONNIE".

The player has to find six Blackrabbit parts and bring them to the fountain one by one, each of them being in a different area, one of the forests, the Garden or the Castle. After all the parts were found, "Find me" directive will appear, leading to the well in South Forest. After clicking it the player will be moved to an area made of FNaF3 minigames and at the end, in the Happiest Day area, it will encounter Bonnie and a battle will begin. At first, the battle will look normally, but it will start glitching out and Bonnie Glade will start talking through it. If the player attacks Bonnie, they will be jumpscared and the game will crash, but if they will Defend, Bonnie will keep talking and will explain her situation to the player. After she takes some time to calm down, she will leave the arcade machine and move on to possess something else in the pizzeria.

## Gameplay

The game follows a perspective of a kid playing an arcade machine in the Popgoes Pizzeria. You play as Popgoes the Weasel. Just like its predecessors, POPGOES Arcade is an RPG game, where your point is to explore the areas, fight enemies and upgrade your character. Popgoes doesn't level up with battles, but he can get stronger thanks to damage and health upgrades that can be found in Holly the Robin's shop. Manora the Mouse can save the progress in the Inn. When Popgoes loses in a battle, he will lose all the progress since the last save point. The game is very linear and the player has to follow the directives to proceed with the story and to battle bosses. After defeating bosses in their Dead form, Popgoes will obtain their Traversal Abilities - Jump, Hook and Dig. They are necessary to enter some areas and to finish the game. They can be later upgraded using Emerald Coins hidden throughout the map.

During battle, Popgoes can attack an enemy, defend from an attack, use an item, and if Traversal Abilities have been upgraded, use Dead Animal abilites or Run from battle. You can't Run from a boss battle. Enemy's health and power are fully visible during the battle. When Popgoes wins, they will earn 10, 15, 25 or 50 Coins, depending on the enemy. Enemies may charge to deal a critical attack with triple damage. They will waste a turn to deal bigger damage in the next one. If Popgoes defends, the damage will be halved to 1.5 of the basic attack. Popgoes can also randomly deal a critical attack and he doesn't need to wait a bonus turn for it to happen.

Chica, Bonnie and Foxy have their own abilities, which they use every third turn during their battles. Chica's ability is Jump and she will avoid every third attack. If Popgoes is defending or using an item during the third turn, she will wait for the next attack to jump. Chica will jump and attack in the same turn, but when Popgoes uses her ability, he will only jump in the battle. Foxy's ability is Hook and he will deal five times the basic damage to Popgoes. When Popgoes uses his ability, it's lowered to triple damage. Bonnie's ability is Dig and he will use it to heal during battle. When Popgoes uses this ability, he will dig a random item and instantly use it.

## Characters

* Blake the Badger
* Sara the Squirrel
* Saffron the Squirrel
* Stone the Crow
* Manora the Mouse
* Holly the Robin
* Balloon Boy
* Blackrabbit
*Main article: POPGOES Arcade Enemies*

* Corrupt/Dead Chica
* Corrupt/Dead Foxy
* Corrupt/Dead Bonnie
* Corrupt BB
* Dead King Freddy

## Soundtrack

*POPGOES Arcade* has a soundtrack containing a total of 15 tracks. The player can listen to the first 13 songs in the soundtrack in game with a jukebox in Garden Inn after it is given by Balloon Boy for completing his hitlist. The soundtrack is also available on YouTube as well as Game Jolt page. The length of each tracks are mostly around 2 minutes, and most of them are composed in a style of an 8-bit arcade music to fit the theme of the game. The last track of the game, *Directive* does not apply to the rules stated above, as it was used for the final cutscene of the game which was outside the arcade machine.

### Community Remixes

**PA2020 Community Remixes** is a YouTube video series made by Kane Carter. The series features several remixes of the game's soundtrack made by different composers. These remixes are available on YouTube as well as on Game Jolt.

## Development

On April 2nd 2020, Kane Carter had announced that, with a new development team, they will be rebooting the POPGOES series, which means that they will be making *POPGOES 2020 Edition* and *POPGOES Arcade 2020 Edition* as reboots of *POPGOES* and *POPGOES Arcade*. They announced that these reboots will have new gameplay, story, designs and models. The game was scheduled to be released on April, however the game was delayed to early to mid May due to IRL problems.

On May 14th, Kane announced that the general progression of the game is finished. And once the enemies are implemented, the game will enter its playtesting phase, checking out the difficulties of the enemies, looking for any bugs, and adjusting things like dialogue and special effects if necessary. A demo of the game made exclusively for YouTuber Dawko's charity livestream was shown on June 6. Almost a week later, Kane uploaded the release trailer of the game, counting down until the game's full public release. And at last, the game was published on June 13.

While *POPGOES Evergreen* is being developed, Kane is also working on *POPGOES Arcade*'s premium expansion titled *POPGOES and The Machinist*, exclusive to its paid console and mobile port. The expansion is essentially a DLC, and will be bundled into its paid version. It includes a second chapter for the game, which is about half the size of the main game, with Popgoes being assigned a new mission by Sara to save the Forest from a new threat. It includes more music, a new area, new items, new enemies, a second "final boss" and more. While the development team is aiming to complete it by 2020, it will not be released until 2021 as they need to figure out the logistics of a paid version of POPGOES Arcade.

## Credits

* **Kane Carter** - Direction, story, pixel art, 2D art and music
* **Emil Macko** - Programming and animation
* **Garrett Tube** - Environmental modelling and animation
* **Sian Mewburn** - Character design
* **Vitch** - Model help and sound effects
* **Smashing\_Renders** - Popgoes the Weasel model
* **ConstaChymic** - Reused POPGOES Reprinted models

## Trivia

* The name of the arcade machine is a reference to *POPGOES 2: The Dead Forest*, a cancelled pre-reboot sequel to *POPGOES*.
	+ The Dead Animals in the arcade game are also a reference to Epitome Animatronics, the main antagonists in *POPGOES 2*.
* There are several people in the community who are speedrunning the game. The current world record for 100% completion as of now is 1 hour 14 minutes, held by Kaitsedd on November 22nd.

## Gallery

Old logoPOPGOES Arcade 2020 EditionThe trailer.POPGOES Arcade 2020 Edition RELEASE TRAILERThe release trailer.Game's title screen.The garden.Outside a shop.The inn.The fight with Bonnie.Holly's shop.The Dead Forest.New logo
## References

1. ↑ "POPGOES Arcade 2020 Edition - So, what's going on? Here's an 'FAQ'!" - Kane Carter on Game Jolt
2. ↑ "Slight Delay + PA2020 Snippet: Traversal Abilities" - Kane Carter on Game Jolt
3. ↑ "General Development Updates" - Kane Carter on Game Jolt
4. ↑ "Dawko Plays POPGOES Arcade Demo (2020 Edition)" - Kane Carter on YouTube
5. ↑ "POPGOES Evergreen Progress Report (November 2020)" - Kane Carter on Game Jolt
6. ↑ POPGOES Arcade on speedrun.com

 Animatronics