Arcadia is a FREE on-line community which supports a variety of mini-games, called toys. Players meet to play together on a server. If you don't see a server hosting the toy you want to play, you can easily start your own (the server software is included with the game).

There are about a dozen toys, (and TurnAbout allows you to craft your own mini-games and share them, so there is lots to do). Toys run the gamut from Real Time Strategy, Battle Flight Sim, to pool, card games, city simulators, and collaborative music and story composition games.

Of course, most of the toys can also be played in solo mode, if you're not into that whole multiplayer thing.

While in Arcadia, you can flip your attention between three separate domains:

• The current TOY (see list below)
• The current PARK (2.5D chat environment with sports activities)
• The Web (integrated browser)

Just click the download link above and execute the installer once it finishes downloading.

When you run Arcadia for the first time, click the 'Check For New Toys' button and let it fetch all the toys (otherwise you will have no toys to play!).

Arcadia itself is quite small -- about a megabyte of download. Most of the toys are a few hundred kilobytes each.

Launch Arcadia via its desktop or start menu short cut, create an account, and choose whether you want to play alone (SOLO) or multiplayer on a MIX server.

If you opt for multiplayer then one person on the server will be the 'moderator' of that server and will get to pick the toy which everyone on that server will play.

You can tell who the moderator is because they have a little crown next to their name. (You have a little star next to YOUR name.) Right-click on a name for a menu of helpful options (including "Make Me/Someone Else The Moderator").

Remember: only the moderator can pick the toy. Once the toy is picked the moderator probably has additional duties (like pressing a 'start game' button when everyone is ready) and maybe a few extra abilities (like 'kick this player out of the game'). Once a toy has been picked on a server, it cannot be changed until everyone has left the server.

The first person on the server generally gets to be moderator.

While servers are used to play games with other players, there is no central account server. Accounts you create are kept only on your own PC. (And are 100% free!)

Basically this is just a way of letting you have several names, with different preferences and statistics. NOTE: while it is allowed to password-lock your account to protect it from a sibling, if you *forget* your password, it will be 100% non-recoverable, so think twice... or at least once more.

Each account gets to pick a 'face' to represent the player in the game. Each face comes with an array of 'emotions' which you can change at any time by clicking on the appropriate tool bar buttons.

You can take your face for a walk in the Arcadia Park (you can design your own parks and share them). There are some simple sports available in parks (like Splat! or feeding the AI Ducks), but please do not confuse the park with the current toy.

Most Toys incorporate your face somewhere to represent you in the game. And you usually use your face emotions as a means of communicating your mood (after, say, winning a hand at Spades).

Along the top of the screen is a row of teensy little toolbar buttons which you can press to enhance your experience in Arcadia. From left to right, they are:

• Log Off and Leave Server (returns you to the 'SOLO or MIX' screen)
• Show Toy Window (the default)
• Visit The Park (play in the 2.5D Arcadia Park for this server)
• Show Web Browser (browse the web, press 'return to game' when done)

• Your Diary (Arcadia lets you keep notes about people you meet)
• Speech/Microphone (Arcadia has Voice Chat)
• Chat Macros ( /example=type this when I type '/example')

• Visit Arcadia Home Page (switch to web browser and show this page)
• Visit Synthetic Reality Bulletin Board
• Donate $ (the game is free, but I can still dream, can't I?)
• Visit Current Toy's Web Page (every Toy has its own web page)

• Eight Face Emotions: happy, sad, rofl, etc... sleepy

• Pick Your Face (or draw a new one)
• Font and Color Preferences (Arcadia has text chat)
• General Preferences (for Arcadia as a whole)
• Toy Preferences (for the currently selected toy, if any)
• About Arcadia (general help buttons)

When in doubt, right-click on some area of the screen. I probably have a menu of commands hidden there :-) Definitely on the player list in the lower right corner of the screen.

Each toy is a game in itself, so please review the list of toys below and visit their individual web pages for details. But, in general:

• In solo mode YOU are always the moderator
• On a server, there is exactly one moderator (knock on wood)
• The moderator picks the toy from the list of installed toys
• 'Check For New Toys' lets you see what's new and fetch it
• 'Load and Run Toy' launches the selected toy
• Remember to click the 'Show Toy Window' toolbar button to see the toy again, if you have wandered off into the park (which you are free to do at any time).

You can re-size the Arcadia window, and drag the splitter bars to size the chat area, and player list, as you see fit. Some toys add additional columns to the player list while they are being played.

Yes. There is no charge for playing Arcadia or its toys. Of course, I make it possible for you to VOLUNTARILY DONATE money to me, just to be nice (to me, I mean).

But you don't have to.

You can read about that here and about Golden Souls <-- there. A single Golden Soul Activation Code can be used on your copy of Well of Souls, Arcadia, and Rocket Club.

The following is a brief description of each toy currently available in Arcadia. Please check out a toy's web page for more details.

Arcadia is a young project, and I plan to keep working on it for a long time.

I started this project because I wanted a reusable environment for developing 'quicky' games. And with the TurnAbout toy, I extend that invitation to budding programmers who are looking for an easy environment to craft multiplayer games.

To Pick up New Toys:

1. Run Arcadia
2. Select a server, or launch your own.
3. Push the "Check for New Toys" button
4. Follow Instructions.

Here are some sites run by fellow Arcadians. Please check them out!