Arcade machine



The Arcade Machine offers retro-style mini-games in Splatoon, all played on the GamePad. They can be played in the Lobby for online battles as well as accessed on their own via the physical Arcade Machine in Inkopolis Plaza.

When a mini-game is interrupted by a battle, the player's current progress is saved automatically and can be continued next time. However, progress is not saved when Splatoon itself is closed; upon starting the game again, mini-games are reset to their first level.

There are four mini-games in total: Squid Jump, Squid Racer, Squidball, and Squid Beatz. Only Squid Jump is unlocked by default, with the other three given as rewards for defeating The Ravenous Octomaw! in amiibo challenges.

Modes
The Arcade Machine features four different mini-games in total, with all the amiibo challenges completed.

Squid Jump


Squid Jump (Japanese: イカジャンプ ika janpu) is the first of these games, and was the only game playable in the Splatoon Global Testfire.

This game has the player make a squid jump from platform to platform, holding down the button for longer to get a higher jump. To prevent the player from staying still for too long, some purple ink will chase them after a certain amount of time. As the Stages progress, more obstacles are added like slippery ice platforms and moving conveyer belts. After every 10 stages, the background changes, the score per stage is doubled and a checkpoint is saved. The player has three lives. Once they have lost all of their lives they can choose to either restart the game or go back to the last checkpoint. The game has 25 stages. The fish makes the player do a jump. The Jellyfish lets them jump in the middle of the air. The star makes the squid jump faster and sometimes takes you upwards to the next star. You get an extra life every 10,000 points.

Squid Racer


The second game is Squid Racer (Japanese: イカレース ika rēsu), which is unlocked by the Inkling Boy Amiibo

This mini-game is a race between the player, which is a white squid, and their blue jellyfish foes. The aim is to reach the end of the map first, avoiding touching the jellyfish and the sides of the stage, which slow you down. The button is used for accelerating and the  button for drifting. Holding the button at the middle of the number 2 that appears during the countdown triggers a starting boost, very similar to the starting boost of the Mario Kart series that holding after number 2 appears triggers starting boost. After every 5 stages is a checkpoint. Every track has a time limit. Once time runs out, they will lose a life. The player gets three lives. Once they have lost all your lives, they will go back to the last checkpoint reached. Depending on which place they finish and how much time is left, the player can get bonus points. The red fish gives the player a speed boost. The Zapfish lets the player swallow jellyfish by touching them, making the squid larger and faster.

Squidball


The third game is Squidball (Japanese: イカボール ika bōru), which is unlocked by the Inkling Girl amiibo. There are 30 stages in it.

In this game, the player (a squid) has to hit the Jellyfish on the other side of the net with a ball (shaped like a Zapfish) to score points. The mechanics are similar to volleyball, with a bump, set, and spike. First, the squid is stuck to the ground and can only bounce the ball upward (at an angle based on where on the squid the ball struck). Second, the player must press to jump. Third, the player holds down to hit the ball. The angle of the ball changes with the direction held when launching it, which can be either neutral, back or forward. The player must spike the ball for it to count; a ball immediately bounced over the net will pass through the jellyfish harmlessly.

The player gets three balls per stage: one small, one medium, and one large. If the specified number of targets is not reached with all three balls, the game is over and the player can restart from either the beginning or the last checkpoint. After every 5 stages is a checkpoint. Each stage has a fixed number of points awarded for completing it, with bonus points awarded for having balls in reserve or exceeding the required number of hits.

In addition to jellyfish, other creatures can appear on the far side of the net. Starfish are just like jellyfish, but one starfish is worth three jellyfish. Green sunfish burst into fragments when hit, and the fragments can hit other creatures. Sea urchins are obstacles: a small ball will be stopped completely, a medium ball will destroy the urchin but will itself be destroyed, and a large ball will destroy the urchin and keep going, but with greatly diminished momentum.

Squid Beatz


The last mini-game is Squid Beatz (Japanese: イカラジオ ika rajio), which is unlocked by the Inkling Squid amiibo.

This game is a music player featuring all 31 tracks from Splatoon and is also a standard rhythm game. The button switches between no game, normal mode, and hard mode and the  button is the Play/Pause switch. The player will have to press the Control Pad and Buttons represented on the line at the bottom at the correct time to turn the Jellyfish into yellow rabbits.

While waiting before the match starts, No matter which song you select, it always plays [[Media:Multiplayer Waiting Room & Equip Screen.ogg|Dubble Bath]] (Ika Jamaica) by Bob Dub. However by pressing and  at the same time, The game will play any selected song, as if you were playing it at the arcade machine.

Squid Beatz was updated in Version 2.0.0 to include the four new tracks added and their information.

It is the only game not to have a numbered scoring system, instead it uses yellow rabbit type creatures to track the score.

Trivia

 * Jellyfish are featured in some way in each arcade game.
 * The rabbits in Squid Beatz are likely a reference to an early stage of Splatoon's development wherein the protagonists were to be humanoid rabbits.
 * The art for each of the four games parodies that of NES games from popular studios. Squid Racer's artwork is based on Irem's titles, Squid Beatz' is based on Namco's, and Squid Ball's is based on those of Nintendo.
 * The Arcade Machine is also featured in Ancho-V Games, with four individual machines throughout the stage. Unlike the one in Inkopolis Plaza, they cannot be interacted with.
 * The red fish from the minigames are similar to Cheep Cheeps found in the Super Mario Bros. series.
 * To be able to play the final boss music tracks (I am DJ Octavio and Calamari Inkatation) as well as the one from the Credits (Maritime Melody), the player must first beat DJ Octavio in Enter the Octobot King!
 * There is no reward for completing any of the minigames, once the player has passed all of the stages in one of them, a sign saying "Congratulations!" will pop up and the game will reset to the first level.