Andrew took a closer look at a cabinet labeled 'Mimi Pals' in non-threatening pastel balloon font letters. Art of two of the game's characters flanked the cabinet's monitor. On the left, there was a lanky woman with buck teeth, tired-looking brown eyes, side-shaved light brown hair, ripped black jeans, and a dirty dark brown hoodie. On the right, there was the very contrasting image of a woman with a smug self-assured look on her angular face, pale skin and icy blue eyes, luxurious snow white hair falling down to her sizeable bustline, and a similarly all white ensemble of fur-lined snow boots, tight pants, and an also fur-lined parka.
Of course, there was also the unmissable fact that both women weren't quite human. The woman on the left had the round ears and naked tail of a rat, while the one on the right had the pointy ears and voluminous tail of a white fox.
Watching the example characters passing by on the game screen, it was clear that the two ladies on the cabinet weren't an exception. All of the characters looked mostly like adult human women as parsed through what his anime-loving friends had called a 'moe' style, until you saw select animal features present on them. In most of the examples Andrew could see this was limited to ears and tails, though some also had unnatural eyes, teeth, and claws. Their hair color, makeup, and clothing were also styled to imply the animal they were supposed to represent, the names of which seemed to also be used as the character's names. Those same anime aficionados had used the term 'kemonomimi' for this sort of character design, which he quickly guessed was where the 'Mimi' in 'Mimi Pals' came from.
While the promotional art seemed to heavily favor mammals, it seemed like there was a bit of every piece of the animal kingdom, from insects and crustaceans all the way up to reptiles and birds. The rarity system of the game was shown as being one to six stars. The first five stars seemed to be based entirely on the perceived popularity of the animals as dictated by the developers as far as Andrew could guess, while six star characters were all advertised as being animals classified as either critically endangered or extinct in the wild. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like a last minute attempt at a conservation message.
At this point, curiosity was eating away at Andrew. He had to know more about how a gacha arcade cabinet even worked. Following the instructions on the cabinet, he inserted a quarter and turned the crank at the front of the machine, causing a strange whirring noise. The cabinet's monitor became all black other than a set of bright white all-caps letters.
'ROLLING CHARACTER'
...
'RECEIVING CHARACTER.'
At that point, a white light erupted from the machine, enveloping Andrew's body.