Current State of the Arcade, 2013

by **ICJ** » Fri Aug 23, 2013 11:52 am

RetroRomper wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Food Fight is coming tomorrow. That means there will be 17 of them. That's too many. Christ, more than 4 is too many.

What am I doing
Serious question: is your fun / enjoyment derived from owning the games or from playing them?

I'd go:

1) Playing them when I throw a party or get-together, or when arcade enthusiasts come over.

2) Playing them by myself

3) The hunt for them

4) The simple act of owning them

5) Positive, fun repairs (adding a new high score save kit, getting a broken game working)

6) Repairs on a game that was once working, but broke

7) Moving the goddamn things

So the hunt is more fun than simply having them around. But they get lots of opportunity to be played!

by **RetroRomper** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:29 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Food Fight is coming tomorrow. That means there will be 17 of them. That's too many. Christ, more than 4 is too many.

What am I doing

Serious question: is your fun / enjoyment derived from owning the games or from playing them?

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:30 pm

Flack wrote:Remember, I have dibs on the Polybius cabinet.

Yessir! I do remember. I remember..... too much.

I think the problem with that one is ... Well, let me talk about it.

You had mentioned in your YDKF that you enjoyed being "Guy who owned 30 arcade games." To some degree I enjoy being the guy who claims he owns a Polybius. It's nice that people contact my zombieworld account and ask me questions. It's also nice that my version of the game seems to have become more prolific, to the point that now artists are referencing it when they draw it.

Now, the thing is silly and goofy for non-urban legend reasons. It is meant to take a 25" horizontal monitor. Not the 19" one I have positioned vertically. It looks ridiculous. 99% of the people who see it don't care and wouldn't notice. But that aspect of it bugs me.

The monitor is freeballing. I couldn't try to move that machine or anything. So if Mel and I do get a place together and I have to move the games, I'd have to take the monitor out.

The KEY thing with that game is that it has the wonderful Ultimarc 4/8 way stick. And it has Aardvark's adapter for it, which is the only one in the world. I would have to take that control panel out. Or, I would have to take at least the mounting bracket Vark made and the joystick out. It's a $55 joystick. I need to keep that.

So now it's a shell that does not have a monitor and it does not have a joystick. I could place a new joystick in there, of course. And that would be fine. And that is probably what I would do.

What, really, is the purpose of it? It's purpose is to act as a sponge for all the arcade games that arcades ought to have, but I don't have. Donkey Kong, Galaga, BurgerTime, Frogger -- those are games that should be around when you have as many as I do. But since they all have standard controls and since I am not in love with those games, the Polybius machine does a good job fulfilling that requirement.

Ideally I'd like to find a cabinet that looked like the Polybius on KLOV. (Which also has a vertical orientation!) Ideally I'd like to make one that looked like that and have the multi-game in there. But I am not taking on any more projects.

I guess... I guess what I find myself saying is that the Polybius is ready to be yours. I can take the monitor and joystick out at any time. I can put a new joystick in. I would leave the JAMMA harness, of course. It is ready... to be owned by you, Flack.

It is ready for its new home.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 3:04 pm

I did commit to selling Qix. I feel awful about it. I genuinely feel like shit now that I have made the decision.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 3:03 pm

bruce wrote:Uh.

I might be interested in that Marble Madness. Lemme talk to Amy.

Bruce

No sweat.

I would only ask what I paid, which is less than what I was going to charge craigslist idiots. I just shipped a game from Pennsylvania to Colorado and it cost $371. I'd like to THINK it would be cheaper to ship a game from CO to MO but you never know.

And of course, if you got sick of it, I would probably buy it back from you.

(I am trying to get my eggs in a container so I can get a home with Melissa in Denver proper, which is why I am selling games and such.)

by **Flack** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:15 pm

Remember, I have dibs on the Polybius cabinet.

by **bruce** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 4:00 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I probably gotta get rid of Polybius, Centipede, Marble Madness and Qix.

I would create a new Polybius cabinet someday. One that looked more like the one on KLOV.

Food Fight is coming tomorrow. That means there will be 17 of them. That's too many. Christ, more than 4 is too many.

What am I doing

Uh.

I might be interested in that Marble Madness. Lemme talk to Amy.

Bruce

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 11:27 pm

I probably gotta get rid of Polybius, Centipede, Marble Madness and Qix.

I would create a new Polybius cabinet someday. One that looked more like the one on KLOV.

Food Fight is coming tomorrow. That means there will be 17 of them. That's too many. Christ, more than 4 is too many.

What am I doing

by **ICJ** » Wed May 01, 2013 11:21 am

It's Rolls-Royce. I fucked up.

Tdarcos, I am going to start deleting your off-topic posts in arcade threads.

by **pinback** » Wed May 01, 2013 10:42 am

Tdarcos wrote:
pinback wrote:2. It actually makes playing the game harder, because you still can only have four shots on the screen at a time. A good player times their shots carefully so as not to be left without at a crucial time
Oh, I didn't know about the 4-shot limit.

Yep. Oh, by the way, is there anything completely unrelated to the topic you'd like to talk about? Maybe about... oh, let's pick a topic as far away from the current thread as possible... How about, the military!

Reminds me of a real-life issue, soldiers on the battlefield who had full-auto machine guns would often use way too much ammo when engaging the enemy, so the military started demanding that the manufacturers include a downgrade in the full-auto capability to a maximum of 3 shots at a time, so instead of a switch between semi-automatic (one trigger pull, one bullet), and full-auto (hold the trigger and it sprays bullets until you let go or you run out of ammo), it now had semi-automatic, 3-shot, and full-auto. Some weapons simply had semi-auto and 3-shot, they dropped full-auto.

Excellent.

by **Tdarcos** » Wed May 01, 2013 5:38 am

pinback wrote:2. It actually makes playing the game harder, because you still can only have four shots on the screen at a time. A good player times their shots carefully so as not to be left without at a crucial time

Oh, I didn't know about the 4-shot limit. In real life, the military cut a lot of full-auto machine guns back to 3-shot per trigger pull for the same reason, soldiers were wasting ammo.
(This is a revision and summary; the original text archived in The Troll Room.)

by **AArdvark** » Wed May 01, 2013 3:15 am

Only ever played two out of those fifteen. In fact, never even heard of any of the others except Star Wars and Computer Space. Rare indeed.

Off topic: do people make indie arcade games? Not teh Mame ones but dedicated new, one-off type arcade games?

THE
TOO LAZY TO GOOGLE
AARDVARK

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:47 pm

pinback wrote:No.

The Royals Royce of arcade collecting is Major Havok, Environmental Discs of Tron or Warlords cocktail.

There are others that are quite rare. There are others that aren't as rare but expensive -- everyone would like a Food Fight (unique cabinet and joystick). But those three games are the ones I most-often hear as someone's "holy grail."

I am sorry you don't like that information. I am not saying I necessarily like it either. This is an article by the best arcade journalist going about what he believes are the 15 most valuable classic arcade games:

http://www.rotheblog.com/2008/08/arcade ... ade-games/

by **Tdarcos** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:56 pm

ICJ wrote:Pristine, dedicated Major Havoc.

And, following the Peter Principle he got promoted to General Failure.

"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my disk?"

"Lease a Catera. See your Cadillac Dealer. Who is Lisa Catera?"

by **pinback** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:06 pm

by **ICJ** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:34 pm

Pristine, dedicated Major Havoc.

by **pinback** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:10 pm

ICJ wrote:Pinner, the problem is that the mod was one from the 1980s. Meaning there is no documentation on what it's doing or how to get rid of it. Probably a matter of removing it and replacing a ROM, and I don't have a ROM burner. So that's why I have never futzed with it.

I just figured a mint-condition, properly working Asteroids would be the JEWEL in any serious collector's arcade.

I am biased, though, so I realize now that I am probably wrong.

Good day to you.

(What IS considered the Rolls Royce of arcade collecting?)

by **ICJ** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 12:59 pm

Tdarcos, that was a funny post. More posts like that and fewer where you quote the Wikipedia, PLEASE.

Pinner, the problem is that the mod was one from the 1980s. Meaning there is no documentation on what it's doing or how to get rid of it. Probably a matter of removing it and replacing a ROM, and I don't have a ROM burner. So that's why I have never futzed with it.

by **pinback** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:40 am

Tdarcos wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Asteroids has one problem that I forgot about. It has a rapid-fire mod.

Nobody wants the rapid fire.
I'm curious as to why.

1. It deviates from the original design, and so makes it not a "real" Asteroids machine, which I assume for collectors is important.

2. It actually makes playing the game harder, because you still can only have four shots on the screen at a time. A good player times their shots carefully so as not to be left without at a crucial time, so THIS good player had to spend a lot of energy fighting the rapid-fire system, trying to hit the button lightly and quickly enough that only one shot came out, as it should.

And of course, if the "four shot max" rule didn't apply, it would just completely break the game.

by **Tdarcos** » Mon Apr 29, 2013 11:44 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Asteroids has one problem that I forgot about. It has a rapid-fire mod.

Nobody wants the rapid fire.

I'm curious as to why. Does it have anything to do with interfering with the most common successful practice to stay alive, destroy everything except one small boulder, leave it so the game doesn't start over with a fresh batch of large boulders, then keep killing the spaceship guy each time he shows up, or is it a different reason?

Oh, I ended up selling Funhouse for Centipede and cash.

About one week after I sold Funhouse, I began to regret it.

Hmm, seller's regret instead of buyer's regret. Unusual. May indicate psychological problems requiring treatment. See a psychiatrist immediately.

"If the price you ask someone for something you're selling doesn't make you cringe with guilt for being too greedy, you're not asking enough."
- Carleton Sheets (guy who did real estate infomercials a few years ago)

Current State of the Arcade, 2013

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