For those of you who don’t know, I have a part-time second job. I’m the maintenance guy for a local arcade … that just happens to be located in my backyard.
I know lots of people who think it would be fun to own an arcade game, but most of those people don’t know what kind of work goes in to keeping one up and running. Sure, these beasts were pretty reliable back when they were new, but all of my games are somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five years old, and many of them are getting cantankerous in their old age. It seems like these days I spend a lot more of my time working on my games than playing them.
A few of my out-of-state friends are coming to visit next weekend for OEGE, and I know they’ll want to check out the arcade. One of the things on my mighty to-do list this weekend was to sweep through the arcade and make what repairs I could make given the amount of time available.
It’s no fun playing X-Men when all Wolverine can do is jump. As this four-player game always gets interested players, I spent about an hour testing this machine and swapping out the five bad buttons I found. Wolverine can now punch, jump, and use his mutant power!
A few months ago Make Trax died. This afternoon I pulled it out of the arcade and put it in the garage. Then I pulled Ms. Pac-Man out of the garage and moved it into the arcade. The two briefly met on the front porch of the arcade. It was awkward.
No words were exchanged, and soon Ms. Pac-Man found her way into the arcade. The paint’s a little faded and the machine definitely needs new t-molding, but considering I paid $80 for it and it works perfectly, I have no complaints.
Finally, several of you who have read Invading Spaces have asked to see the final resting place of my Defender cabinet, the one I got that had one perfect side and three rotten ones. The rotten ones went in the trash and the good one was mounted on the door of my arcade. (Yes, the door is now very heavy.)
Hopefully before next Saturday I’ll find time to move either Centipede or 720 out to the arcade. Then she’ll be ready.
If it doesn’t rain…
When you are done with those, come on over and fix my Joust! It went out yesterday. And my Trek pinball is on the fritz too…
I don’t doubt it. There are two kinds of button switches — leaf switches,
and micro switches. Leaf switches (older) are two little slender pieces of
metal that come in contact as you apply pressure to the top of the button
(think, “analog”). A micro switch (newer) is a little tiny button that
clicks when you hit the top of the button (think, “digital”). Leaf switches
seem to get better with use while micro switches get worse. The abosulute
worst is when someone takes an old game like Asteroids that originally had
leaf switches and replaces them with micro switches. Your mind will tell
you, “THESE BUTTONS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE CLICKING!” It’s one of those
things most people don’t notice at first and, once you notice it, it will
drive you crazy.
Glad to hear the Asteroids is getting some use and I cannot wait until it
starts Twittering. (“Ouch! Someone just kicked me! It’s not MY fault you
just hyperspaced into an asteroid, pal …”)
Oh the X-Men game!
I spent countless hours and quarters on that at Wal-Mart back in the day. The big 6 player version is my Number 2 Holy Grail. Right behind the Flinstones Lucky Egg Machine my wife got me for Christmas last year. A really fun game with great graphics, sound, animation, and Dazzler!