Shaggy the Atarian

I've only played two of those (Dirty Larry and Batman) and would agree that they are just not very fun to play. At least they look great But to be fair, I had Batman on the Gameboy and would rather play the Lynx game, if I had no other choices. For some reason, most Batman games from the late 80s/early 90s just sucked, as they dialed the difficulty up to 11. I remember reading a review of Krazy Ace in Gamepro where it sounded like they enjoyed the game...but I should fire it up on my LynXGD to see what it's all about. Hard Drivin' is only good in the arcade, where it doesn't have the frame rate of a snail running through molasses. It is surprising that something as vastly low powered to that arcade hardware could even manage it in some degree though. I've not played Lynx Casino but did play Viking Child quite a bit. I liked it and wouldn't put it in my bottom 5, but it did need some extra polish and for the love of MIKEY, some music. The main thing that bugs me about it though are the attacks. The coder should've been forced to play some sword swinging platformers like Strider for a week straight, then gone and worked on VC. That's the main element that should be satisfying in a game like this. I can't agree with Basketbrawl, but maybe its because I'm not a fan of sports games. Whether its on the Lynx or 7800, BB is only fun to me when its played against a human opponent, but good luck finding someone who wants to spend time on it. My bottom five but in no particular order of suckiness Hard Drivin - For the reasons stated above Steel Talons - If you're going to hate on Hard Drivin' then you gotta hate on this one. It's a nice technical achievement but its not very fun. Basketbrawl - If I want to play a beat 'em up, I'll play Double Dragon, not this thing where you're fighting over a ball most of the time. Block Out - Never cared for this one in any version. If I'm going to play Tetris, then I'd rather play Tetris. In the case of the Lynx, play KLAX instead Ishido - If I'm going to play a tile puzzle game, Shanghai. This game just isn't fun, even if you know what you're doing Batman might be #6 for me To each their own, but hearing this is like hearing about a person without an inner monologue - I just don't get how it doesn't bother you. Maybe its because I'm around arcade games every day, where they set a standard for smooth frame rates and quick responsiveness. Switching to something janky & choppy (particular when it comes to ports) is hard to be happy with, for me.

There are three issues at play that we've discovered so far: What you mentioned, it giving out extra credits when a single coin is inserted It gives itself random credits while it is just sitting there in the attract mode During gameplay, it gives out a large number of credits every time the knocker goes off (which it does frequently - with every large asteroid hit, when you push hyperspace, when you hit a UFO) Alan-1 is aware of it and is working on a fix, but probably won't be in place until after the weekend. Nobody realizes that walking by though, but so far I haven't seen anyone play it during my time here today to see what the reaction is, or have to explain it. I do plan on printing a larger sign mentioning that it's a test game though, and may have glitches

Certainly. I'll probably get a chance to do it this next week, might be better to do once they fix the coin glitch that's going on. It didn't get played yesterday but has gotten played today. I wasn't here to get feedback but we'll see how it goes for the rest of the night. This coin problem does warp it though, since after a serious play session it has over 100 credits added to it 😕

Sound quality is fine, all the hardware is there for a great package. Where it needs work is the software side. They already did change a few things from the console build but its still fairly early. IMHO, it needs to restore that "heartbeat" in some way to the original; The UFOs need a distinctive sound...there's a few other things I already suggested to them but not sure if they've looked at that, since they have suggestions flying in from all angles. Let me preface the answer with context - Thursdays can be busy(if there's a movie release that brings people out), but with Spring Break ending last week, we've just entered into one of the slower periods I usually see that lasts until school gets out. Before the cabinet arrived yesterday, I had a family in that spent a bit of cash but after they left, it was deserted until my shift ended. It did pick up after that I am told, ultimately not being a "super busy" day but decent. Unfortunately no one gave it a try. Which I have seen happen before on many games - I'll get something that's brand new in and it gets ignored for some reason, until the weekend kicks into gear. I'm sure it'll get some play this weekend, I just hope that they'll be able to correct these coin issues before too long. Pfft, that's not even a full day, you can do it!

A few more details in case anyone is interested: https://arcadegalactic.com/asteroids-recharged-now-testing-in-utah/

There are four start buttons but only three controls - I'm guessing they made a last minute decision to remove the 4th player (might have had an unforeseen problem and they didn't have time due to that show).

Letsa go! We did discover a glitch - it's not handling coin pulses (from when you drop a coin in and it triggers a switch) properly. It keeps giving 2 for 1 drop. Since the service menu hasn't been implemented yet, they have to recode it at their facility then bring an update in. Should be resolved by tomorrow Also there's something I hadn't noticed at the show for some reason. The panel has 4 start buttons, but only 3 player slots. The coin slots are also directly tied to each player spot (most games these days use the "common chute" setting, which treats every slot as one instead of separated out individually. Generally this is an option that the operator can set to their liking, but default for most games is the common)

Three months. Arcade devs do different things, often it's for six weeks. This software will not have online features, so I imagine they want to get it up to that point so they can then test it with that, and see how it compares.

Yeah, we kicked out Pac-Man Battle Royale for it (just put that one in the back of the store next to the foosball table...unfortunately, cocktail cabs are often a little challenging to place). Here's the spot where it will likely be the whole time, although might try and move it once or twice just to experiment with how things go depending upon the placement (right in front of the front desk area)

No worries! As of me writing this (12:21pm), the game hasn't arrived yet. They did call and say they were getting it ready, but I'm still just twiddling my thumbs. 🤠Pretty sure it will be here within the next hour or two though. They will be setting it to 75¢ to start, 50¢ to continue for starters. It sounds like the software hasn't changed much (from what James at ALan-1 said) compared to Amusement Expo. We'll see how that goes and adjust as needed. About a minute after I posted, I got a text saying they are on their way. It'll be about an hour between them driving/setup

There definently is a point where it can get too big, but that also depends on the game and distance between the control panel and screen. From the little I played of Asteroids it seemed a little close, but that was also at a trade show where you had glare making it hard to see everything on the screen at times. In my dark arcade, I should get a better feel for it. A very new example of what you're talking about is Space Invaders Gigamax (Round1USA version). This only handles 6 players but it can get up to 10 and cover the whole side of a building. This was definently made as an attraction from far off. The game on the far left in the pic below uses a 65" screen to compare:

I believe more than one arcade here in Utah might be testing Asteroids (I'm just not certain which at this point - Alan-1 folk can chime in on that if they wish), but just wanted to share that starting tomorrow, those who live or are visiting the Salt Lake valley area will be able to go and play Asteroids Recharged at Arcade Galactic. I will have a post on the site tomorrow with some pics; I will also be doing some videos. It is the 3-player (55" screen) edition. This is going to be a location test, which means pricing will be set to what Alan-1's default is and the software will NOT be the final product. There may be bugs/glitches or things that haven't been implemented yet that Alan-1 will eventually set in place for the final build. Alan-1 will be looking for feedback (good, neutral or bad), which you can pass along to us. The game will be on test for three months, at which point we'll see how things have gone.

In the right retrocade/gamebar they can probably do fine but yeah, I'm not optimistic about either of these. I would love to see them do well; I'm excited for them as an Atarian, but so far I'm not interested as an operator. I had a Warlords cocktail for several years. I mainly had it for nostalgia's sake, not because it made any business sense. When it worked though, it would average 75¢ a week (don't worry, I did sell it a few years ago - but I did end up keeping it for far too long). The only times it would go above that are when I took it to a gaming convention OR I noticed a group of people looking at it but unsure, so I'd convince them to give it a play and then they would go crazy once it "clicked." That's not something you can rely on for any location out there to do though. Same thing happened with Cosmotrons. It basically needed a carnival barker there to get people to try and understand the game. Arcades need to do that naturally for them to be a success. The main thing that these both need is a much flashier cabinet. You need a marquee like Pac-Man Battle Royale has, and artwork and LED lighting plastering the cabinet. This can be done tastefully - otherwise, completely black cabinets in a dark environment are going to get overlooked. Then, like was discussed in the other thread, you need more going on visually to grab people. In the video I linked to in the post, the designers wanted to stay true to the original. The problem is that 97% of the public has never heard of these games and have no nostalgia for them. I doubt every Atari fan out there has even played Food Fight. As commendable as the sentiment from the devs is, it's just not going to work in today's market. The World's Largest Pac-Man and Space Invaders Frenzy did great, not just because of those names, but because you were playing the games on a giant 8' LED billboard screen. Put the same games on a normal 43" or 55" HD display and they wouldn't have done anywhere near as well. Aside from putting these onto a giant 75" screen or an 8' LED screen (or doing something else unique, like a dome screen), perhaps the compromise would be to have a "Original" and "Enhanced" option on startup (either on the game screen or have separate start buttons - or charge more for Enhanced, like "Insert another coin or swipe card again to play with ENHANCED graphics!") - or allow the operator to set which type of graphics that they would find appeals to their clientele the most.

Since I imagine many don't frequent the arcade forum very often, here's the story: Atari’s Food Fight Frenzy Unveiled At Midwest Gaming Classic The article is mainly focused on Food Fight Frenzy; The Warlords cocktail remake has been at some tradeshows since 2022, but news about it seems to have slipped under many a radar. It'll be released this summer

Both Warlords and Food Fight are making a coin-op return later this year

Love or hate early 90s 3D, I think it's easy to say that the jump from single-color 2D objects to low poly textured 3D would technically be considered a massive improvement

Asteroids is not the only Atari IP to get the remake treatment in arcades this year. I will have an article about this later today with more details (just waiting on pics)

Well, I should have used the world "subjective" - being produced by the world famous Zuntata, there are a lot of people who would disagree with you there. I think it's fantastic, and Taito did enough to release the game's soundtrack on CD. But, it also is something you have to play on a cabinet to fully appreciate. When certain things happen with the music, they were synced to events in the game, so when you just listen to the music apart from that, it can sound strange. The sound system on a DBAC cabinet is also crazy good, with a pair of subwoofers in the seat. I once experimented with the bass levels and when the walls started shaking, I had to pull back a little. The main point is that there's nothing like getting the full audio/visual experience from an arcade cabinet where everything has been crafted for that specific game and feel...something that's lost at home where everyone has different TV and speaker setups. Redemption being an advantage depends entirely upon what Alan-1 does with this. If it's tacked on and an afterthought like it was at the show, I don't think it's going to make any difference. It has to have its own mode and set up that way for it to work. #2 though, I think we as Atarians overvalue what the public thinks of Atari's IPs. There's no way that Asteroids is going to have broader audience appeal over Pac-Man. Asteroids has barely existed in the public conscious since the '80s, whereas Namco has kept PM alive with one game after the other. That doesn't mean that Recharged has no chance, but I think that the Alan-1 team should approach it like they were making something original and do what feels natural to the game, rather than obsess over making a miniscule segment of the market happy (which, from some comments I've already read criticizing AR, they're not going to be happy with anything other than an exact 1:1 Asteroids remake with a vector monitor, which would be a massive flop) That's what volume controls are for I do totally agree that a game has to have a great sound mix, but it can be done. This is one place where I think that Alan-1 can greatly improve on AR. At present, there is no distinctive sound for when UFOs appear, there's no tension from the JAWS-like heartbeat thump that the original had. The thump could be the music or they get a song that integrates that, without being too loud. A yoke might be OK, but IMHO, a trackball is the only way to play MC, unless you did have the headset w/ tracking. That was just an issue with the Jaguar Any game should follow Nolan's old motto: "Easy to the learn, difficult to master," although in today's market, you do have to keep it from being frustratingly difficult. Spread the cities too far out and when its raining nukes, I'm not sure that would be very fun to manage...although I've never cared much for Missile Command anyways as it kind of hits that energy in later waves The one game in the series I've liked the most was Missile Command 3D (although I don't play Plus mode much, more the VR mode, where you have the lasers). Super Missile Command on the Lynx was really good too. Either way, it's all about balancing, and you can make a game that's challenging that appeals to modern gamers (see Elden Ring). With most games though, you can't hit them with DEFCON 1 difficulty right off the bat or jump from DEF5 to 1 after one round, and expect them to keep playing.

Centipede Chaos did ok by all accounts, but unfortunately, put any "coin pusher" next to a videmption game and the pusher will annihilate it, earnings wise. The best earning redemption games are the quickest ones as they get players to insert another credit every few seconds. The longer the game is, the less returns you get on that. If Asteroids Recharged wants to succeed in that arena, what they'll need to do is design a completely separate redemption mode. Something that only lasts for 100 asteroids or so, then challenges you for the bonus. That's what Space Invaders Frenzy and Galaga Assault did and it worked well, but just tacking on tickets to the normal game will not compel people to play it any more than a standard score will, since the games can go on for too long (i.e., More than 60 seconds) and as mentioned, Asteroids has a much steeper learning curve than a standard redemption game where all you do is swipe your card and/or just push a button to see if you win.

In vying for attention in an arcade though, the less flash and noise your game makes, the less chance it has of getting played. Just like in movies, a good, fitting soundtrack to the action makes a huge amount of difference: In terms of arcades, there are some games which miss the audio mark but there are others where it just nails it and the sound becomes more compelling to bring players back than the graphics. I have a few games that do that - Dariusburst Another Chronicle, Maximum Tune 5, SpaceWarp 66 - all have great music and sound effects that elevate the games like John Williams elevates E.T. or Star Wars. In regards to MC3D, keep in mind that it was designed for use with a VR headset, so you just looked around and could aim and shoot down the missile quickly. Since that headset wasn't released, the Jag version is lacking; Feels like it would have worked better with a trackball controller instead of the slow D-Pad.

If you can find someone else willing to split on them, yes. That's what most "route operators" do as opposed to running a location with all of the associated costs.

It certainly does, although I'm sure they didn't buy it just to shoot out a few prints and sell it. TBF, most arcade devs are not setting up their own fabrication process either(not even Raw Thrills does that), so Alan-1 would be an exception to the rule. There are leasing options (temp leasing or lease to own) in the industry. I've used many of them, although there are still a couple of issues: -If you are new, getting lease options is very limited, since you don't have any business credit. Having good personal credit helps but even then you can still be denied as most banks/financiers want to see a track record of success before they lend you cash. In my case, I had to get an SBA loan as no one who services the industry would even talk to me the moment I said I was a start-up. That is especially true if you happen to be trying to get a game that costs $50k, as they will see that as a super high risk between the cost and the fact that you are inexperienced. -Getting leasing is relatively easy if you've been around for a while - the issue just becomes, how many 5 year payment plans at $700-$1200/mo can you handle with these super expensive games? True, you don't need to go out and get every game as it is released, it's wiser just to get one/two a year. I do recommend that arcades bring a few new things in a year, as never changing your game mix can equal stagnation (and we discussed that a bit in another thread with Lord Mushroom). Yes, there are programs for some games where you can lease and send it back after a certain amount of time. It's just that if you find a game that's really worth all the trouble, you want to own it. My problem is that I have so many of those that have accumulated on me, that I'm at the point where I would be stupid to take on more at the moment. Too many games on debt increases the risk, especially if earnings start dropping. I'd much rather have zero debt and be able to buy anything I want for cash, but unfortunately that just hasn't been possible to do outside of an exception here and there. Still, the businesses which can best survive hard times are those with the least amount of debt.

Little more context on current arcade pricing that I got from a single distributor; A couple I'd heard other prices on, so I'll use a ~. Pricing always depends on which distro you use: Asphalt 9 Legends Arcade Premium (LAI Games) - $14,300 each Asphalt 9 Legends Arcade DX (LAI Games) - $22,650 each Asphalt 9 Legends Arcade VR (LAI Games) - $50k approx. Bobblehead Baseball Vs. (Andamiro) - $6500~9850 Bust-A-Move Frenzy (Raw Thrills) - $15,950 Crazy Rafting (Sega) - $18,300 Cruis'n Blast (Raw Thrills) - $11,650 each (originally sold for $7500, so this is new Inflation Era pricing) Daytona Championship USA (Sega) - $11,000 each Dead Heat Unleashed (Namco) - $12,500 each Drone Racing Genesis (Sega) - $13,450 each Fast & Furious Arcade DX (Raw Thrills) - $25,000~$27,000 each Fast & Furious Arcade SD (Raw Thrills) - $12,900 each Halo: Fireteam Raven 4-player "tethered" (Raw Thrills) - $22,100~$24,000 House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn (Sega) - $24,400 (originally sold for $28,000) Jurassic Park Arcade (Raw Thrills) - $17,200 (sold at $12,500 new in 2015) Mario Kart Arcade GP DX (Namco) - $13,100 (started at $10,000 each back in 2013) Maximum Tune 5DX+ Quad (Namco) - $50,000 Minecraft Dungeons Arcade (Raw Thrills) - $15,590 (got mine for $14,100 in 2021) Mission: Impossible Arcade SDX (Sega) - $35,400 (started at $32k when released a few years ago IIRC) Mission: Impossible Arcade DX (Sega) - $17,100 (was $15k just a couple of years ago) Monster Eye 2 (IGS/ Wahlap) - $21,588 (Chinese designed and manufactured) NFS Heat Takedown SD (Adrenaline) - $13,100 Nitto Racer (Nitto Fun) - $9995 (Chinese designed and manufactured) Pac-Man Battle Royale Chompionship SD - $7450 Pac-Man Battle Royale Chompionship DX - $19,995 QUBE (Trio-tech) - $99,950 (no, that is not a typo) Sky Rider SD (Ace Amusement) - $12,395 (Chinese designed and manufactured) Sniper Strike II (Amusement Source) - $26,211 (Chinese designed and manufactured) Space Invaders Frenzy (Raw Thrills) - $17,200 Speed Driver 5 (IGS/Wahlap) - $12,053 each (Chinese designed and manufactured) Speed Rider 3DX (IGS/Saint Fun) - $26,442 (Taiwanese designed and manufactured) Storm Rider 2 (Sega) - $31,750~$36,000 Thunder Attack (Amusement Source) - $8595 (Chinese designed and manufactured) Transformers: Shadows Rising (Sega) - $17,100 (started at $15,995 back in 2018) Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride Ultra HD - $57,950 (Started at around $50k pre-inflation) Perhaps the most comparable example here to Alan-1 and Asteroids would be the Pac-Man Chompionship games. Namco owns Pac-Man and the base game is just a remix of of Pac-Man Championship DX that they made years ago. The SD version supports 4 players and has a 32" screen, DX is 8-players and has a 75" screen plus 2x 32" screens for the marquee. Still, it probably didn't cost Namco that much on the soft side, but the pricing is pretty high. Some of this pricing is to meet FEC demand, since they are loaded and make bank, which has been one factor in driving pricing up. But, it's not the only one. Really sucks to be a poor op like myself and wanting to get something new, as most everything is not affordable without getting into some very heavy monthly payments.

Welcome - I did get autistic on it for anyone else who might not know all the background behind it - overall, lots of factors and costs that have to be covered, so when you have a high cost product, you've got to charge enough to pay for it all. Unfortunately there aren't any other hard numbers than anyone has thrown out there, so it just gives you an idea. I think Sega's hinted that their games cost around $3m to develop. I've never heard an indie or start-up talk about how much it cost them to get into this business, except for one guy who wanted to make a helicopter shoot 'em up game and decided not to because what he wanted to do would cost him almost $2m. I mentioned all of those things that Alan-1 has to look at or has spent on to paint the broader picture - I noticed that the cost of Avian Knights is the same. It could be that the cost of Avian is such that Asteroids will help cover some of that. That high-end, very expensive printer they have will need quite a few games to sell just to pay for itself alone. No, they don't have to build Asteroids from scratch, but all of those tweaks they made/will make isn't free to do. I don't know what kind of license cost it has, but that's a factor into it all. It's logical that they're trying to cover all of the their costs between the two games; they also don't have much of a difference between the cabs, aside from art and controls. But again, they have facilities, very high end manufacturing equipment, commercial grade parts, labor paying US wages...so it's tough to get it down to a Chinese or Arcade1up level. That said, it could be that it's cheap for them to produce and cheap on the software and they're tacking on a bit there. No clue what actual costs they have to cover and what profit margins they are aiming for. I would just say that given what I see with every manufacturer out there these days, the costs aren't way off. World's Largest Pac-Man went for something like $15,000 in 2016 and it was just Pac-Man with two players (developed by Raw Thrills, released by Namco). They latter added Galaga to it, but I doubt their dev costs were that high on either one so it was likely just hardware costs and a healthy profit margin.

I think it would be nice to track new locations that open their doors out there. Unfortunately, most of the time that gaming media talks about arcades is when some famous place closes their doors. On Arcade Heroes, I've been reporting on new locations that open their doors for many years. But it doesn't hurt to spread the word (or have a place like this where people can share news on ones they've come across). So to start: Location Watch January 2024 Location Watch March 2024