NightSprinter Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Dude, I'm almost drooling in anticipation and jealousy.. I don't care how expensive it'd get to drive down there, I'd go every week just to make sure you have a continued patron. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 Love hearing the updates Man that row of Blast cabs looks freakin sweet....I love it!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 (edited) Certificate of Occupancy, done! Certificate of Use done, done! Dade county tax license for Vending machines, done! all final inspections finished and approved. But alas it was going too well, i went into the facility today to take some final measurements, and we have 8 water spots on the ceiling tiles, crap, we have leaks on the roof, i told the landlord about it, along with 35 ceiling tiles and 25 light covers that need to be replaced, along with the left rear door that is also going to be replaced with a new one. Had the keys in my hands for a full hour today , before i had to turn them back in so they could correct the remaining problems. Worked on setting all the naomi cabs to 31khz, and am now ordering more cables and parts. Man it never ends. Sometimes the end seems so close and yet when you step back and really start looking at it, you see you have quite a journey left to go. Rick Edited October 12, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobotech Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 All I can say is holy crap about your collection. Adventurevisions. APF Imagination Machines. Computer Space and so much more. The APF Imagination machine was one of the first computers I wanted really badly when I was a kid and reading Creative Computing in jr high school. Your collection is just amazing. I have to ask about your arcade, how can a company keep pouring money into a business that relies on customer's coming in and paying but you can't even open for months on end. I seem to remember you mentioning April is when this all started, that seems absurd to me that the landlord will require full lease payments for all these months of non-occupancy. I'm no business owner so I may not understand all the logistics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 (edited) All I can say is holy crap about your collection. Adventurevisions. APF Imagination Machines. Computer Space and so much more. The APF Imagination machine was one of the first computers I wanted really badly when I was a kid and reading Creative Computing in jr high school. Your collection is just amazing. I have to ask about your arcade, how can a company keep pouring money into a business that relies on customer's coming in and paying but you can't even open for months on end. I seem to remember you mentioning April is when this all started, that seems absurd to me that the landlord will require full lease payments for all these months of non-occupancy. I'm no business owner so I may not understand all the logistics. Well it depends, in my situation, i negotiated to not start the lease payments till my facility was done and ready to move in, then i asked for a 30 day window for me to complete my side of the buildout - cameras, alarms, painting, carpeting, installation of machines, etc. And finally in my lease i arranged for a 3 month window to grow my business before my first payment is due. Now i still have been paying for storage in a 5000 sq ft bay for the machines to be held since april, that is costing me a pretty penny each month, but less than 1/2 compared to the rent in a retail zoned BU1A location like where arcade odyssey will be. But besides the storage you must also have enough put away to handle, putting down 3 months of payments for security deposit, additional monies towards repair of the facility, storage of games/items counter parts for the games, spare monitor chassis, drives, boards , gun parts, etc new games like kofxiii, or super sfiv arcade upgrade kits carpetting, lighting, painting - ceiling & walls special effects like blacklight paint, or lightning luminglass in the ceiling, 42" 3d Monitors, 50" video monitors signage, brouchures, cards, web site development, dns domain registrations email account hosting dedicated webserver with forum & backups advertising, alarm panels, security cameras, wiring, pc's, xboxes, ps3, games for consoles, tournament edition joysticks for consoles, rumble chairs, stools, cabling, headphones for consoles, headphone covers 3d glasses monitor mounts both tilting and rotating for vertical shooters 7ft x 4ft glass door refridgerator snacks & drinks t-shirts ethernet switches automation systems for the games and lighting surge strips licensing county & tax permits certificate of occupancy & cert of use cash register credit card machine token creation token machine token acceptors dollar bill acceptors for machines new locks for everything air compressor for motion games shelving 100Mbps redundant internet connections brought into facility UPS's enterprise firewall for network Phone system insurance fire alarm monitoring alarm monitoring bank account setup partnership document creation not everything came in that order and of course a blood, sweat , tears, a ton of time & expertease for cleaning/repairing/getting the games up, & all the networking/security/programming/monitors/systems ready. Boy that was a great excerise on what it takes to open an arcade up, almost a punch list for someone. I wonder if i missed anything? Oh well, it's a starting point. Rick Edited October 12, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobotech Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 You are my new internet hero. Sorry, Wil Wheaton. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NightSprinter Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 I am willing to keep $100 on a SunPass every week just to visit twice a week to remain a repeat customer. I look forward to the gramd opening, Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 13, 2011 Author Share Posted October 13, 2011 And the buildout continues, sign is going up, still needs a little adjustment, but you will get the idea. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 Sign is finished, will post pics tomorrow, just got home after getting 2 - sega naomi 2 and 2 naomi 1's to link up, slapped in my 4 spawn carts and it worked great, finally got to see an actual 4 player spawn deathmatch, it is really a blast to play with your friends, reminds me of the old days when we used to play network quake, we were playing at least until 1 of the monitors died, however i already ordered a replacement chassis from japan, actually ordered 8 of them, just to be prepared. it looks like we will be putting in 11 sega blast cities and 1 netcity, actually 12 blast cities if you count "The act" that we are also putting in the arcade. We are getting several carts of the linked naomi games so we can repeat what we did with spawn, tomorrow if we have time, i will try out the heavy metal carts, we only have 3, but i know where to order a 4th, yawn, it is very late 2:16am, and i have got to go and repair more systems tomorrow, so i will post pics then. Goodnight. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Avitar photo changed! Go Arcade Odyssey!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 17, 2011 Author Share Posted October 17, 2011 Ok everyone i have a few questions to bounce off all of you, we are only going to have about 45~50 arcade games at the most in the facility, and hopefully 8- 360/ps3 42" 3d stations with the rumble chairs, now my questions to you are on the candy cab side, i was thinking of linking up 4 cabs like i did this weekend and put games like spawn/heavy metal/gundam, etc for 4 players to battle it out, i thought it was great fun, but on the other hand it takes away from the variety of having an additional 2-3 games , such as powerstone 2, Guilty gear accent core, senko no ronde duo rev b, etc. #1) Do you think the 4 player hookup would be a great idea, or would you prefer more variety? #2) I was going to be changing out the games every 4 weeks or so - i currently have over 260 arcade games/Pcb Boards now,and just ordered some more, so at around 50 in the physical arcade, i have quite a bit of rotating i can do to keep the arcade scene fresh & different, do you think switching out the games every month is too frequent for your tastes, or should it be every 2 months? I can let the earnings decide, but i want to hear what the Public has to say. #3) I just ordered a tondemo crisis pcb among a few others, to me they were alot of fun, I am hoping other people will enjoy these different arcade experiences, Are you ok with playing japanese games, you may not understand the writing but they are great fun, would you play a game you cannot read the instructions on? Many Thanks Rick 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 #1) Do you think the 4 player hookup would be a great idea, or would you prefer more variety? The 4 player hook up is a GREAT idea, you can ad variety by switching out the other candy cabs (non linked ones) with new games every few months/etc.. #2) I was going to be changing out the games every 4 weeks or so - i currently have over 260 arcade games/Pcb Boards now,and just ordered some more, so at around 50 in the physical arcade, i have quite a bit of rotating i can do to keep the arcade scene fresh & different, do you think switching out the games every month is too frequent for your tastes, or should it be every 2 months? I can let the earnings decide, but i want to hear what the Public has to say. Thats tough, on the one hand it would be sweet to see new games every few months but on the other hand if a game is pulling good earnings it would be foolish to pull it. I guess by default on this one you really have to let the earnings decide. #3) I just ordered a tondemo crisis pcb among a few others, to me they were alot of fun, I am hoping other people will enjoy these different arcade experiences, Are you ok with playing japanese games, you may not understand the writing but they are great fun, would you play a game you cannot read the instructions on? I personally think that is an awesome idea, yeah, it will not be for everyone but I think you would get a nice response from the import 20 somethings hipster crowd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 This is unrelated but here is an interesting KLOV post from AA forum member DreamTR who also owns an arcade http://www.gamegalaxyarcade.comFor those of you that do not know' date=' I have an arcade with about 125 games (that's all we can fit) and we try and rotate them from time to time with another 100 or so games we have in storage in the mall. I'm going to list what the WORST games are average per week, and it's interesting to note the majority of the "worst" games are the classics...and when I say "way down" I mean in terms of earnings, all of these games work. Defender-$1 Tempest-$1.50 Tapper-$1.00 Street Fighter EX 2 Plus-$1.25 (in big blue Q-SOund cabinet) Violent Storm-$1.75 (this has gone down lately, it was running $5 a week for awhile) Tekken Tag-$1.75 (also gone down lately) VS. Tetris-$1 (even original Tetris did not do well for us) VS Excitebike-$1 (down lately, usually $2 or so) VS Pinball-$1 Satan's Hollow-$1 (pulled this once already, brought it back for Halloween) Pac-Man PLus-$1.50 (way down, usually $5 or so) Cadillacs and Dinosaurs-$1 (another one WAY down, usually $3-4 a week) TRack and Field-$1.25 Toobin-$.50 (down as of late) Food Fight-$0.25 (We're pulling this) Dr. Mario-$1.50 VS Gradius-0 (LOL) VS Goonies-0 (this one has made a total of $2 in 2 months) R-Type-$1 (only the second week we have had it too) Elevator Action-$1 (3rd week since we brought it back in) Marble MAdness-$1 (probably going to pull this) Arkanoid-$1.75 It's pretty obvious we don't have enough people to support the classics, LOL...we have many more classics that do well like Super Punch Out, Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, etc...[/quote'] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 22, 2011 Author Share Posted October 22, 2011 (edited) Hello everyone, well we have gotten window coverings now, permits coming hopefully on monday, fire alarm is in, permitted and monitored, im installing the facility alarm and automation unit for the power and lighting tomorrow. We have been receiving tournament and collector edition joysticks for rental within the facility, i will post pictures of those tomorrow, all the ceiling tiles have been redone, even though they are all going to be painted a very dark blue, but it still nice to have brand new ones put in, all new doors have been installed in the rear of the facility, we are getting closer. Here are some images, more to come tomorrow. Rick Edited October 22, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 22, 2011 Author Share Posted October 22, 2011 This is unrelated but here is an interesting KLOV post from AA forum member DreamTR who also owns an arcade www.gamegalaxyarcade.comFor those of you that do not know' date=' I have an arcade with about 125 games (that's all we can fit) and we try and rotate them from time to time with another 100 or so games we have in storage in the mall. I'm going to list what the WORST games are average per week, and it's interesting to note the majority of the "worst" games are the classics...and when I say "way down" I mean in terms of earnings, all of these games work. Defender-$1 Tempest-$1.50 Tapper-$1.00 Street Fighter EX 2 Plus-$1.25 (in big blue Q-SOund cabinet) Violent Storm-$1.75 (this has gone down lately, it was running $5 a week for awhile) Tekken Tag-$1.75 (also gone down lately) VS. Tetris-$1 (even original Tetris did not do well for us) VS Excitebike-$1 (down lately, usually $2 or so) VS Pinball-$1 Satan's Hollow-$1 (pulled this once already, brought it back for Halloween) Pac-Man PLus-$1.50 (way down, usually $5 or so) Cadillacs and Dinosaurs-$1 (another one WAY down, usually $3-4 a week) TRack and Field-$1.25 Toobin-$.50 (down as of late) Food Fight-$0.25 (We're pulling this) Dr. Mario-$1.50 VS Gradius-0 (LOL) VS Goonies-0 (this one has made a total of $2 in 2 months) R-Type-$1 (only the second week we have had it too) Elevator Action-$1 (3rd week since we brought it back in) Marble MAdness-$1 (probably going to pull this) Arkanoid-$1.75 It's pretty obvious we don't have enough people to support the classics, LOL...we have many more classics that do well like Super Punch Out, Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, etc...[/quote'] Thank you climber for the info, it really helps to see what is and is not working for my fellow arcade operators, however it is impossible to determine what sort of crowd we are going to end up getting at the facility, whether it will be new games, jap games, classic games, 360/ps3, or maybe an atari 2600 system, i guess we are going to have to gauge it and see. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ntavio Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 Looks great Rick. Drove by there yesterday to see if you had opened. Can't wait for the grand opening. @CC - Let me know if you come down to Miami. We can knock back a couple of Jim Beams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted October 23, 2011 Author Share Posted October 23, 2011 (edited) Well another long evening, worked on alarm panel today, im including a pic of our finished women's bathroom, and 5 of our joysticks for the console section, we hope to have between 12-16 joysticks like these for our patrons to use. Until Next time. Rick Edited October 23, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted November 1, 2011 Author Share Posted November 1, 2011 (edited) Roof Painting has begun, we chose a very dark blue, also hot and cold running water is now installed in bathroom. Roof Painting is extremly messy, we have some painters doing it with a spray gun, tomorrow they should be starting on the walls. You can also see the places where we will be installing the 3d monitors in the rear, and you can see the dual rotating mounts on one of the walls, we only got 2 of these as they were very expensive, however this will allow shmup players to play those games in all their vertical glory. Also even though i did not take a picture of it, the windows are 100% done, we were missing 2 panels all the way on the right, we will be installing a monitor behind 1 of these so people outside can see the different games and what is going on inside. Rick PS: i just got back from trick or treating with the family and passed by the arcade to take the pictures you see posted now, in case any of you have been following this blog from the beginning, you can probably guess im a pretty big halloween fan, i am really upset we were not open in time for halloween, i had chosen several great games from my collection to be setup for the occasion, among them are Spawn - 4 cab deathmatch Death smiles splatterhouse house of the dead 1 house of the dead 2 house of the dead 3 house of the dead 4 satan's hollow melty blood actress again trouble witches i think a lot of people might have enjoyed playing these games, however l am going to have most of these installed on opening night anyways, sort of a sentimental halloween gesture i guess, See you all next post, and Happy Halloween everyone. Rick Edited November 1, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Death smiles Damn, I would kill to have a local arcade with Deathsmiles in it. Looking real good so far man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 @CC - Let me know if you come down to Miami. We can knock back a couple of Jim Beams. Well, I do have a good friend in Maimi and he is always bugging me to come visit....don't count me out, might just be able to figure something out here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 (edited) Hello everyone, Posting some updates today #1) we finished running all the hdmi and usb cabling for all the consoles. #2) we finished all the electrical work & installed all the mounts on the walls & shelving for the consoles #3) alarm and camera systems are installed #4) 100meg internet circuit is installed #5) got more tournament joysticks in #6) installed new speakers in the blast cities - damn those are not cheap. #7) have received 8 new chassis for the nanao monitors, only need 4 but it is always good to have a few spares. tomorrow we are going to be installing the gig ethernet switches for the networks, and ethernet lines, and hopefully we will be receiving the blacklight reactive paint we ordered for the walls, hopefully we will be able to get the carpetting in by the end of this week or next week at the very latest. Then the games start going in. On the negative side, 1 of the 29" nanao monitors broke, which really upset me since it broke against my chest when i picked it up, but after checking some problems we were running into with the chassis , it turned out that the yoke was already bad on this monitor , so it did not kill me as much to lose 1 of these monsters. Anyways we are getting closer, i also just got a new console which is on it's way down, it is an intervision 3001, i will post pics once i get it, i wouold post pics of the other work in progress, but other than wires hanging down, they are not so impressive, maybe by the end of the week i will have some new ones to post. Rick Oh what the heck, here are a few pics, you can see 1 of the nanao monitor chassis out of 8 and 1 of the 18 speakers we just got in, you can also see 1 of the cabs with the new speakers already installed in it, and you can see where the shelving with the xboxes and ps3 and all the cabling is going to be installed. that's all for now, see you all soon. Edited November 9, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted November 11, 2011 Author Share Posted November 11, 2011 (edited) All blacklights are installed, you can see the paints on the floor that will soon be on the walls. These pics were taken in complete darkness, so im sorry for the grainyness on these. Rick Edited November 11, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ntavio Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted November 19, 2011 Author Share Posted November 19, 2011 (edited) Ok everyone it has been 9 days since my last post, so here are the updates. #1 ) Roofers had to rip off the entire ceiling of the strip mall im in, and i got a hearty helping of rocks, dirt and believe it or not, hot buring tar coming through the roof along with the lovely frangrance of burning tires, ahh the wonders of business ownership in a strip mall. You can see a couple of roof pictures here which show outside light coming through the ceiling. #2 ) Well the painters calculated 2 days to get the painting done, and it ended up taking the poor guys 1 1/2 weeks, the blacklight paint is horrible stuff to work with, it has the consistancy and texture of Mayonnaise, imagine sticking a fork into a jar of Mayonnaise and use that to paint a wall, well you now get what these poor guys were going through, even though the paint was very thick, it was very watery and runny, and would'nt coat at all, it took over 4 coats to get what you are seeing here, and then the whole thing had to be sealed with a special UV sealer, twice, i am happy the painters stuck with it, beleive me i ended up raising how much i was paying them, becuase i felt so bad for the job turning into such a nightmare. #3 ) We received the Luminglas from a distributor in china, - In todays show, we are going to package a large and heavy electrical glass plate, and protect it with plastic cover about as thick as wet tissue paper, throw in a heavy transformer and holder for it and place it loose in the package with the large plate and ship it across to the other side of the world, tell them what they get johnny. Well congratulations, you end up with shards and shards of sharp broken plate glass, covered in a ton of little plastic beads coated in flourescent powder, basically a huge dangerous mess, thank you for playing, cheap chinese packing. #4 ) The luminglas we got that was'nt a shattered mess, we managed to get installed in the ceiling, it took some creative work, - translation, we had to reinforce each of the tiles with wood to handle the weight of the luminglas and the put a piece of lexan to hold the luminglas in place, but the final product came out very sturdy and pretty cool, very borgish - star trek reference here. #5 ) We had to redo ALL the blacklights, the original design was'nt lighting up the walls enough, so we had to move the ones we installed and add more to completely light up the walls. #6 ) we finished the shelving, the network lines, the additional monitor mounts for the monitor facing outside and the security monitor #7 ) we now figured out that we will need to cover the entry doors, too much light coming through them, so we ordered them to be covered like the rest of the glass panels, unfortunetly this will not be done till next friday #8 ) we also had to redo the plans, 9 times as of our last posting, because of space issues and inaddequate walking space, security concerns, etc. We are getting closer, tomorrow hopefully we will get a bit further, we are going to be doing touch up and a clean up a bit, we were supposed to get the carpet installed tomorrow, but delays - of course - caused the installer to push it till tuesday, the arcade has turned out to be harder than we thought, problems and unforseen delays popping up constantly on a daily basis as you can see above, but as The Robinsons would say - Keep moving forward. and we stubbornly are, however the concrete walls we keep having to move forward through are starting to hurt a bit. Sort of reminds me of the daffy duck cartoon, where he plays Robin hood, and porky pig is friar tuck, Daffy is trying to get past the trees by swinging over them, and he keeps yelling yikes and away, and keeps hitting other trees, which he then chops down and repeats yelling and swinging and crashing into trees till he is a shattered mess, if you have not seen this, google it, it is really quite funny. Here are some pics for you all to enjoy, i will hopefully be posting lists of the final games going in in the next week or so. See you soon, Yikes and away!!! Rick Edited November 21, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccatalyst Posted November 19, 2011 Author Share Posted November 19, 2011 (edited) Crap!! water is leaking through the back wall, i think it is coming from the roofing repairs that are currently going on. Just left a message for the landlord. Yikes and away. Rick Edited November 21, 2011 by ccatalyst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.