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Electromechanical Games: Blip, Formel 1, Tricky Traps


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Here I show you 3 electromechanical games: First we will have a look at the tennis game Blip, also called World Tennis, or Blip-o-Matic, then we will have a look at the racing game Formel 1, also called Action Racer, made by Alps Toy. The last game you will see is Tricky Traps from Tomy also known under the name Aaaaghh!

 

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Great video. I used to love playing Blip and Merlin. I need to dig out my Blip but I think the LED light is out so I can't play it.

If it is only the LED it should be an easy fix, I guess it is just some solder joint issue, or contact issue within the switch or the battery contacts. ;)

Edited by vectrexroli
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I remember getting Blip and Digital Derby for $0.50 each from a church sale when I was 8 or 9 years old, and wow did I ever have fun with those two games! My parents hated them because of all the noise they made, but I thought the idea of a wind up video game was really neat and enjoyed them a lot. I have no idea what ever happened to those two games over the years (I think they may have gotten donated to a thrift store when I was a teenager and lost interest in older games), but after watching your video I may have to hunt down new copies of Blip and Digital Derby at some point. Are there any other fun electromechanical games that might be worth buying too? :)

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... but after watching your video I may have to hunt down new copies of Blip and Digital Derby at some point. Are there any other fun electromechanical games that might be worth buying too? :)

 

My wife always says I influence other people buying more crap from eBay and I guess she might be right here. :grin:

There were also electromechanical space shooter games.

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My wife always says I influence other people buying more crap from eBay and I guess she might be right here. :grin:

There were also electromechanical space shooter games.

I can confirm this is true. Your reviews were the reason I bought a Competition Pro 5000 joystick and two AGS-101 Game Boy Advance SPs, and after watching some of your videos my wife has said "Ah! More crap from eBay!" on more than one occasion when the postman showed up at our door. :lol:

 

Thanks for all the great videos and I'll be hoping that you cover some more electromechanical games in the future. They're very cool to watch in action! :)

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I can confirm this is true. Your reviews were the reason I bought a Competition Pro 5000 joystick and two AGS-101 Game Boy Advance SPs, and after watching some of your videos my wife has said "Ah! More crap from eBay!" on more than one occasion when the postman showed up at our door. :lol:

 

Thanks for all the great videos and I'll be hoping that you cover some more electromechanical games in the future. They're very cool to watch in action! :)

To be honest I don´t have that many handheld and tabletop games as space and also money are always quite limited. Those 3 electromechanical games I got for free.

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Oh man, I had some of these when I was a kid. I love all those handheld games BITD! I think I had Digital Derby and another very similar one where you shoot missiles from teh bottom at stuff that scrolled across the screen. It has the same counter/timer as Digital Derby.

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Oh man, I had some of these when I was a kid. I love all those handheld games BITD! I think I had Digital Derby and another very similar one where you shoot missiles from teh bottom at stuff that scrolled across the screen. It has the same counter/timer as Digital Derby.

I think I know that game, someone in my class had that back in the days, that was also very noisy.

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Yes, that´s true. :-D I don´t own Digital Derby, but I think there is a slight difference in gameplay mechanics, there is no break lever, but a gear shift instead:

 

Since you don't already own Digital Derby, I guess Mrs. Vectrex Roli will blame me when more crap from eBay shows up at your house. :)

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Yep, it was noisy, I'd forgotten that. I found a video of it. It was called "Hit and Missile"

 

 

Thanks a lot Roli! Just when I thought I was wrapping up my frenzied Atari 2600 buying, you've opened Pandora's box to a nostalgic category of toys I'd completely forgotten about. And there's no Harmony cart for handhelds!

 

I think I know that game, someone in my class had that back in the days, that was also very noisy.

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Yep, it was noisy, I'd forgotten that. I found a video of it. It was called "Hit and Missile"

 

Thanks a lot Roli! Just when I thought I was wrapping up my frenzied Atari 2600 buying, you've opened Pandora's box to a nostalgic category of toys I'd completely forgotten about. And there's no Harmony cart for handhelds!

 

But at least there are excellent free handheld simulators for Windows available, just in case you have not seen that already:

http://www.madrigaldesign.it/sim/download.php

 

No electromechanical games though, only electronic games, but still worth downloading the "CD collection" with 59 classic games.

Edited by vectrexroli
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But at least there are excellent free handheld simulators for Windows available, just in case you have not seen that already:

http://www.madrigaldesign.it/sim/download.php

 

No electromechanical games though, only electronic games, but still worth downloading the "CD collection" with 59 classic games.

 

That is the bomb! If he could get a few more of the Coleco tabletops on there that would be awesome :)

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Man, I thought Atari brought back some memories but you guys are really hitting the nostalgia button! I had lots of these when I was young. I loved them. I had the several of the old led "football" games as well as a larger baseball one. I had two of the coleco tabletop games: Donkey Kong and Galaxian. I see Donkey Kong is available as one of the simulators but not the others, I wonder why. I hadn't heard the sounds of that game since I was a kid. When I fired up the simulator and heard that low-fi Donkey Kong start-up sound that really brought me back. I'd had to get to caught up into re-collecting all the handhelds I had since that could be a slippery slop, but I would love to pickup the entire set of those table-tops again if I found them. I saw over at BYOAC where someone turned a broken Donkey Kong tabletop into a mini-mame machine!

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Thanks again for posting this topic Roli. I finally found my box with my Blip and no the LED isn't working. I'll have to take it apart and check inside but it's still in it's original box with styrofoam. All sorts of awesome goodies from my childhood in the box as well, Merlin, Mattel & Coleco Football games, Star Wars Electronic Battle Command Game, Burgertime, Armor Attack, & some other misc. handhelds, but the thing that might pertain to this post is my Mattel Battlestar Galactica Space Alert game. I think it's more electromechanical than the rest. All need some cleaning and/or TLC.

Battlestar Galatica

 

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Thanks again for posting this topic Roli. I finally found my box with my Blip and no the LED isn't working. I'll have to take it apart and check inside but it's still in it's original box with styrofoam. All sorts of awesome goodies from my childhood in the box as well, Merlin, Mattel & Coleco Football games, Star Wars Electronic Battle Command Game, Burgertime, Armor Attack, & some other misc. handhelds, but the thing that might pertain to this post is my Mattel Battlestar Galactica Space Alert game. I think it's more electromechanical than the rest. All need some cleaning and/or TLC.

 

That Battlestar Galactica looks great, I have never seen that game. :thumbsup:

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  • 5 weeks later...

If it is only the LED it should be an easy fix, I guess it is just some solder joint issue, or contact issue within the switch or the battery contacts. ;)

I finally found my Blip and you were right, it was a contact issue in the switch. What an easy fix, thank goodness I kept it. Now I can play Blip again!

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