You can find lots a video about them on UA-cam. There's also older a yet sophisticated ones. Wars were a big driver for SEGA - lonesome soldiers stuck somewhere with money in their pockets.
The closest thing to one of these that I've seen is a physical pong game with magnetic pieces that move around on a table. There's also a game like the basketball one, but you shoot a can with a gun. (I saw it on youtube)
I remember seeing a number of electromechanical games that were a few years vintage in the early 80's at Disney World. One I remember in particular was a flat top construction site simulation thing with four glass sides.
Wow! I surely remember those Hugo games. In fact, I made them. From 1992 until it ended in about 2006, I programmed over 50 of those games... C64, Amiga, PC, Playstation 1+2, GB... Those were the retro days 😇❤️
I never knew there were that many, I remember there being just around a dozen in rotation on TV. Never got to play cause as he said getting through was like winning the lottery.
@@axelprino There was enough to give me an ulcer... twice 😕 And yes, it was very difficult to play live due to delay in satelite encoding, transmission, decoding, etc.
@@subtledemisefox The latest Hugo games from 2008+ (or about that) I do not know, since I stopped working on them. The company Krea bought the rights to the Hugo brand and took it to a whole new (and not exactly better) level
OMG I LOVED Those digital pinball machines as a kid!! My mom worked as a bartender and I would sometimes go in for a few hours while she worked and her manager ALWAYS gave me a fat cup of quarters so I could go play the digital pinball machine they had haha I cant rememer EXACTLY the theme but It was similar to that "Bass Fishin'" one by Williams haha
@@BadWallaby look up VPX, a pinball emulator for windows. You can get some great recreations that run the real roms... Or Zen pinball if you want to go with a commercial package
Who else went to the comments to say something about this and thought... I wonder how close to the top the same exact comment I came here to make is? 😂😂😂
For folks in the US visiting the west coast, the Musee de Mechanique in San Francisco has many very old video games, pinball and mechanical games as well as other antique penny arcade games. Almost all of them are playable and cost their original amount. It’s fascinating. I love this place and donate to the museum every year.
I admit I haven't been there in at least a decade, but yeah definitely worth the trip if you're in SF! last I was there they had a lot of the early penny arcade machines, as well as 1975's death race. definitely not one to be missed!
BTW - you can have more than one infection at a time, so just b/c you tested positive for COVID, don't mean you didn't also have some other virus ;) Hope you back to full health, keep up the great work.
Playing Hugo on a phone was more of a highlight than I imagined, smol childhood dream right there 😅 Also I won all games we played together, and any footage showing otherwise is fake 👀
18:22 the engineer in me is thinking it really wouldn't take much to modify it to give the illusion you can "shoot" the lights with an extra button and some extra wiring. I really hope mechanical games like these make a comeback. I think with some more up-to-date art they are still relevant (as in I think it's just the art that makes these "look" old fashioned in this era), especially for kids who love that tactile kind of game.
Especially if they were designed with modern components, they could make use of things like LEDs that had a very narrow beam of light and light sensors connected to MOSFETs that had filters on them that were matched with the wavelength of the LED that was used to allow the game to do things like drive motors if your shot was lined up and a hit was made, and much more without any sort of full computerization needed.
The pitfall is keeping them in working condition. Although coin pushers and mechanical horse racing still seem to be common in the UK at fairgrounds/coastal town amusements. Pinball is not entirely uncommon in the odd pub or coastal amusements but tends to suffer from poor maintenance. Pre-pandemic I did go to an annual pinball event that usually was part of PlayExpo, sadly I can't risk getting Covid so not been anywhere since.
@@KenPiper I'd probably strobe the LEDs in sequence and use TTL or CMOS NAND gates to figure which LED triggered the phototransistor... ...but, honestly, I also need to take into account that the 1980s are over now. Even a 0..99 up/down counter with two 7-segment LED displays would nowadays be cheaper to implement with a microcontroller than with TTL/CMOS logic ICs. And for just $2 or 2€ more, I could upgrade the LED digits to a frigging 64*128 pixel OLED graphic display! I love your solution because it could be implemented *with relays.* It doesn't get any better than this -- relays also provide built-in acoustic feedback if they are large enough! I'm very sad that these times are over now.
I'm reminded of when my family used to go camping at campgrounds when I was a kid. Like every place in the 80s it had a small arcade. My sister and I discovered that you could lift up the control panel of the Donkey Kong game and there was a toggle switch inside. Every time you flipped the switch it added one "coin" so you could basically have unlimited free plays.
As a child, I played Periscope on Walton pier. They had a similar machine with machine guns and tanks. With Periscope you pressed a button and a white light would shoot under the fiber glass ocean towards the ship at the back. These machines were huge!
This was an awesome trip down memory lane. As a kid growing up in the late 70's, I was blessed to have a father who flunked out of college because his love of pinball was greater than his love of attending class. He would drag me along to various establishments and give me some quarters to keep me busy while he played pinball. I remember standing on bar stools to play pinball, as well as games like electro-mechanical games like Sega's Duck Hunt and Periscope. There was also a car driving game, but I can't remember the name. I still gravitate towards pinball machines, and own a classic Gottlieb Sky Jump.
If only I knew beforehand that you'd come to our arcade booth (the one with the basketball, PolyPlay and old school pinballs) I'd have taken the time to explain everything to you. GC this year sure was busy with all kinds of people approaching us, we'll be there again next year ;)
Hey, nice to see a new video! Today is good a good day for another reason: I found a set of Microsoft windows for Workgroup setup 3.5" Discs in a trash heap on the sidewalk ! (also a label printer ) :)
I studied logic in philosophy and had a lot of fun learning about analog computers. Some of the things that you can make mechanically is really interesting. A small part of me wishes that technology would’ve progressed a little more slowly so we could explore some of those ideas more fully. I am fascinated with computer games that are not video games.
Great video... I'm very jealous of your experience I'm curious if you've ever done a series on the holographic western quick draw game called time traveler
There was also one that repurposed the cabinets of that game. It was a fighter called Holosseum. The Rerez YT Channel did a whole video on those holographic games
Wow the nostalgia is strong in this one - we had Hugo in Ireland here as well on the Irish language channel. The character's name was translated from Hugo to Hiudaí for full effect. Strangely I had no idea it was a game that went beyond Ireland which has blown my mind.
I really like the mechanical games but unfortunately every time I see one it's not functioning. I can imagine it's just hard to keep up with the repairs.
I WANT THOSE CIRCUIT BOARDS....(even if I have sold my collection over a decade ago) That Monaco game is done by just logic circuits which is amazing when you consider the graphics. Hence why mame can't emulate)
My dear nostalgia nerd, do you not have a retro arcade in Britain or wherever you live?? I live in the backwater american state of Arkansas and in Little Rock there's this arcade, called Vortex Retro Arcade, and it has hundreds of old arcade machines like this, hundreds of pinball machines (my favorite), and a wall of old nintendo games you can take down and play on their consoles then and there. I experienced it for the first time last month and it was breathtaking. The noise, the lights, the thrill. I will definitely be going back.
Omg, I have a vague memory of playing a few electro mechanical games as a kid. Thank you for the nostalgia of games I had forgotten about until today 😄
My family spent Summers at Topsail Island, North Carolina and Morehead City, North Carolina. We had a house on Topsail Island. 1967 to 1975. It was VERY strange - all those electromechanical games like Sega's Periscope. I had JUST grown accustomed to seeing them there and being robbed by them - and then they were gone. I had more fun flounder gigging and collecting scallops and running my crab traps. I would feed the entire family EASILY. My mother was amazed. She bought me an ice cream for it all. She would hand me quarters for those robber machines. I remember her opinion of them: "Those pinball machines are worse than the carnival booth criminal! TRASH, I tell ya!" I told her "I thought that's what quarters are FOR, mom!"
This made me remember the games I played as a child. Although I did play pong and a few atari games. Most the games I played were on an old apple //e computer. There was spy hunter, road runner, conan, Mario bros (Not to be confused with the nes super mario) and a lot more games. Thanks for bringing me down memory lane.
Love those mechanical arcade games. I can remember them in the 80s, but back then, I thought they were so "uncool", and were relegated to the back of the arcade. But now, they just seem so much more tactile
I could swear that one arcade in my town had that Night Rider game. This was around the time that all the new-fangled vector graphics machines were coming in.
Hehe, I love retro stuff, especially the intrinsic DIY and modding element, but I like modern stuff too, especially PC. I don't play many AAA games that are new, but man the indie scene is better than ever these days, from boomer shooters, to metroidvania, to action games or "Souls-likes" and simulation/management games like RimWorld etc. My only point being the modern and retro scenes haven't ever been better, other than AAA games with micro transactions and crap. Also, sorry you got the COVID. Hope you feel better!!
Never got to see electro-mechanical games in my youth (and I'm an 80's kid). Pinball was still around but that was about it and even that was on its way out in favor of electronic arcade games.
That is what i love on retro gaming. Experiences that you hardly get in house. Pinball, mechanical machines, driving games, trackball , lightgun, knob controller like tempest. Dancepad. Also love some arcade weird machines from japan
I remember the first arcade games I saw, back in the 70s; Wild Gunman was a Western themed quickdraw game, which was on exhibition at the Science museum as it was so new. The other was Starship 1, which had an Easter egg which was only relatively recently discovered
This brings back memories I didn't remember I even had. I used to play the domed basket ball game at my local tenpin bowling club. They also had an array of electromechanical pinball machines, an air hockey table and a few other things. I even remember playing the mechanical bike race, but I think that was in Sydney's Luna Park, which still has some of the original attractions and rides from the 1950s or earlier.
14:52 About that time, as a ten-year-old, on a vacation trip, I played some even older electro-mechanical game. One of them was a car racing games, where the competitors were mounted on cloth belts, and your car was on an arm connected to an overhead mechanism. If you crashed the car would rise into the air and flip over and over in slow motion.
@@Alfisonson Yeah, I think that was it. I played at night and the dim lighting made the illusion work so well that I didn't realize that it was a reflection.
19:09 Definitely really cool. It looks just like it's a top down 2D game. Like if there was another tank in there, you'd be playing Combat only with more detailed artwork than the 2600 could display.
Regarding phone-in games where you shout whatever; there was an Amiga game i remember where the main character is a cool kid with shades who threw like hurricanes and rocks in an arc..... (Edit: oh god did I remember shouting at the TV at how crap these people were and how easily I could of done it.)
They did a similar thing on TV-AM back in around 1990 with (I _think)_ Super Mario Bros 3. Specifically, Chocolate Island (I assume that was what it was called). A contestant would call in, and have Mario be guided by the caller's voice. They always did seem slow, and I think I remember shouting at the screen out of annoyance at the seeming incompetence of the caller thinking "I could do much better than that!". Little did I realise the delay was a factor (which I did deduce years later). Similar to ITV's "Knightmare" where the contestants would shout over each other and confuse the blind player, guiding him into danger! 🤣 "If *only* I were doing that!" smh
Electromechanical arcade games didn't quite die yet. Some were released in the 80s as well as the 90s. "Golly! Ghost" was a lightgun shooter that used a house room model diorama buried in the cabinet and looking up towards a mirror. Various doors or things like a chest or a toilet seat were opened and closed by servos. These were synced with the video overlay of cartoon ghosts that would come out or go into these and you had to hit them with your blaster.. There were also lighting effects overlaid to give the rooms more ambience. The diorama itself had lights to illuminate it and when the game switched to something it needed the full screen for (post-round scoring, intro/outro, etc.) it would turn off the lights to the diorama and so you only saw what looked like a traditional video game screen. It was a VERY impressive effect, combining electromechanicals and video overlays. I wish it had been a bigger hit and other games using the same style developed.
This is what people need to recreate these electro mechanical macines, not those boring mini arcade machines with mame on em, proper moving parts in perspex boxes as a talking point, they look so neet, everyone likes skeleton watches and they are similar imo
You would love it at Portland Retro Gaming Expo then. The whole gaming convention is around everything retro gaming. And a big section is dedicated to old upright arcade machines and pinball machines. And a ton of booths to buy lots of games and gaming merch. ;) And sweet nice to see pinball machines there. And I always love it when I see a pinball machine that I have in my own collection and that being The Getaway - High-Speed II. If you have any questions about pinball I have everything from a flipperless 1935 pinball machine to my 1992 pinball machine. I am a pinball nut I have many in my collection and I also enjoy getting them back up and running.
It always amazes me when I see UA-camrs talking about getting COVID and still being able to upload a video with a positive antigen test. If I were to get COVID I'd be locked in a COVID prison and lose my job an income. Yay China...
Thumbnail click ability 100% 👍. I new of that machine but my brain didn't realize what you had done... 97% of the way though and I was like: hold up. Wait a minute, somthing ain't right. 🥴
Did they have the electro-mechanical helicopter game? I think it was from William’s. When I was very young there was one of these in the burger joint in my tiny 300-person town. If it were not for the brisk winter sports tourist traffic, I’m sure they never would have had it. This machine fascinated 10 y/o me. Ah, memories…
Nice video, Nostalgia Nerd!!!! I hope you are feeling better from ConFlu-19!!!!! I feel your pain at the encroachment of modern systems on the retrogaming world.. Just don’t forget Atari’s presence in Germany. C-64 wasn’t the only game in town!
@ 12:54 High Speed, and High Speed II/ Getaway, were probably my favorite Pinball machines. I used to skip 7th hour of Junior High, go 3 blocks to the arcade, and play them.
I don't care much for modern games myself, but the giant statues of Luffy and Spongebob, and especially the giant Lego Koopa would have caught my attention.
Nice! Great video,thanks for sharing your experience and fun with us. I LOVE EM games,and it’s really nice to see them getting more love these days,because you, “Can’t emulate that ona screen.” ⚡️😏⚡️
I've been going to the "Flipper- und Arcademuseum" in Seligenstadt for quite some time now and they have the Basketball arcade machine there. One of my absolute favorites.
I got into the Evercade so they could make cart compilations of all these cool homebrews but they fell off with the Capcom digital. Any nerds that know programming out there want to start a company. We'll make it like code monkeys from G4
That was perhaps one of the more compelling ad reads I've ever heard. One, super well put together but also, yeah, I love coffee and would love a good decaf option but sadly decaf is usually the flavor. You get a rich blend, or you get decaf. Might just give it a go.
Clever mechanical games actually go back even further to the early 1900s or even earlier depending on how you classify them. Human beings are quite clever sometimes.
I thought all videos that are sponsor need to have the paid for box ticked. That's how I've always read it. Its paid for product placement so needs to be ticked even if the pop-up is misleading.
Ah man. Motochamp takes me back to being 10/11 years old (1982) and an avid arcade fan with little to no access to video games. I tried making my own electro-mechanical from a paper belt with little car models on to dodge. It was all to be housed in a shitty plastic wristwatch presentation case, so it was even portable 😎 5/6 Years later I wanted to develop an even more ambitious scenario that could still have merit today and be way more achievable (it certainly predates multi-player/deathmatch/FPS video games).. basically radio controlled tanks fitted with cameras. You'd drive them (and battle everyone else) from inside a closed booth.
Thank you for Visiting us and Hugo! It was a blast to finally meet you in person. We also have more informations now on the Original Hugo Hardware and where we can find a living machine!! I will send you a email soon :)
The whole bean decaf coffee that HEB sells, cold brews wonderfully. It just doesn't have all the caffeine my normal batches do. Then again maybe I'm better at preparing coffee than most. Cold brew is stupid easy to make. Get some whole bean coffee in flavor you like, bring it home, grind about 6 oz for half gallon (coarse grind, 12 cups), let it sit in your fridge for a day. Pull the metal filter out and empty the filter (don't forget to rinse the filter). I use N2 chargers, so I drink nitro cold brew coffee. It's about half coffee, the rest is a tiny amount of pure stevia extract, ice and half a table spoon of heavy whipping cream. Pretty simple and I get to control the quality of the coffee used, not taking some company's word that they are using good coffee.
The sweet spot for me is in the 16/32 bit eras, I like a few modern games, I'm more concerned with playability and originality than repetition. I was never interested in mechanicals unless it was feeding 2p pieces into a cascade waterfall machine, my interest didn't occur until the likes of Rampage, Star Wars, and Tempest. Especially games that couldn't be played at home on a Spectrum.
Those older mechanical machines have always amazed me. Thank goodness there are people keeping them maintained and sharing with the rest of us.
I didn't even know that such machines existed. Those are so cool. I'd love to see a new one made.
Me neither. They're really fantastic considering how long ago they were released.
You can find lots a video about them on UA-cam. There's also older a yet sophisticated ones. Wars were a big driver for SEGA - lonesome soldiers stuck somewhere with money in their pockets.
Too expensive, believe it or not. (I’m assuming) Also, the younger generation is unable to use their imagination. ;)
Ive only seen a glimpse of some when i was a kid. Utterly fascinating
I'd love to see electromechanical games come back. There's awesome potential with today's tech.
The closest thing to one of these that I've seen is a physical pong game with magnetic pieces that move around on a table. There's also a game like the basketball one, but you shoot a can with a gun. (I saw it on youtube)
Definitely ❤️
Tim Hunkin's Novelty Automation is worth a visit.
They must have cost a fortune to make and maintain. No suprise video games eventually took over.
I remember seeing a number of electromechanical games that were a few years vintage in the early 80's at Disney World. One I remember in particular was a flat top construction site simulation thing with four glass sides.
Wow! I surely remember those Hugo games. In fact, I made them. From 1992 until it ended in about 2006, I programmed over 50 of those games... C64, Amiga, PC, Playstation 1+2, GB... Those were the retro days 😇❤️
That’s cool
I never knew there were that many, I remember there being just around a dozen in rotation on TV. Never got to play cause as he said getting through was like winning the lottery.
@@axelprino There was enough to give me an ulcer... twice 😕
And yes, it was very difficult to play live due to delay in satelite encoding, transmission, decoding, etc.
I was going to say, I used to play the Hugo games on DOS (Not to be confused with the *other* Hugo games that were King's Quest style adventure games)
@@subtledemisefox The latest Hugo games from 2008+ (or about that) I do not know, since I stopped working on them. The company Krea bought the rights to the Hugo brand and took it to a whole new (and not exactly better) level
OMG I LOVED Those digital pinball machines as a kid!! My mom worked as a bartender and I would sometimes go in for a few hours while she worked and her manager ALWAYS gave me a fat cup of quarters so I could go play the digital pinball machine they had haha I cant rememer EXACTLY the theme but It was similar to that "Bass Fishin'" one by Williams haha
Fish Tales by Williams, early 90's
@@StanleyKubick1 YESSSS! Many hours of my childhood spent on Williams machines but this one in particular was where most of my quarters went haha!
@@BadWallaby look up VPX, a pinball emulator for windows. You can get some great recreations that run the real roms... Or Zen pinball if you want to go with a commercial package
@@askjacob Thank you! This is so cool 😮 making me want to build one of those fancy full size pinball emulators! 🤔🤔🤔
"Continuous action! Just like I gave your mum." Had me rolling 😂
audibly LOL'd on that one
Who else went to the comments to say something about this and thought... I wonder how close to the top the same exact comment I came here to make is? 😂😂😂
@@TruckPuzzles Same 😂😂😂
It was so funny how it came out of nowhere, so unexpected.
For folks in the US visiting the west coast, the Musee de Mechanique in San Francisco has many very old video games, pinball and mechanical games as well as other antique penny arcade games. Almost all of them are playable and cost their original amount. It’s fascinating. I love this place and donate to the museum every year.
Wow, now there's a reason to visit that city
I admit I haven't been there in at least a decade, but yeah definitely worth the trip if you're in SF! last I was there they had a lot of the early penny arcade machines, as well as 1975's death race. definitely not one to be missed!
BTW - you can have more than one infection at a time, so just b/c you tested positive for COVID, don't mean you didn't also have some other virus ;)
Hope you back to full health, keep up the great work.
"offering continuous action - just like I gave your mum", outstanding stuff...... retro gags, not enough of that any more 🙂
That one came unexpected.
Playing Hugo on a phone was more of a highlight than I imagined, smol childhood dream right there 😅
Also I won all games we played together, and any footage showing otherwise is fake 👀
18:22 the engineer in me is thinking it really wouldn't take much to modify it to give the illusion you can "shoot" the lights with an extra button and some extra wiring. I really hope mechanical games like these make a comeback. I think with some more up-to-date art they are still relevant (as in I think it's just the art that makes these "look" old fashioned in this era), especially for kids who love that tactile kind of game.
Especially if they were designed with modern components, they could make use of things like LEDs that had a very narrow beam of light and light sensors connected to MOSFETs that had filters on them that were matched with the wavelength of the LED that was used to allow the game to do things like drive motors if your shot was lined up and a hit was made, and much more without any sort of full computerization needed.
The pitfall is keeping them in working condition. Although coin pushers and mechanical horse racing still seem to be common in the UK at fairgrounds/coastal town amusements. Pinball is not entirely uncommon in the odd pub or coastal amusements but tends to suffer from poor maintenance.
Pre-pandemic I did go to an annual pinball event that usually was part of PlayExpo, sadly I can't risk getting Covid so not been anywhere since.
@@KenPiper I'd probably strobe the LEDs in sequence and use TTL or CMOS NAND gates to figure which LED triggered the phototransistor...
...but, honestly, I also need to take into account that the 1980s are over now. Even a 0..99 up/down counter with two 7-segment LED displays would nowadays be cheaper to implement with a microcontroller than with TTL/CMOS logic ICs. And for just $2 or 2€ more, I could upgrade the LED digits to a frigging 64*128 pixel OLED graphic display!
I love your solution because it could be implemented *with relays.* It doesn't get any better than this -- relays also provide built-in acoustic feedback if they are large enough! I'm very sad that these times are over now.
I'm reminded of when my family used to go camping at campgrounds when I was a kid. Like every place in the 80s it had a small arcade. My sister and I discovered that you could lift up the control panel of the Donkey Kong game and there was a toggle switch inside. Every time you flipped the switch it added one "coin" so you could basically have unlimited free plays.
As a child, I played Periscope on Walton pier. They had a similar machine with machine guns and tanks. With Periscope you pressed a button and a white light would shoot under the fiber glass ocean towards the ship at the back. These machines were huge!
This was an awesome trip down memory lane. As a kid growing up in the late 70's, I was blessed to have a father who flunked out of college because his love of pinball was greater than his love of attending class. He would drag me along to various establishments and give me some quarters to keep me busy while he played pinball. I remember standing on bar stools to play pinball, as well as games like electro-mechanical games like Sega's Duck Hunt and Periscope. There was also a car driving game, but I can't remember the name. I still gravitate towards pinball machines, and own a classic Gottlieb Sky Jump.
If only I knew beforehand that you'd come to our arcade booth (the one with the basketball, PolyPlay and old school pinballs) I'd have taken the time to explain everything to you.
GC this year sure was busy with all kinds of people approaching us, we'll be there again next year ;)
funhouse is such a great pinball
Hey, nice to see a new video!
Today is good a good day for another reason: I found a set of Microsoft windows for Workgroup setup 3.5" Discs in a trash heap on the sidewalk ! (also a label printer ) :)
when the modern gaming look so bland than the retro one.
"I'm done with youtube"
Proceeds to post more videos
I'm glad you kept going 😁👍
I studied logic in philosophy and had a lot of fun learning about analog computers. Some of the things that you can make mechanically is really interesting. A small part of me wishes that technology would’ve progressed a little more slowly so we could explore some of those ideas more fully. I am fascinated with computer games that are not video games.
Great video... I'm very jealous of your experience I'm curious if you've ever done a series on the holographic western quick draw game called time traveler
i was just telling my girlfriend about that game. I once played it on a school field trip. I had to have spent 10 bucks on that damn game.
There was also one that repurposed the cabinets of that game. It was a fighter called Holosseum. The Rerez YT Channel did a whole video on those holographic games
13:01 I have the getaway, it's amazing ! I fully modded mine with shaker and custom sounds packs. Very interesting video 👍
Wow the nostalgia is strong in this one - we had Hugo in Ireland here as well on the Irish language channel. The character's name was translated from Hugo to Hiudaí for full effect. Strangely I had no idea it was a game that went beyond Ireland which has blown my mind.
I really like the mechanical games but unfortunately every time I see one it's not functioning. I can imagine it's just hard to keep up with the repairs.
19:55 Shazamed the soundtrack/song used for the Gamescom Montage:
*ELFL - Purple Voyager*
That's some smooth retrowave/synthwave 👍
I hope you got to play Sonic Frontiers ☺️
Thanks for giving my mum "continuous action."
This video was a nice change. I hope you did some interviews at arcade club. That place needs all the help it can get with the energy crisis.
I WANT THOSE CIRCUIT BOARDS....(even if I have sold my collection over a decade ago)
That Monaco game is done by just logic circuits which is amazing when you consider the graphics. Hence why mame can't emulate)
Monaco GP
My dear nostalgia nerd, do you not have a retro arcade in Britain or wherever you live?? I live in the backwater american state of Arkansas and in Little Rock there's this arcade, called Vortex Retro Arcade, and it has hundreds of old arcade machines like this, hundreds of pinball machines (my favorite), and a wall of old nintendo games you can take down and play on their consoles then and there.
I experienced it for the first time last month and it was breathtaking. The noise, the lights, the thrill. I will definitely be going back.
Hang on...
Poly play
Polybius
It all makes sense now... did you wear your special filter goggles.
Omg, I have a vague memory of playing a few electro mechanical games as a kid. Thank you for the nostalgia of games I had forgotten about until today 😄
My family spent Summers at Topsail Island, North Carolina and Morehead City, North Carolina. We had a house on Topsail Island. 1967 to 1975. It was VERY strange - all those electromechanical games like Sega's Periscope. I had JUST grown accustomed to seeing them there and being robbed by them - and then they were gone. I had more fun flounder gigging and collecting scallops and running my crab traps. I would feed the entire family EASILY. My mother was amazed. She bought me an ice cream for it all. She would hand me quarters for those robber machines. I remember her opinion of them: "Those pinball machines are worse than the carnival booth criminal! TRASH, I tell ya!" I told her "I thought that's what quarters are FOR, mom!"
This made me remember the games I played as a child. Although I did play pong and a few atari games. Most the games I played were on an old apple //e computer. There was spy hunter, road runner, conan, Mario bros (Not to be confused with the nes super mario) and a lot more games. Thanks for bringing me down memory lane.
Love those mechanical arcade games. I can remember them in the 80s, but back then, I thought they were so "uncool", and were relegated to the back of the arcade. But now, they just seem so much more tactile
I could swear that one arcade in my town had that Night Rider game. This was around the time that all the new-fangled vector graphics machines were coming in.
I'm unsubscribing because you said you were done with UA-cam yet clearly were seeking attention
Four player Bomberman in the mid eighties would definitely have blown people away.
I've never really looked into the early electro-mechanical arcades. But after this video I think a trip down the rabbit hole is in order!
"Conflu"? Everyone I know just calls it "con crud". :P
amazing video!!
It's called "Monaco GP" because it has a GP: gas pedal LOL.
Hehe, I love retro stuff, especially the intrinsic DIY and modding element, but I like modern stuff too, especially PC. I don't play many AAA games that are new, but man the indie scene is better than ever these days, from boomer shooters, to metroidvania, to action games or "Souls-likes" and simulation/management games like RimWorld etc. My only point being the modern and retro scenes haven't ever been better, other than AAA games with micro transactions and crap.
Also, sorry you got the COVID. Hope you feel better!!
6:02 Rock'n Roll by Rainbow Arts anyone? :D
Maybe the mystery about the Polybius arcade machine lies in East Germany?
Never got to see electro-mechanical games in my youth (and I'm an 80's kid). Pinball was still around but that was about it and even that was on its way out in favor of electronic arcade games.
That is what i love on retro gaming. Experiences that you hardly get in house. Pinball, mechanical machines, driving games, trackball , lightgun, knob controller like tempest. Dancepad. Also love some arcade weird machines from japan
Correction: The Getaway: High Speed II was made in 1992, not 1993.
I remember the first arcade games I saw, back in the 70s; Wild Gunman was a Western themed quickdraw game, which was on exhibition at the Science museum as it was so new. The other was Starship 1, which had an Easter egg which was only relatively recently discovered
This brings back memories I didn't remember I even had. I used to play the domed basket ball game at my local tenpin bowling club. They also had an array of electromechanical pinball machines, an air hockey table and a few other things. I even remember playing the mechanical bike race, but I think that was in Sydney's Luna Park, which still has some of the original attractions and rides from the 1950s or earlier.
Funhouse is the best pinball machine ever made IMO
WOAH that Sure Instinct game is basically Rock-'n'-Roll for the Atari ST!!!! I haven't seen a game like that in decades, that's AWESOME!
For someone so intelligent you sure believed the biggest lie of 2021.
"just like I gave your mum" - the dead pan delivery made me laugh out loud. well played sir...
I laughed out loud when he said it! It was great! 😁
I choked on my noodles 10/10 would asphyxiate again
I can FEEL the reluctant clickbaiting of that title, sorry NN.
14:52 About that time, as a ten-year-old, on a vacation trip, I played some even older electro-mechanical game. One of them was a car racing games, where the competitors were mounted on cloth belts, and your car was on an arm connected to an overhead mechanism. If you crashed the car would rise into the air and flip over and over in slow motion.
You probably mean the "Bally Road Runner" :)
@@Alfisonson Yeah, I think that was it. I played at night and the dim lighting made the illusion work so well that I didn't realize that it was a reflection.
Electro games were hit and miss...but some were great.
I played Getaway so much! Great machine.
19:09 Definitely really cool. It looks just like it's a top down 2D game. Like if there was another tank in there, you'd be playing Combat only with more detailed artwork than the 2600 could display.
You so caught me not paying attention. Genius!
They're still playing Ronah™ there?
Love your videos man, keep up the good work 🙌 Love from Portugal 🇵🇹
0:47 Life does, indeed, come at you fast
Regarding phone-in games where you shout whatever; there was an Amiga game i remember where the main character is a cool kid with shades who threw like hurricanes and rocks in an arc.....
(Edit: oh god did I remember shouting at the TV at how crap these people were and how easily I could of done it.)
They did a similar thing on TV-AM back in around 1990 with (I _think)_ Super Mario Bros 3.
Specifically, Chocolate Island (I assume that was what it was called).
A contestant would call in, and have Mario be guided by the caller's voice.
They always did seem slow, and I think I remember shouting at the screen out of annoyance at the seeming incompetence of the caller thinking "I could do much better than that!".
Little did I realise the delay was a factor (which I did deduce years later).
Similar to ITV's "Knightmare" where the contestants would shout over each other and confuse the blind player, guiding him into danger! 🤣
"If *only* I were doing that!" smh
Magic Pockets by Bitmap Brothers! I remember playing the demo on an Amiga magazine cover disk
Electromechanical arcade games didn't quite die yet. Some were released in the 80s as well as the 90s. "Golly! Ghost" was a lightgun shooter that used a house room model diorama buried in the cabinet and looking up towards a mirror. Various doors or things like a chest or a toilet seat were opened and closed by servos. These were synced with the video overlay of cartoon ghosts that would come out or go into these and you had to hit them with your blaster.. There were also lighting effects overlaid to give the rooms more ambience. The diorama itself had lights to illuminate it and when the game switched to something it needed the full screen for (post-round scoring, intro/outro, etc.) it would turn off the lights to the diorama and so you only saw what looked like a traditional video game screen. It was a VERY impressive effect, combining electromechanicals and video overlays. I wish it had been a bigger hit and other games using the same style developed.
I didn't bother to skip the sponsor spot this time. it was actually nice to watch.
I feel like williams made the best pinball machines.
This is what people need to recreate these electro mechanical macines, not those boring mini arcade machines with mame on em, proper moving parts in perspex boxes as a talking point, they look so neet, everyone likes skeleton watches and they are similar imo
COVID risk!? Lame.
😻
Superb documentation of these machines which caused me to shed a tear or two...thanks for this !
You would love it at Portland Retro Gaming Expo then.
The whole gaming convention is around everything retro gaming.
And a big section is dedicated to old upright arcade machines and pinball machines.
And a ton of booths to buy lots of games and gaming merch. ;)
And sweet nice to see pinball machines there.
And I always love it when I see a pinball machine that I have in my own collection and that being The Getaway - High-Speed II.
If you have any questions about pinball I have everything from a flipperless 1935 pinball machine to my 1992 pinball machine.
I am a pinball nut I have many in my collection and I also enjoy getting them back up and running.
Who is Marta and where is Sarah?
It always amazes me when I see UA-camrs talking about getting COVID and still being able to upload a video with a positive antigen test. If I were to get COVID I'd be locked in a COVID prison and lose my job an income. Yay China...
"Kung-Flu" -TRUMP
Thumbnail click ability 100% 👍.
I new of that machine but my brain didn't realize what you had done...
97% of the way though and I was like: hold up. Wait a minute, somthing ain't right. 🥴
Did they have the electro-mechanical helicopter game? I think it was from William’s. When I was very young there was one of these in the burger joint in my tiny 300-person town. If it were not for the brisk winter sports tourist traffic, I’m sure they never would have had it. This machine fascinated 10 y/o me. Ah, memories…
Are you my farther?
Have a good time at Gamescom. Hopefully it’s quite amazing.
It was last month...
Nice video, Nostalgia Nerd!!!! I hope you are feeling better from ConFlu-19!!!!! I feel your pain at the encroachment of modern systems on the retrogaming world..
Just don’t forget Atari’s presence in Germany. C-64 wasn’t the only game in town!
@ 12:54 High Speed, and High Speed II/ Getaway, were probably my favorite Pinball machines. I used to skip 7th hour of Junior High, go 3 blocks to the arcade, and play them.
I don't care much for modern games myself, but the giant statues of Luffy and Spongebob, and especially the giant Lego Koopa would have caught my attention.
Nice! Great video,thanks for sharing your experience and fun with us. I LOVE EM games,and it’s really nice to see them getting more love these days,because you, “Can’t emulate that ona screen.” ⚡️😏⚡️
"Monaco GP" isn't faster than you remember... It's just we're getting older. :D
Whoa 😊
I've been going to the "Flipper- und Arcademuseum" in Seligenstadt for quite some time now and they have the Basketball arcade machine there. One of my absolute favorites.
Fantastic stuff. Those electromechanical machine are fantastic. I love that Attack II. Retro for life!
12:22 "...analogue tickers..."
You mean the mechanical digital displays, rather than the electronic type?
Oh gosh gosh gosh, I remember the Hugo interactive TV show
I still remember watching the show back in the early 2000's
I got into the Evercade so they could make cart compilations of all these cool homebrews but they fell off with the Capcom digital. Any nerds that know programming out there want to start a company. We'll make it like code monkeys from G4
14:50
Thank you for visiting us at gamescom. Greetings from the Retro Nerds Münsterland e.V. :)
That was perhaps one of the more compelling ad reads I've ever heard. One, super well put together but also, yeah, I love coffee and would love a good decaf option but sadly decaf is usually the flavor. You get a rich blend, or you get decaf. Might just give it a go.
Clever mechanical games actually go back even further to the early 1900s or even earlier depending on how you classify them. Human beings are quite clever sometimes.
I thought all videos that are sponsor need to have the paid for box ticked. That's how I've always read it. Its paid for product placement so needs to be ticked even if the pop-up is misleading.
Ah man. Motochamp takes me back to being 10/11 years old (1982) and an avid arcade fan with little to no access to video games. I tried making my own electro-mechanical from a paper belt with little car models on to dodge. It was all to be housed in a shitty plastic wristwatch presentation case, so it was even portable 😎
5/6 Years later I wanted to develop an even more ambitious scenario that could still have merit today and be way more achievable (it certainly predates multi-player/deathmatch/FPS video games).. basically radio controlled tanks fitted with cameras. You'd drive them (and battle everyone else) from inside a closed booth.
You lost me at decaff 😂
Thank you for Visiting us and Hugo! It was a blast to finally meet you in person. We also have more informations now on the Original Hugo Hardware and where we can find a living machine!! I will send you a email soon :)
4:48 my god. That was so pro I thought I was watching a serious 90's BBC news/documentary broadcast.
It would be quite daunting, but I can almost picture an electromechanical version of Tetris being possible. How cool would that be?! 😳
The whole bean decaf coffee that HEB sells, cold brews wonderfully. It just doesn't have all the caffeine my normal batches do. Then again maybe I'm better at preparing coffee than most. Cold brew is stupid easy to make. Get some whole bean coffee in flavor you like, bring it home, grind about 6 oz for half gallon (coarse grind, 12 cups), let it sit in your fridge for a day. Pull the metal filter out and empty the filter (don't forget to rinse the filter). I use N2 chargers, so I drink nitro cold brew coffee. It's about half coffee, the rest is a tiny amount of pure stevia extract, ice and half a table spoon of heavy whipping cream. Pretty simple and I get to control the quality of the coffee used, not taking some company's word that they are using good coffee.
The sweet spot for me is in the 16/32 bit eras, I like a few modern games, I'm more concerned with playability and originality than repetition. I was never interested in mechanicals unless it was feeding 2p pieces into a cascade waterfall machine, my interest didn't occur until the likes of Rampage, Star Wars, and Tempest. Especially games that couldn't be played at home on a Spectrum.