Shaggy the Atarian

A lot of people are surprised when they discover the arcade version of that, but then a little shocked by how balls-to-the-wall difficult (and different from the 2600 version) it is. I couldn't really pass it up when I found it a decade ago though.

You're welcome How long you hold onto a game does depend on the game and the location - I still have a few games that I opened with 16 years ago as they still earn consistently. But when it comes time to say goodbye, yeah, there is a decent used market out there. Many locations just focus on new stuff because that's what makes money, but for those who don't have unlimited budgets like Dave & Busters or Round1, they'll tend to look for some good deals on used. You have to have a really old game with a name for collectors to be interested in it. I probably should put my prototype Hydra up for sale here soon or sell off my Pitfall II...pretty sure those would go to a collection and not an arcade, unless a game museum wanted them. Once in a while, there is something that you can't seem to move at all. It sucks, but that's where you just end up scraping or selling the cab off for super cheap. I've only done that with things that aren't special - generic cabinets or a weird indie game that was too custom to do anything with on something else (a tank game from a now defunct manufacturer I had to junk as I couldn't get parts for it anymore). I have a racer I might have to do that with, as every time I've listed it for sale, no one bites, no matter what the price (well, I haven't listed anything for free...would be nice to recoup a few bucks from it, at least for the cabinet).

I've seen it happen before - my Cruis'n Blasts for example, paid themselves off in 5 1/2 months (were about $14k). But I've not seen anything that was a joystick or similar game do that before, with one exception, Super Street Fighter IV AE. That one feels like a unique case. If something like Asteroids can perform like either of those at my place, then I would be impressed.

Not yet, they are saying probably next week at this point, although disconnecting the knocker did dramatically cut down on the number credits the game gives itself. Still, if there was a way to look at how much time its been played vs. coin drop, they would be wildly different. From Thursday-Monday, the game pulled in 43 coins, so $10.75. Not bad given the nature of the glitch. But if you start comparing to other new games - a single Maximum Tune driver did $74.25 over the weekend - then not so much. But, it did do better than some of the classics like Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga which didn't manage $5, so that's a win, I guess. Just as long as its not making $15/wk when its fixed. What are my fellow operators going to want to see out of a brand new game at its price point? Minimum $250/wk or higher (which would mean it pays itself off in a year or less). You could get away with a little less, but more than 2 years ROI will be a tough sell since the market isn't a vacuum. To be fair, it was one of the slowest weekends we've seen all year. April/May tends to be my slow season, excepting anything like Spring Break or some other time off of school. In a way its good, since the glitch isn't going to produce correct results anyways. So, if there's any time for it to have problems like this, now is better than when more eyes would be on it. I will also be recommending that they add under the control panel lighting. As weird as it might sound, the game is too dark in my arcade, so I think that is keeping some from noticing it.

This gentleman has been playing the game for 3 hours straight. He did put tokens in it at first... until realizing that it was basically on free play What was kind of odd is that he came in and asked if we had Asteroids - without noticing the game. I haven't had anyone ask me if we have that in quite a long time. So I guess it was drawing him in with its mere presence, haha.

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