Funspot and ACAM
Jul. 29th, 2012 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinAs a birthday present Sam gave me a gift card for tokens at Funspot. We went up yesterday, and had to fight terrible summer weekend traffic, but we had a great time once we got there.
Funspot near Weirs Beach in Laconia, NH bills itself as "the largest arcade in the world". I don't know if this is true or not, but if you like classic videogames from the 70s and 80s and want to play a real cabinet, this is definitely the place to go. The prize of the place is the American Classic Arcade Museum, a collection of old machines on the second floor.
They're grouped by manufacturer, with a whole row of nothing but Atari vector machines. Honestly, I was never much of a coin-op player back in the day; I played home console and Atari personal computer games, and the more difficult quarter-eating ones rarely held my attention. But there's nothing quite like a real coin-op Tempest (emulations can't replicate the physical experience of using that cabinet knob), and I did play a few rounds on that. Also one game on an original Star Castle, and the thing I didn't remember is that it has surprisingly loud, booming audio.
I was there for pinball. Funspot is not the best place in New England or even NH to go for pinball (that would be Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, much closer to home, which I have still not visited). But Funspot's not bad, especially for fans of older solid-state pinball. They've got a wall of mostly 80s and 70s solid-state tables (and some earlier electromechanical machines) in the ACAM room, and a few later machines downstairs. All of the classic videogames and all of the pinballs are set one token a play, with tokens costing about a quarter (less in huge quantities).
The pinballs are not all in the greatest of shape, and a few were out of order, but they're clearly maintaining them; it's nothing like the tragic situation at Canobie Lake, where most of the pinball machines are unplayably broken. The one I found at Funspot that was operating but really not playable was their Xenon, because of an extremely sticky left flipper (the left flipper on their Gorgar was sticking a little too, but it wasn't as big a problem). The Rudy head on their Funhouse was broken, but the game seemed to be playable anyway.
I got the chance to play in person some tables that I mostly know from emulation, or had only played for real briefly and long long ago: Gorgar, Funhouse, Black Knight, Pin*Bot. All of these turn out to be tremendously fun in person, though Black Knight is much harder than the version I became familiar with in Pinball Hall of Fame on the Wii (the version that just came out as DLC for The Pinball Arcade on Android and iOS seems closer to the real thing, albeit buggy). Playing in emulators had familiarized me with the table rules on these, which made them a lot more fun to encounter in person, though obviously the physical tables are less predictable and therefore harder.
Of tables I hadn't encountered before, I think my favorite from a gameplay perspective is Grand Lizard, one of the early Eighties games with a two-part playfield. It's a Barry Oursler playfield, like Gorgar and Pin*Bot. High Speed, a classic Steve Ritchie design, was pretty good too, though I don't think I got very far into the ruleset.
Funspot also has some other good stuff, like tenpin and candlepin bowling lanes; an adorable set of tiny kiddie bumper cars, apparently battery-operated; and an equally tiny indoor miniature golf course dating from the 1950s.
The original idea was that I'd play pinball and old videogames while Sam and Jorie amused themselves with other things, but they ended up playing a surprising amount of pinball. I got Sam hooked on Pin*Bot. I think the key thing is that, while it's a tough game to master, it has a subsidiary goal (open the visor and lock the eyes for multiball) that a newbie can feasibly shoot for. Jorie liked playing co-op, operating the plunger and sometimes the right flipper when she was in the mood.
Funspot near Weirs Beach in Laconia, NH bills itself as "the largest arcade in the world". I don't know if this is true or not, but if you like classic videogames from the 70s and 80s and want to play a real cabinet, this is definitely the place to go. The prize of the place is the American Classic Arcade Museum, a collection of old machines on the second floor.
They're grouped by manufacturer, with a whole row of nothing but Atari vector machines. Honestly, I was never much of a coin-op player back in the day; I played home console and Atari personal computer games, and the more difficult quarter-eating ones rarely held my attention. But there's nothing quite like a real coin-op Tempest (emulations can't replicate the physical experience of using that cabinet knob), and I did play a few rounds on that. Also one game on an original Star Castle, and the thing I didn't remember is that it has surprisingly loud, booming audio.
I was there for pinball. Funspot is not the best place in New England or even NH to go for pinball (that would be Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, much closer to home, which I have still not visited). But Funspot's not bad, especially for fans of older solid-state pinball. They've got a wall of mostly 80s and 70s solid-state tables (and some earlier electromechanical machines) in the ACAM room, and a few later machines downstairs. All of the classic videogames and all of the pinballs are set one token a play, with tokens costing about a quarter (less in huge quantities).
The pinballs are not all in the greatest of shape, and a few were out of order, but they're clearly maintaining them; it's nothing like the tragic situation at Canobie Lake, where most of the pinball machines are unplayably broken. The one I found at Funspot that was operating but really not playable was their Xenon, because of an extremely sticky left flipper (the left flipper on their Gorgar was sticking a little too, but it wasn't as big a problem). The Rudy head on their Funhouse was broken, but the game seemed to be playable anyway.
I got the chance to play in person some tables that I mostly know from emulation, or had only played for real briefly and long long ago: Gorgar, Funhouse, Black Knight, Pin*Bot. All of these turn out to be tremendously fun in person, though Black Knight is much harder than the version I became familiar with in Pinball Hall of Fame on the Wii (the version that just came out as DLC for The Pinball Arcade on Android and iOS seems closer to the real thing, albeit buggy). Playing in emulators had familiarized me with the table rules on these, which made them a lot more fun to encounter in person, though obviously the physical tables are less predictable and therefore harder.
Of tables I hadn't encountered before, I think my favorite from a gameplay perspective is Grand Lizard, one of the early Eighties games with a two-part playfield. It's a Barry Oursler playfield, like Gorgar and Pin*Bot. High Speed, a classic Steve Ritchie design, was pretty good too, though I don't think I got very far into the ruleset.
Funspot also has some other good stuff, like tenpin and candlepin bowling lanes; an adorable set of tiny kiddie bumper cars, apparently battery-operated; and an equally tiny indoor miniature golf course dating from the 1950s.
The original idea was that I'd play pinball and old videogames while Sam and Jorie amused themselves with other things, but they ended up playing a surprising amount of pinball. I got Sam hooked on Pin*Bot. I think the key thing is that, while it's a tough game to master, it has a subsidiary goal (open the visor and lock the eyes for multiball) that a newbie can feasibly shoot for. Jorie liked playing co-op, operating the plunger and sometimes the right flipper when she was in the mood.
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Date: 2012-07-30 01:55 am (UTC)