Previously: I visited nine arcades. And it rained a lot.
As you can see from the above picture, the weather was just as murky when I blew into Bethany Beach. I’ll still take this over having to deal with the heat.
Bethany Beach is a small boardwalk town with a noble-sounding name. Unlike some of the other boardwalks that blur together, Bethany has a unique personality. The actual boardwalk is pretty small and isn’t the main focus here. Instead, all the tourist spots are crammed together on a single road leading up to the beach.
I came very, very close to outright skipping Bethany Beach. As far as I could tell, the entire town only had a single hole-in-the-wall arcade. I kept debating whether to stop there or continue riding the bus straight to Rehoboth Beach, only to get off at the last minute.
I wasn’t sure if this was the right building because it didn’t look like the place to house an arcade. A flashing red arcade machine near the window caught my attention.
I could have easily visited this town and never noticed the arcade. It’s tucked away on the second floor, so you could easily pop into this place for some ice cream and leave without ever seeing it. At this point, I began to regret my decision to stop there. I’d be surprised if the arcade were big enough to have anything other than a few skeeball machines and other ticket games.
Well, here it is, I guess. As I suspected, it was just a tiny arcade stuffed with standard ticket machines. I figured I’d go in, take my pictures, then catch the next bus to Rehoboth Beach. That’s when I noticed something…
It’s not immediately obvious, but the arcade is spread through about half of this building’s top floor! The first picture I posted is the entrance, while the other two are immediately to the left and right. This place is so big that it wraps around the three surrounding walls. I’m pretty sure the space it occupies was originally meant to house three or four different stores, but they tore down the walls between them to fit this arcade.
I feel as though I made the right decision by stopping here.
Arcades visited: 10
I’m not even sure where to begin with, this place. The arcade is loosely divided into four rooms, so I’ll go through each individually. Please keep in mind that I’m writing this post several months after my trip, so that I might mix up the locations of a few machines. It’s not like anyone but I care.
This, as well as the above image, is the front room. It has exactly what you’d expect: newer ticket games, prize machines, and various other novelties. None of the rooms adhere to a strict theme, though.
These plush toys were pretty common finds in crane games out here. The reason for the multi-colored Pac-men is that they’re meant to tie into that giant four-player Pac-man machine they have at Dave and Busters. Namco wouldn’t allow Pac-man to be any color but yellow in Smash, yet they have no problem releasing a line of multi-colored Pac-man merchandise.
Every time I think I’ve seen every ticket game released in the last ten years, I run into another one I never knew about. Pigs Might Fly from Sega is pretty self-explanatory: Push down the catapult. Launch the pig. Hit the spaceship. My first instinct was that it was one of those Angry Birds knock-offs that were popular a few years back, but it turns out that this game predates Angry Birds by a few months. Huh.
You can tell that a claw machine is rigged when an NES Classic Mini manages to stay in the machine for six months. There’s no way in hell it’s possible to grab it.
Sex testers have been a staple of carnivals, sleazy arcades, and bars since the dawn of arcade machines. This one is either from the 70s or 80s. The wear and tear are finally starting to catch up with this poor machine, so it tends to malfunction. It gave me the result “Harmless” instead of “Super Stud.” I wonder if the technician is aware of this issue.
Here’s one of the machines I was hoping to run into during my trip. It’s the original 1993 Daytona USA. I’ve been excited about the franchise since the announcement that they made a third one, but we only have the sequel in Minneapolis. I was thrilled to run into one in person.
Then I discovered that this machine is freakin’ common on the East Coast, and my enthusiasm was retroactively deflated.
I know I’ve said that the rooms don’t follow their themes very carefully, but I’m pretty sure these are spillovers from the next one. Super Shot Jr. was the resident basketball game at one of my local arcades growing up, so I’m very familiar with it. Sometimes people wouldn’t bother to throw their last few balls, so you could toss them to relieve a few seconds of boredom when you ran out of tokens and were waiting for your parents to pick you up.
The middle one is Can Alley. Like many other older ticket games, it’s based on an old carnival game and has had many arcade iterations. This one’s coloration implies it’s from the 80s, but they go back much further than that. I love those old-style coin inserts. There’s supposed to be a stuffed cat inside those trash cans, but they were both lost at some point and replaced with large Sylvester the Cat dolls.
I guess they couldn’t get away without at least one of these card-dispensing coin-pushers. The cards are branded for bigger stores like D&B, so you can’t use them at other arcades. Smaller places like this one have no such marking so you can use the cards interchangeably between them. Scummier arcades take their rare cards out of the machine and sell them on eBay, so they profit on two fronts.
Oh, I found one! This is the original Wacky Gator that every arcade in the early 90s had. This is the machine that I remember playing with more as a 5-year-old than any other. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it. Seeing the game for the first time in so long makes me realize something that would never have dawned on me as a child: This game should have been called “Wacky Dile.”
Anyhow, let’s move on to the next room. If I had to explain this arcade’s layout, it looks like a backward letter F, with the entrance right between the two nubs. This little wing of the store is the top line of the F, around the corner when you first walk in. All that’s here is Skeeball and a bunch of other random machines they didn’t have room for anywhere else.
Take a mental note of that mural on the back wall. We’ll be seeing it again shortly.
Around this time, I realized that Ribbit Race was common as all sin out here. Meh.
💩💩💩
When I was copying/pasting those poop emojis, I wondered whether there was an arcade emoji of any sort. Nope, it turns out 👾 is the closest there is. I’m disappointed.
I have to mention this glowing pony. It’s a pony that glows and changes colors. It’s impossible to set foot in this hallway without it immediately draws your attention. That might be because this is the storage hall for games that aren’t interesting enough to go in the main rooms, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. Admit it; it’s the only thing you noticed on the left side of the room in my establishing shot.
Right next to the Skee Ball machines is the redemption counter. I guess this is part of the first room, but it feels more like an extension of the Skee Hall. The counter seems to be manned by one of those cheap inflatable aliens.
From a distance, the redemption center looks pretty normal. Upon closer examination, it seems more like a dollar store toy aisle. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised you don’t see arcades recycling store shelves like this more often.
God damn it, I want that Slurpee maker. If I owned that, it would single-handedly solve my problem of not having a local 7-11. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but I made the whole trip with nothing but a single piece of rolling luggage around the size of a backpack (it found its way into a couple of shots back in Electric Quarters). It was so full of stuff that I could hardly close it, so there was very little room for bringing anything home. The Slurpee maker had to stay in Bethany Beach, unfortunately.
Here, tucked away in the corner, is another variation of those ball-rolling games I mentioned. As I said, there were a LOT of them back in the day. The one I remember most had a big wheel on the backboard that would turn X spaces based on which slot you rolled it into. You’d win the jackpot if you got the wheel to stay on the Jackpot space for all three turns. I learned the hard way that it has to STAY on the Jackpot space for three turns. If you hit the hole that makes it spin randomly in the middle of your jackpot streak and it happens to land back on Jackpot, it doesn’t count. That pissed me off so much…
But it has nothing to do with this specific version. Here, you aim for either a low or high total score. Let’s see how I do.
Oh wow, these are some fancy tickets. They even have that “Shore Fun” mural from before printed on them (or perhaps the mural is of the ticket art?). I have a big collection of play cards from various arcades, but I normally don’t hang onto tickets. I’m making an exception for these.
That said, let’s move on to the next room. I like this particular shot because it shows how cheap this building feels. This room is mostly older and has fewer flashy ticket games. I feel these games would be the first to go if they were forced to downsize.
This is Jungle Jive, the first coin pusher I remember that every arcade felt compelled to have. It wasn’t the first coin pusher, but it was probably the game that made everyone else realize just how profitable they were. I blame you for the recent influx of coin pushers.
Also, what the heck was it with the 90s and jungle-themed ticket games?
Here are two more games akin to Pounder and Cat Alley. There seem to be a lot of variations of “throw balls in the hole when it’s open,” aren’t there? Zookeeper at least has some cool-looking plastic animal heads. Feed Big Bertha is less impressive. Whoever repairs it doesn’t know how to tuck the chin in, so she looks like Jabba the Hut.
Hey, what’s that game off the to right?
It’s Spider Stompin’! For those keeping track at home, this was the second of the six games we had at Kid’s Quest growing up. Like Ribbit Racin, this machine has several voice clips that will be ingrained into my memory forever. “You’re good. Very good. You win!” still pops into my mind when I do completely unrelated things. Thankfully, this game is piss easy because the lights tend to be so dim that you can’t tell if they’re lit up.
That game on the left has been haunting me since I saw it. I recognized the machine since it used to be everywhere, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more significant about it. It finally dawned on me: Those square cases are the perfect size to fit packs of Pokemon cards, so every kid at the arcade who liked Pokemon would take turns trying to pull the damn things.
I only ever remember one person who pulled it off. Some kid I was hanging out with in the arcade had gotten a Base pack but didn’t seem very happy about it. He pulled Imposter Professor Oak and thought whoever stocked the machine had opened the pack and carelessly replaced the rare with a card from Rocket edition. I don’t think he believed me when I tried to explain that wasn’t the case.
That last paragraph didn’t make an ounce of sense to anyone who wasn’t around during the early days of Pokemon, did it? Go back to playing Pokemon Go, kids.
Sometimes I take photos like this and assume I’ll have something to say about the games when I get home. There has to be something worth mentioning here…
Oh, look, my luggage got into the shot again. Silly luggage.
Unlike the slot machines before, I’m pretty sure these are modded to dispense tickets instead of tokens when you win. I wonder if anyone plays these.
This is the last room. Back here is where they hide their more video game-esque games. Before we look around, there’s another room I want to mention real quick before I forget. If you look immediately to the right from where I’m standing…
I said before that this arcade has a backward F shape. This is the lower nub on the F. The crappy ceiling and boxes against the wall make this room look a lot crappier than it is. The rest of the arcade is so stuffed with machines that there was nowhere else to put an air hockey table or three.
With that out of the way, let’s see some pictures of this back room that don’t have terrible lighting issues. First up, we have Arcade Legends, a mame cabinet I’ve never seen before. I’ve never seen them before because they’re not marketed for commercial use. It does have a fancy menu interface if nothing else.
As expected, Silent Scope 2 was broken, so they put it up for sale. Daytona USA was in a similar situation. It’s a miracle they have so many old machines lying around if they sell them off when they break. Perhaps it’s only the non-ticket games that get sold?
Oh hey, an ITG Roxor cab. If you don’t recall from my past ramblings (and it has been a while), In the Groove usually replaces the software on DDR machines. Roxor eventually made their cabs so they could sell the game to arcades that didn’t have a DDR machine to overwrite, which is what this is. By that time, Konami’s lawyers were already coming after them for the whole “turning DDR machines into non-DDR machines that can’t be changed back” thing, so these machines were only available for a few years.
After typing that paragraph, I suddenly remembered that we were going to get a continuation of this story later on my trip. Reminding the reader in advance is good storytelling or something.
I almost forgot. The entire side wall is covered with mirrors, giving this place a retro feel.
Anyway, I figured I’d play F&F Supercars since I wasn’t at the mercy of the bus today. I held first place until the final stretch when a car with infinite turbo teleported right behind me and sped across the finish line. Even when I used my turbo, he was still faster. I swear to God, some bullshit always happens right before the finish line whenever I play these games.
One more before leaving. When I was trying to find this arcade, a flashing red light guided me in. It turns out that it was coming from this game. The only reason I think it would even be in the back room is if they intentionally use it as a window decoration because of the flashing lights.
Purple and yellow is such a 90s color scheme.
After spending the morning in Bethany Beach, it was time to hit the road. This was just a quick stop to my real destination for the night.
My bus didn’t come for another hour and a half, so I had to kill some time.
This is the actual boardwalk at Bethany Beach. It’s only about four blocks long and only has a handful of shops. I should get something to eat.
My options were overpriced pizza, junk food, or overpriced fries. I went for the latter.
As I was waiting for my fries to finish cooking, an old friend of the owner walked up, and the two of them decided to catch up. It turns out that the owner is planning to retire and isn’t sure what he will do with the place. His son is off on military leave, one of his daughters lives overseas, and his other daughter isn’t interested in inheriting it. It might not be around much longer.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have very refined tastebuds. I can’t comprehend why people are so adamant about certain beer brands, for example. I can taste the difference, but the difference isn’t enough to make me care about which type I’m drinking. I think this might be a similar case. People rant and rave about how good boardwalk fries are, but they taste like French fries.
Then again, I’m extremely picky about chocolate milk.
Right behind the bus stop was this volleyball court. During the hour-long wait for the bus, two groups of teenagers wandered in, took off their shoes, and started playing. It surprised me initially, but then I remembered that they live on a beach. This is probably a normal thing for them.
By the time the bus came, I was already sick of looking at this place. The next stop is Rehoboth.
