Killer Shark

There have been numerous shooting games in amusement arcades over the years. Bulls eye targets, Red Indians, ducks, cats, clowns, jungle beasts... Then when computer electronics got good enough we had Space Invaders, then Asteroids and once all the outer space scenarios had been used up we went back to dangerous animals.

Killer Shark was released by Sega in 1972. The premise of the game was that you were a scuba diver with a harpoon gun and you had to kill the sharks that were threatening you. A hit made the shark writhe amidst a cloud of blood. The game was immensely popular in Blackpool's arcades and I presume everywhere else as well. It was even featured in the famous shark film, Jaws!

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Coin Slot Team Play

Now this is a great reminder of seaside amusement arcades of the 1950s and 60s. This cabinet was another of those that could house a number of similar games.

Seen in the Bygone Times antiques centre, Eccleston near Chorley, this model houses a football game. Each of the two players has a team of players and two levers. One lever twists the mannequins so that the ball can be passed from one player to another. The other lever causes the mannequins to kick so that the ball gets propelled in more or less the direction you hoped! The paintwork of the players here had obviously worn badly enough for some long-suffering wife to knit each a jumper!

I've also seen examples housing polo games with horses and players swinging mallets!

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Road Racer

An early driving game from the 1950s or early 1960s by Williams. Road Racer had a small model car on a rolling drum which had a road painted onto it.

The car had to be steered along the road as the drum rotated, passing over the correct contact points to score highly on the speedometer-like scoreboard. "Accepted by every type of location" it says on the flyer - points don't mean prizes with this game so it could be placed in sites which did not have a gambling licence.

This was one of many driving games I remember from Blackpool arcades. Another simulated driving at 100mph at night where bends in the road ahead could only be seen at the last second, testing the driver's reactions. It was to be a while before they came with foot pedals, gear levers and seats!

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Tip-Em-Off Arcade Machine

Another in the series of seaside arcade coin operated machines.

Tip-Em-Off was a very simple idea. Pennies entered the game through one of the seven slots at the top and tumbled down a series of pins until they either reached the bottom of the box, which returned to the player, or fell to the side behind the platforms, which led to the arcade owner's money bank, or came to rest on one of the spring-loaded platforms. Once enough coins had landed on a platform the weight caused the platform to tip and the coins fell down to reward the player. The coins sometimes caused lower platforms to tip too. As with all arcade machines, it was the arcade owner who won in the end as a successful win only spurred the player to try again until all coins were gone!

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Arcade Racing Machines 2

I've already shown one variant of this arcade game of the 1950s.

Here the game is to see who can get their helicopter to rise first to the top of the cabinet by turning the handle below as fast as you can. In this case I seem to remember the helicopter started to sink down again if you didn't keep a momentum going! There are still one or two museums with arcade games of this era in existence. This example was photographed in 2004 at the excellent Wookey Hole caves and museum complex near Wells in Somerset.

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Coin-Slot Hockey

Before the advent of video games, Blackpool's amusement arcades were still places where you could get very competitive as there were many games available for two players.

We have looked previously at racing games and the Sega basketball game. This one was based on hockey and each player had a simple knob to twist that in turn twisted the batsman and his bat. It looks and is a simple game, but very fast and very addictive.

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Old Arcade Machines

Whilst I'm on the subject of arcade machines, here's another two that I remember from the 1950s/1960s arcades.

Conveyor had a ball bearing running down a ramp to the large wheels. The wheels had long rods making up a kind of cog and between them was either empty space, that would carry the ball up to the next level but allow it to drop into a lose hole ending the game, or a short rod that the ball would rest on, passing over the lose hole and onto a higher ramp leading to the next wheel. The game had a single knob that when turned lifted an obstruction on the ramp so that the player could time the release of the ball bearing to slip into a slot with a short rod. Not easy! Getting the ball bearing right to the top and into the win hole gave you your money back and a free go.

Bullion was a simple game of chance with five slots each corresponding to a different prize amount and a pointer that whizzed round, until it was stopped with a distinctive clunk. If the pointer was pointing to the same prize amount you had bet on you won that amount of coins. Obviously the lower amounts had better odds of winning!

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