I've got three games I am trying to figure out what they are.. I thought I'd share some of my arcade experiences with you and along the way while reading maybe you can help me figure the games out so I can once again find and enjoy them.

I'm 36 now and I was fortunate to grow up in the 70's and 80's. From what I've noticed in life is that you get older and you start to realize that things today aren't as good as they used to be. Sure the games are more advanced nowadays, and the televisions are bigger, but I still wish I can go back to the "good ol days". Every generation of kids will "want to be older", "can't wait to get their license", "can't wait to move out of their parents house", etc. But once you get older and out in the real world, you realize just how much you liked it back then. You had free room and board. You could load up on junk food and still be thin (at least I was). Everything was so different and care free. The whole era was different and more relaxed. Some things back then I took for granted and no longer have these days. Gone are all of my handheld electric games, gone are most of the arcades I used to frequent, gone are the indoor fleamarkets in my area, and gone are most of the good used video game stores in my area. Gone are drive in movie theaters (okay so I don't care much about that one), but also gone are a lot of bowling alleys.

As a kid I can remember the first arcade game I ever saw. I believe it to be Sprint 2 from Kee Games.

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9739

My Mom was on a bowling league or two. Back then bowling was so thriving they had an area in the bowling alley with a "babysitter" to watch you. I can recall a television in there, and some "bleecher" like highschool seats on the wall, and a tree painted on the wall. As I got a little older I remember my Mom started bowling at another place. They had around double the amount of lanes and was a nicer alley. Around this time I was old enough to roam around on my own. They had only that one game at the time that I can remember. It was off to the side. Not really near any of the lanes, towards the back where the Pro Shop and ball washer might be. I could see the light of the game all the way across the room. It mesmerized me. Even if I didn't have any quarters left I still wanted to hang out near it. I loved turning the wheel, and playing with the shifter. I also liked the loneliness over there.. it was kind of surreal because by the lanes it was so noisy and over here it was so quiet and peaceful. It was like that scene in "The Cable Guy" movie where his babysitter was the television. Later on they'd get more games, but since my memory is a bit foggy I can't remember what or when, but down by the snack bar they had an area with 8 or 10 games.

One of my earliest trips to a "real arcade" was with my Aunt and Uncle. They were young newlyweds at the time, without a lot of money recently having bought a house I believe, but they took me to Bowcraft Amusement for my birthday. You can see their website here, although it's nowhere the coolness it used to be.

http://www.bowcraft.com/

They always had rides, mini golf, a tiny (really tiny oval) go-kart track, and arcade games inside the main building. They had one of them kiddie rides where you drive like 2mph on a track inside a "racecar". You pretended to steer, but you couldn't because you were on a track. Somehow my friend managed to drive us off the track. Thank goodness we didn't go down the hill into the lake, because I can't swim. They had an upstairs and downstairs in the main building. The building was large enough to hold a few hundred games I believe. I remember playing Fire Truck and sucking at it. I liked driving the back and always hit stuff. Could this be the prelude to people saying I act like Kramer (see the episode where he drove the back of the fire truck). I always used to have a good time here until they got rid of all the games and started installing those whack-a-mole and ticket dispensing pieces of crap. I had been going here since I was about 10 years old or younger. Throughout the years they had a few different arrangements. Most of the time they had a newer mix of games and pinballs upstairs, downstairs was the older stuff. I want to estimate they usually had about 20 pinballs between the two floors and usually about 60 to 80 games! Outside they had a tent. It wasn't open for quite some time. They used it to store the old games that were not working. One could peek in the window with excitement and see things in there. Lots of things. Piles of things. One of them a huge spooky clown head. Sometime in the 80's or 90's they opened the tent and put even more arcade games in there! My friend could play for hours on one quarter with Black Tiger. We used to mash the colorful buttons on some 4-player wrestling game and the buttons used to spark! This is where I first saw Rabbit Punch. What a great game, with nice colorful graphics, and it talked. Sometime in the 80's when batting cages became popular, they were one of the first I can think of to install some. A short time later they got written up in the newspaper because the pitching machines were "unpredictable", and "dangerous". A lot of wild pitches being thrown and a lot of people being hit. I'd like to attribute this to stupid people or people looking for lawsuits, but maybe it was just the technology back then. I used to play Circus Charlie here. I think I have a love for games like this and classic games in general because back then you could get away with making a lot of cool stuff. Nowadays you can't make a lot of the games they made back then because no manufacturer is going to allow it. You can't do stuff like Kangaroo, Circus Charlie, or Mr. Do!. You have to do something involving dancing, or Tokyo Drift type stuff, or fighting. I think back then designers had a lot more freedom and creative expression. It really shows in the fun factor and playability of some games. Back then I didn't walk in an arcade and see a whole slew of fighting and racing games. There was a mix of a lot of different stuff.

The nice thing about this arcade is that there was a place across the street that bought and sold video games. They also had music and some other stuff. They published a weekly or monthly list of prices. I didn't like the old man who owned the place. His kids seemed kind of stuck up because they pretty much owned just about every game ever. Having had the store since the 70's any game that game in the store that they didn't have they kept. My friend went to their house one day and it was a garage full. They always seemed to list games on their list that were only rumored to exist, like Black Tiger for the NES. In fact, they still have a website up and list Black Tiger for sale. Great price too! Are there any laws about this stuff if I tried to place an order? I mean, it doesn't say anywhere on their website that items may not be in stock, etc, but I know they haven't updated anything in AGES... well, they do list PS2 stuff and XBOX stuff, so they haven't updated it since then. They supposedly have two stores, but I think they're closed. The one across from the arcade moved and eventually closed, yet it's still listed on the website. They have another store, which might still be open but it operated under a different name. Back then these prices would be high, but today a lot of these prices are decent. They had one more store which was the weirdest thing. I got directions to the store and made the drive down there. Took me about an hour to get there. I must have passed by the store 10 times without seeing it. You know why? The front of the store had all kinds of dog statues for sale! I finally went in and found out they sold video games too, but they were all the way in the back of the store. They basically had the dog stuff so people would come in and I think so the town would let them put the business in.

This brings us to the first game I am trying to identify. This is the only place I've ever seen this game at this Bowcraft Amusements place. It's a football game that used real footage from tv. I believe the control panel had half a football and underneath that was four buttons for you to select your move. I think it only had footage from two football teams in it. I'm in the mood to play it if I can find it again. Maybe it's at least emulated in MAME. At least if I could figure that out I'm on my way..

.. I'll post some more arcade stories later and you can help me figure out the other two games..

Anyone here own a Derby Owners Club from Sega? I don't know why I like that game, but I do.

You raise a horse and feed it and train it and race it.

I first saw it a long ways away from my house.. about 1.5 hours away. My friend had to pee and we stopped at a truck stop. While he was in the bathroom I played.

Then, I find out the bowling alley near me has one with 8 or 10 players and large 50" monitors! Only problem some of them are broken and don't work properly. The reason I hadn't seen it all these years is because it's in the bar and I don't go in there.

If it weren't so expensive I'd be interested in getting one.

Here's my thoughts on the situation.

I don't know how big the place is, since I'm from the USA and don't have time to do a conversion (it's 12:39am here), but you did describe it will fit about 20 games. Not bad. 80 euros is about, about $113 US. That is cheap.

I would say go for it based on the following:

- Does it have enough power to power everything? If not, will they let you upgrade it? If so, would you mind doing the upgrade even though the building is not yours to own?
- Will you be on a lease? Here you can do month to month renting sometimes. Not sure if that is legal over there. That means if the landlord wants he can kick you out at anytime basically, giving you minimal notice. Lease is better.
- Will they let you pretty much do what you want inside? IE: Can you paint? Put down glow-in-the-dark-arcade carpet?
- Is the building near where people live and if so are you allowed to install sound dampening material? Will you be able to have friends over at any hour even 3am?

I would also consider the following:

- What kind of neighborhood is this in? Maybe you'd be allowed to run this as a business part time and help pay the rent. This one guy about an hour from me does this. He has a house, outside he built a 2 story building. He's open from 7pm - 10pm on Fri, Sat and Sun. It's all you can play for $10 US or $5 for 1 hour I believe. He has about 20 - 30 games downstairs, and upstairs he has about 30 - 40 pinballs. He has a small area for hosting birthday parties. You could do the same and make a deal with the pizza guy because you'd both be helping each other out.

If he's crafty enough to build the whole Lair in the first place then I think him and his father are crafty enough to build some kind of simple elevator.

For people to go upstairs would be stairs, but for games, would be like a "dumb waiter". Google that if you don't know what it is. It's like something you can transport laundry or little things from one floor to another. I think you can build something to safely pull the games up using some sort of leverage and gears. Sort of like when you peddle a bicycle and the gears do the work.

I signed up here to say this has got to be one of the all time greatist posts. Had I lived closer I'd ask to come say and see your game room. Simply amazing and great looking.

I spent hours last night reading just about everything.

Two comments, though:

1 - I think you're missing some "snack" vending machines.. on free play of course.

2 - Will the town let you build a second floor on it?