Newsbytes: LvL Up Opens (CA); Shrek & Baywatch Pins Get Color; Classic Game News & More

Welcome to another weekend and with that, a collection of news from around the arcade world. Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

LvL Up Opens For Business (Campbell, CA)

While I was saving this for the next location post, I haven’t come across any others this week so let’s put it in the Newsbytes. I know one of the people involved with this, TJ Beyer and he graciously passed along a number of photos while Michael L. sent me the games list. There one can find games that span the decades: Big Buck Hunter Pro, Donkey Kong, Hydro Thunder, Killer Queen Arcade, Maximum Force, Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga, Pac-Man Battle Royale, San Francisco Rush 2049, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Star Wars (Atari), Tempest, Toobin’, Terminator Salvation, The Simpsons, TRON and X-Men Vs. Street Fighter. For pinball machines, they have several including: Diner, Medieval Madness, Star Wars (Stern, Pro), No Good Gofers, The Lord Of The Rings, Twilight Zone, & Whirlwind. This weekend is the soft opening period for the store while next week on the 4th it will have the Grand Opening . You can find them on Facebook here.

Shrek & Baywatch Get Some Color

I used to own a Shrek and had hoped that the color would have come back then but alas, that wasn't in the cards in my instance. If you have one though, as well as a Baywatch then you can give them the modern sheen of color thanks to ColorDMD:

Protecting Components

While the title of this video asks "WHO NEEDS THIS??", I can see where this sort of thing could be useful for arcade use -particularly where most machines use a desktop PC inside. Dust tends to be the nuisance that affects those machines but water is always a potential danger too if a location is flooded. Sure, in that case the cabinet will be destroyed but if you can salvage some of the components, then it wouldn't be a total loss

Flying Over The Alan-1 Arcade With A Drone

Back in September of last year, I got the chance to visit a space in Tooele, UT that had been converted into a place to hold arcade machines. Most of them are held for private use and there are some gems inside: a Star Trek Captains Chair, Tutankham, Atari Orbit 1, Fix-It Felix, and so on. While I posted a few pics to Twitter of my visit, they can't compete with a drone flying over the space, which they call "Alan-1" (a reference to TRON, of course). They've expanded quite a bit since I was there...but from what I hear, no immediate plans to open it to the public:

A Nicer Look At The Hobbit

As I've been working on my new arcade book (plenty of shameless plugs to come soon), I've come across one cruddy little fact - a lot of photos of pinball machines that are posted by the manufacturers aren't very good. They obviously take the time to do a professional photo shoot of some kind but then ruin it by reducing the resolution to something that maybe looks ok on a cheap phone - but not anywhere else. Fortunately it looks like Jersey Jack has enlisted someone to grab some new shots of their The Hobbit pinball machine and they look fantastic:

A HUGE thanks to Charles of Pinball Photos for these beautiful shots of The Hobbit Black Arrow Edition! These games are in stock and ready for immediate shipment! pic.twitter.com/6oyYP1hJqO

— Jersey Jack Pinball (@JJPinball) April 27, 2018

Finding A NIB Robotron Cocktail Arcade Machine

The Arcade Blogger has another great article about an old distributor warehouse of what was once regarded as an urban legend, only to find out that it the rumors of NIB games were true. One of the games grabbed from the location was an unopened Robotron cocktail machine - quite the "Holy Grail" find by any consideration. Check it out here. 

Development Notes From Flying Fortress

"What the heck is Flying Fortress?" you might be wondering. If so, here's a link; I came across this obscurity  once but it wasn't working so I could just admire the 70s era cabinet details. Twitter user Arcade72 (an account that focuses on arcade releases from that decade) posted these two pics of development notes about the game. I find it interesting, especially that this was discovered from a company that time has pretty much forgotten:

Yowee! Recently uncovered development notes for Electra Flying Fortess (1976) #arcade #retrogaming pic.twitter.com/N7PFSo3lbi

— Arcade 72 (@arcade1972) April 26, 2018

New Mini-Cabs From Japan

We've mentioned mini arcade cabinets on here a few times before although I cannot recall the last time we did. Thanks to Stingray for pointing out this recently updated page that shows some recent additions to their collection of designs, including both classic and modern games.

Now go out and have some arcade fun!