Continuing our coverage of the IAAPA 2025 trade show that took place in Orlando, FL last month, this fourth wrap-up post gets a few varied companies out of the way: China’s UNIS, one of the biggest names in amusement out of that country, the two major factories in pinball that appeared at the show this year (Stern and Jersey Jack), and the North American arm of long-standing South Korean arcade outfit, Andamiro.
For previous coverage in case you missed it:
- IAAPA 2025 Part 1 (Raw Thrills, Wahlap, Alan-1, TouchMagix, Blue Motion Games)
- IAAPA 2025 Part 2 (Bandai Namco, Sega Amusements, LAI Games)
- IAAPA 2025 Part 3 (exA-Arcadia, AVS Companies, JET Games)
Reminder that games listed below in bold mark the first time we’ve seen them at a North American show.
Andamiro USA
Starting things off with one of the biggest arcade companies out of South Korea, Andamiro’s USA branch initially looked to have more video games on their IAAPA booth than usual this year, thanks in part to their announcement of Nickelodeon Kart Racers Arcade. As it turns out, that one has been held back to instead debut at Amusement Expo in Vegas next year (they did already stress that it was yet to progress from a prototype state, so that’s probably why). Still, they had a small but decent space, with their regular ducks in redemption lined up and of course the long-running Pump It Up dance game (not running a new software update, as some fans had hoped, but didn’t get – for now).
Their full booth lineup was as follows:
- Pump It Up 2024 Phoenix
- Marksman
- SpongeBob SquarePants VR Bubble Coaster
- SpongeBob Swish (redemption)
- SpongeBob Wacky Racer (whacker)
- Star Wars (pusher)
- Spider-Man (pusher)
- Avengers (pusher)
- Crazy Toy (cranes)
- Redeem Machine 2
For their newest video game that was on hand, we have yet another shooter by China’s Superwin following the two that Bandai Namco showed off, which is a surprise for Andamiro to carry. This effort by them, Marksman, is different from the environmental format of The Future and Mini World, opting instead for the other well-mined subgenre of recent light-gun games, shooting galleries. That is a crowded market now, and it doesn’t have the benefit of realistic metal guns like JET Games’ offerings do, but there is the difference of it featuring a few modes that play more like standard on rails shooters.
As a slight aside to explain something confusing, I’ve discovered through research that Superwin wants to call themselves Superwing, but that causes a problem with an existing trademark out West with a kids TV show, so their logos on everything West-facing currently use the registered trademark of “Superwin” instead. Their older logos say Superwing, as does their URL and IAAPA listings, but given what logo will be seen in the West through Andamiro and others who are carrying their products, we’ll use that for any searches that people might do once coming across their game/distributor listings.
Though the Nickelodeon Kart Racers did not make an appearance in the end, Andamiro still had plenty of their SpongeBob titles available, including the Rilix VR Bubble Coaster and new mini basketball shooter SpongeBob Swish. The latter was surprisingly tough for a kids game, but maybe I just needed more practice. Also in redemption was their existing Avengers, Spider-Man and Star Wars pushers; we did see them quietly test a new physical target shooting piece based on the latter property earlier this year, but perhaps it didn’t earn well enough to release as there was no sign of it here.
Stern Pinball
I was unable to catch Stern until the very last day of the show, where I was surprised to find that they had a different layout than they’ve been doing at amusement tradeshows for the past several years. While it still isn’t as grand as what you would see at the San Diego Comic Con or Pinball Expo, the layout works for nicely showcasing their games – perhaps a little better as it gave each title a little more space so that you could more comfortably enjoy the game instead of bumping up against someone else.
As shown above, they had all of their main focus roster on hand – The Walking Dead Remastered; King Kong: The Myth of Terror Island; Star Wars: The Fall of the Empire; and a Dungeons & Dragons. TWD has been seeing mixed feelings online due to the color scheme, but as far as how it plays, I had fun with it, managing over ten minutes on a turn, when I usually am lucky to get two:
I did get to play and film King Kong, which I had not done previously, and also found that game enjoyable, I just haven’t had the time to edit the video of that together. Stay tuned. Star Wars is all right, but I already ranted about that one a couple of times.
Jersey Jack Pinball
I do miss seeing Jersey Jack at shows like AEI, but I understand that every company has to focus their resources on shows that will render a profit instead of a loss. As it is, this was my annual visit with their games, where they had AVATAR, Guns ‘N Roses, The Godfather, Toy Story 4, and of course, Harry Potter. The latter is the only one that I had not played before, but more on that in a moment:
For Harry Potter fans, this one has everything that I think you could want in a pinball machine – elements from all seven books/eight films, with all of the design being focused on the latter, since that is the most iconic portrayal of the series. I played decently on this one, although I wasn’t able to spend enough time on it to explore all of the rules and such. Still, I found it fun and enjoyable. I would play one if I came across it on location.
UNIS
Finally, we have UNIS, one of the two main heavyweights of the Chinese business (Wahlap being the other, and Ace Amusement placing just behind them). They have been coming to IAAPA with major presences for some time now, filling out multiple booths with their produce. That largely includes redemption, including the ever-expanding Emoji range, merchandisers and cranes, but there is always a little bit of video in there too. This year they were oddly protective of filming on a couple of games, which is weird considering they have their own (albeit poor quality) clips up alongside Betson’s, so ours have been uploaded anyway to show a better look at each.
For the main games they had (not including most specific redemption pieces):
- Godzilla X Mechagodzilla
- Jump Master
- Space Float
- Neon Rush Twin
- Raccoon Rampage 2-Player
- Spin City
- Franken Slam
- Monster Jet Riders
- Monster Kart DX
- Turbo Nova
- Phone Case Fever
- Cranes/Merchandisers/Emoji ranges
Turbo Nova was the biggest surprise to see out of their games, as it had only been promoted in China up to now and not been mentioned in any IAAPA previews. This sees them take on the stacked two screen format with their own supercar racer, although it has some elements of a game like F-Zero AX or Fast Racing Neo, in addition to a few of the staples of arcade racers that are out there. This would not be their first foray into a dual-screen driver, the previous use of the format being seen on their Bigfoot Mayhem and Neon Rush. It was one of several prototypes of theirs here, but mostly seemed to be playing fine. As it is though, it could change a bit or never see a release, as we had with games that were at IAAPA 2024 and weren’t seen again:
Most of UNIS’ further video titles here were other different slants on racers, with no shooters to be found at their booths besides the two player edition of Raccoon Rampage (they have done some more in the past, but less so more recently). For one of those different racers, there was Spin City, which was a much bigger workout than expected with its giant trackball controls. That was to the extent some actually had issues with it, though again this was among the prototype games they showed off, so it could be fixed:
Continuing the racer focus, Monster Jet Riders is one we’ve been seeing them promote for a few months now, and is an okay companion to their existing Monster Kart game (which it can actually link up with, in an interesting twist). They’re no true Mario Kart beaters, but UNIS have been talking up their success with them a lot recently; perhaps we’ll soon start to see more kart racers coming out on the market again besides these and Andamiro’s aforementioned upcoming Nickelodeon piece?
UNIS’ latest pogo racer Jump Master on the other hand was the roughest of the bunch, and needs some work before it’s at a decent standard. It wasn’t confirmed to me as being a prototype, but it felt like one, so hopefully that does happen. Much more polished however was their futuristic hover biker Neon Rush; this first showed up last year, but appeared again here in its newer twin model without the double stacked screens. This was easily the best of their titles (though it has been developed by another studio, rather than in-house – same company that is doing Turbo Nova):
Then in redemption, UNIS had a couple of new surprises like the Godzilla X Mechagodzilla pusher prototype; this surprisingly hadn’t been seen in China before, and is vastly different to the Godzilla Kaiju Drop they have previously promoted with Taito and a couple of other Japanese companies (which was nowhere to be found here). Also note that we initially heard they would be bringing a new skiing simulator game called Ski Hero from a couple of previews, though that didn’t appear in the end.
With this part now over, we are finally entering the last stretch of our IAAPA 2025 coverage, with only one or two more posts to go. The next will cover Ace Amusement and the two main distributors of their product in the US, Amusement Source International and Coastal Amusements; then there will likely be one more pulling together any loose ends and all the other things of note in amusement that were there, from a few redemption-focused companies to impressive immersive attractions of any variety. This will take a little while, with plenty of videos still going up on the AH YouTube channel, but we will get there sometime this month. In the meantime, which of the new arcade and pinball games seen here interest you most?
