Arcade Project 05: Ball Design

Let's look at making some decisions on our accessories.

Starting with the Gumball machine.  What you see there is the new "standard" of these kinds of things.  Its easy to stash a lot of those in a truck, there's not a lot of maintenance, and they're cheaper all around.  They also did not exist much in my childhood, and on top of that they are not very versatile.  If one of those were to break(which happens), then the other two are sitting by an ugly unused one with an "out of order" sign on it.  I much prefer the classic, and to be honest you only spend another hundred or so, and then you can do things like mix and match colors and designs.

Looking at manufacturers, I think I want to get a mix of 2 styles, but in the same decor.  I want two of the "1 inch" dispenser types that let you use gumballs and bulk candy like runts.  In fact, that's probably the two I will have.  Everywhere I went had the "Runts" candies inside, and for good reason; they last forever.  They are also very hard and will not tend to break into pieces as much as sweet tarts and the like.  Some people like super sour gumballs, but not me, I want the regular looking ones, though I may get tropical flavors.

That leaves me 2 machines that I will order to use the 2 inch "shells" for toys.  I loved collecting a couple of things in my childhood.  I remember the little plastic men you could get in the machines that you would put in water and they'd expand and get bigger.  I remember the sticky hands that you could slap and sling against walls, and the ones filled with goop and slime.  For some reason, despite me not ever liking Football all that much, I collected the football helmets.  I am not sure what I'd have(I know some of you are screamin' HOMIES!), but for sure two of the machines would be for the shell toys.



Now we talk cost.

There are arguments for going "used" with this sort of thing.  If I was going to be saving 1/2 price or more, then I would consider it.  One look at Ebay and people are looking more to unload something they've found in a very very dirty place.  Getting them new means its about $340 for 4 machines, but you get them made custom.  I can get the 2 configured for gumball/bulk, 2 configured for acorn shells, and all set up for "free spin" meaning I will not need to have a handful of quarters around for everyone.  If you want that "token" experience, you can even have them made to use game tokens.  For such a small game room, I do not think I'll be doing the token thing for any of the games, so it doesn't make sense for the snack machines either.  Also with new, you can have them painted in several different colors to match your room decor.  I'm going with Red.