Building Your Own Skeeball Game? 36
Squarepusher wonders "When a friend of mine started talking about building his own skeeball game, I knew exactly where to go for the scoop on this undertaking. Many people seem to be making their own arcade game cabinets now-a-days, but hows about skeeball? Does anyone have plans, tips/tricks, or knowledge of the inner workings? In short: Where does one begin and what exactly is my buddy getting himself into?"
Nothing to it (Score:3, Informative)
Skeeball (Score:5, Informative)
I was employed as a video game technician for about a year until I was laid off. Prior to that I had been employed repairing standard consumer electronics for about 10 years. When I wanted to get up to speed on how most video games operated I found Randy Fromm's [randyfromm.com] videos and Big Book very helpfull. Skeeball games in particular are very simple. I'm not sure that Randy has a video dealing with them directly. Essentially they are just switches, either mechanical or optical behind each hole and a board that tallies the score and send signals to the ticket dispenser to give the appripriate amount of tickets. You can buy ticket dispensers, coin accepters, or just about any arcade related device from Happ Controls [happcontrols.com]. They don't have the lowest prics, but they carry just about everything. Amusement Warehouse was where we bought most of our stuff, but they will only deal with businesses. I am not sure of their web site, as I recall they only operated from a small catalog, but that was 3 years ago. The company I worked for owned about 30 Skeeball machines total and we were always willing to part with them for much less than you could build one. Of course they were hammered, but functional. Check with the operators in your area, many will be willing to sell. Even if it's really hammered you could pull all the electronics and build a nice new cabinet for it. You could very easily build a skeeball game using a Basic Stamp [parallax.com] and some easily available switches. If you wanted to make it authentic with ticket dispenser they can be easily interfaced with theStamp. I think they hardest thing to recreate would be the scrolling display, if you want one of those I would consider buying a used machine. In my opinion you could have a working skeeball machine using a Basic Stamp and parts from Happ in a weekend. Hope this helps.
Re:Nothing to it (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nothing to it (Score:3, Informative)
From an owner (Score:5, Informative)
First, the people who are fretting over construction materials are overthinking the problem. I can stand on the middle of the field with little or no give. I'm 300 lbs. The construction is just some 2x4 and plywood.
They are also overly worried about the play surface. This isn't one of those shuffleboard type things. The surface appears to be a very thick layer of matte paint. Of course, you want it smooth, but it doesn't need to be perfect. Much like a bowling alley, each skeeball lane plays differently.
Scoring is very rudimentary. A few solenoids wired up to a counter. Coin mechs are cheap from many, many sources, or just push to play. I'd do push to play. The novelty of coin op in your home wears off quickly. Same thing with a ticket dispenser. I could have gotten one with mine, but why bother? Maybe for kids' parties or something.
Size IS a concern. Not only do you need room for a machine, you need room to stand while playing. A foot or two wider than the machine, and at least four feet behind it are needed to be comfortable. The machines are also very tall. If you lower the score area, you may not have enough angle to play very well. One thing to be careful of. They can also be really wide.
Getting things levelled up is very important. It took a few hours of playing before I was happy with the levelling of my game, and I knew that the 'guts' were correct.
Decent balls are hard to find. IMHO, the best are wooden balls. Sure, you can use some hobbiest crap you can find here and there, but they are generally very light, and the laminated construction means they aren't too strong. The last ones I got came from TNT amusements (where I bought the machine, BTW).
In some ways, 2-3 smaller machines is more impressive than a single unit. Also more fun and enables head-to-head play.
If you want some photos and/or measurements, email me. I don't play much (it was my wife's machine, actually) so it'll take me a day or so to get it uncovered to get decent shots, but I'm happy to help.
Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
- Our lanes are covered in a sort of think painted cork. This probably does two things; makes the lanes a lot smoother and forgiving on the balls and keeps the noise a lot lower. Your wife will thank you for it.
- We have some lanes that have optical switches, some that have mechanical switches. The mecahnical ones have a wire that juts out and blocks the path of the ball as it goes down the chute after it has gone in one of the holes. The problem with this is that sometimes the wires snap, sometimes the wire slips over the ball rather than actually triggering the switch, etc. I recommend optical. For 1-3 lanes, this *isn't* going to kill you. Just blow them out once in a while.
- Get a cheapo meter if you don't already have one.
- Oh, this is probably a good time to explain how the scoring actually works... Generally, you have two 100's (top left and top right) and one each of 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10. But the 50 hole does not score 50 right away. The switch right below that hole is worth 10. When the ball goes into the 50 hole, it hits the back of the chute and starts to roll down. It meets the switch below that hole and registers 10 points. The ball continues to fall and as it does, goes past (and behind) the "40 hole." It will then triger the sub 40 hold switch, giving another 10 points.
I should mention that the two 100 holes trigger 50 points each. They then accumulate the last 50 by each of the five switches it encounters on the way down.
Hopefully this makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't. The reason I bring this up is because it can simplify diagnosing problems. Say you get it in the 50 hole and you only get 30 points. Well, you know that two of the switches are probably out.
- I kind of agree with the person who said that the wooden balls are the best. I prefer the plastic balls only because I find they wear better and a very worn wooden ball is very hard to direct properly.
That's all I can think of. Good luck!
PS: If you need clarification on anything here, just reply and I'll check back.