Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Bidder BEWARE

So I've been trying to buy a certain machine on Yahoo Japan Auctions for a few months now.

Since I live in Quebec, I have to use a proxy bidding / buying / shipping service.


The desired machine pops up on YJA. I bid on the machine... bid is received.

Auction ends... I'm the highest bidder (i.e. the winner) and my payment is sent automatically.

A few minutes later (after the money being paid), I get an email (alert) that my bid has been removed and that I will be reimbursed.

Only the next day do I actually get my money back.

Turns out the seller cancelled the auction after the auction was closed. I guess the machine didn't sell for enough money.

This is more of a cautionary tale than a rant. Bidder Beware!

It ain't over till the package is on your doorstep.



Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Satomi Sammy Miracle Can Can Arrangeball

Sammy Miracle CAN CAN Arrangeball

Starting 2022 with a leg up on a very nice Arrangeball: Miracle CAN CAN

Satomi Miracle CAN CAN arrangeball

Every day I sit at home not repairing games my repair skills become weaker. Everyday an old game sits unused in a warehouse it becomes more decrepit.

When I'm fixing a game, all I want is to be done with it. When I have no games to fix, I want to be fixing games.

All I wanted was an Arrangeball, a 4x4 card Arrangeball. And for my collecting sins YJA sold me one. It was delivered to my place like room service by DHL.

How many games have I repaired? There were the 60 pingames downstairs for sure, but this time it was Japanese and a rare Arrangeball. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did.

The collectors around me are mostly just pinballers with one ball in the outlane... Ok enough of this derivative indulgence. Back to The Miracle CAN CAN :-)

First a tiny bit of background information. Arrangeballs are a type of japanese skill medal game. A hybrid of bingo and pachinko. They appeared around the mid 1970's. They are sometimes seen in smart ball parlours alongside smart ball games.

The objective of Arrangeballs is to shoot pachinko balls (16) into numbered traps to make winning combinations (horizontal line, vertical line or the 4 center square). Winning combinations are rewarded in tokens at the end of the game by pressing the payout button or by inserting a token to start a new game.

I already had the Hustler Miracle Arrangeball. I wrote a post it about a few years back. However, Hustler's card and scoring configurations is a bit of an oddity as arrangeballs go and I really wanted a standard 4x4 card game as a counterpoint.

The machine arrived via the usual means and well packaged.


The seller kindly left some instructions on how to open the machine.




All the machine needed was a bit of a cosmetic cleaning, burnishing an edge connector and removing a token that was jammed behind the pcb under a heat sink.

Really not much to write about repair wise so here's a bit of gameplay info and some reference pictures.

 There's so little information about Arrangeballs out there, it's a shame really.

Left and Right Green pockets are ball returns. Most Arrangeballs have ball return outlanes, but CAN CAN has the outlanes blocked off. Careless launching of balls results in traps 2 and 5 gobbling up the balls.

Scoring:

Vertical line pays 1 token per line

Horizontal line pays 2 tokens per line

Center square (6, 7, 10, 11) pays 3 tokens (Jackpot)

#7 pocket, spots 7 on the card, pays out 1 token automatically and starts the CAN CAN feature.

CAN CAN Feature spots #10, Pays out 1 token automatically and starts the CAN CAN feature.

CAN CAN feature lasts about 10 seconds where the dancer's legs "kick" open and close. Increasing the chance of hitting the feature and winning more tokens.



Winning combinations add up, but the machine pays out a maximum of 5 tokens per game.