When you’re a kid in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, arcade games are about as exciting as life can get. Accompanying your dad while he Artexes someone’s ceiling is not normally as much fun. This particular day, my dad was doing the ceiling of Bob, the singer in his band (my dad was, and still is, a jack of all trades and a master of many). Basically, I didn’t have anything else on so I went along for the ride out. Little did I know of the fun I would have that day.

We got to Bob’s house and had a sit in the living room. I was given a refreshing glass of lemonade while my dad weighed up the work he was about to do. “Could take a few hours”, he said. “Great”, I thought. I was going to be stuck in this bloke’s house for much longer than I’d expected. Things looked even more bleak when Bob suggested I go in the back room “out of the way, just in case you get dirty”. It seemed I was going to be stuck in Boredom Hell for the entire afternoon. I trudged through the door into the back room, and…

The point where you realise how knackered the joystick’s
down-left diagonal is.

“Here, son”, said Bob. “Why don’t you play on this while we’re working? It’s on free play. You can have as many goes as you like”.

It was a Scramble cocktail machine. Amazing! I’d never even seen an arcade cocktail cabinet before, and this was despite having spent hours in pubs and clubs in my official capacity of ‘helper’ to my dad when he was driving for a local brewery. Now I had my very own, at least for a few hours….

Bob plugged in and switched on. The familiar screen appeared with the message: ‘PLAY SCRAMBLE’. What more encouragement could a young lad need? Bob asked me if I needed another drink. I didn’t. Then he showed me how to add credits. He’d taken off the coin door and there was a little clicker there, and every time I pressed it I got an extra credit. Brilliant!

“OK, son,” said my dad. “I’ll be in when I’m finished. If you need anything just knock on the door”. How could I possibly need anything more?

The door closed, and I was on my own. Somewhat anxiously, I pressed the one-player button, and the game began. The familiar tune and burbling noise blared out loud. This was great. I was playing Scramble IN SOMEONE’S HOUSE! No stink of chips or fags. No burn marks on the machine. No big lads threatening to shove you off the machine at any moment, and no idiots leaning in front of the screen at inopportune moments. This was mine, all mine. For once, I hoped my dad’s job would take all day and all night.

Not unlike the little beauty in Bob’s back room.

The first game ended all too soon. I wasn’t very good at Scramble, but that didn’t matter today – I could just start a new game. My second attempt didn’t last long, either. Nor did the third, or the fourth. In fact, it took me a whole hour just to break 10,000 points. Still, I was playing an arcade game, uninterrupted. I could hardly believe my luck.

One hour turned into two. I honestly wasn’t getting any better. To make matters worse, I’d rubbed half the skin off my knuckles thanks to the positioning of the joystick, and it really hurt. My lemonade was long gone, too, and I didn’t want to disturb my dad when he was working, even though he’d said I could. Never mind. I’d have another game of Scramble, see if I could get past 20,000.

Those damn fireballs were really starting to annoy me by now. They just moved too fast, and every time I made a quick movement to try and dodge them, another piece of skin removed itself from my knuckles. Ooh – look… Blood! The trouble was, I wasn’t likely to ever get another chance like this. I had to play it for every second I could, to get the maximum fun out of such a rare opportunity.

Someone conceived this, designed it, hired the models –
all for a little scrolling shoot-‘em-up. Thems WAS the days.

Three hours had passed, and I couldn’t stand the sight of the game any more. I still hadn’t scored 20,000, my knuckles were killing me, I was thirsty and I wanted to go home. I knocked on the door. “Dad, are you finished yet?”. “Yes, son. We were just letting you enjoy yourself in there”. “Thanks, Dad. I think I’m finished now”.

And I was. To this day, I’ve never played on a Scramble arcade machine again. I’ve fired it up in MAME for a blast or two, with a more comfortable controller, but I wouldn’t play it again in the wild. It would be too painful. But it was worth it. I one-upped every kid in the neighbourhood for weeks with the bragging rights I secured from that memorable afternoon in space.

PAULEMOZ, March 2004.

Comment Here.

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Things to 'Make' and 'Do'.

The joy of Artex.

A nice recipe for scrambled eggs with cottage cheese.

Come beat our Sickboy’s Scramble high-score here. No, really. PLEASE.

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