I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep up this pace all October but I wanted to share something completely non-Jamaica related but very Halloween appropriate. Last weekend my friend Tom was refreshing my memory about a conversation we had sometime last year regarding an ol' school arcade game from 1972 that for some reason we both remember; Midway's Haunted House gun game! I'm quoting from a write-up about this gorgeous piece of wood, metal, black light, circuit boards and Halloweenie goodness from a short write-up on the excellent website Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum...
"Description: Haunted House, Midway #553, 1/72, gun game with two cats, a witch, and a grave robbing monster. Blacklight lighting, 8-track player sound loop 2 minutes 42 seconds long, uses a special 4-channel 8-track player (one track is used for background "spooky" sounds, and three other tracks have sound effects for specific targets - the monster, the cats and the witch). Gun has recoil and there are two circuit boards in the back of the game for amplification and motor speed control. The target motor speed increases at 1000, 2000 and 3000 point levels making them harder to hit. Game gives 20 shots with unlimited time. If a certain score is reached, 10 more shots are awarded. Haunted House's theme is a good one, and the sound affects are very good, but it's not that great of a target shooting game. The biggest selling point of the game is the theme and the sounds."
...plain and simple, I want it!
Click play to hear the background sound effects...
Marvin's Museum also shared a bunch of pictures and the actual sound effects that were featured in Haunted House and aside from the fact that I've used them as background effects for an upcoming Spooktacular track in this years mix, they brought back some odd deja vous moments.
I don't fully understand why they sound so familiar... I was a year old when Midway rolled this baby out but I have memories of playing it years later.
Check it out!!
3 comments:
Nice post !!
I don't remember this exact machine but I do remember others of similar construction. I always loved (and still do) the sort of 3-D effect they created with the various 'models' to make up the foreground scene and give the whole game some visual depth.
The video clip was interesting, too. It was cool to see what went into making one of those arcade machines back in the day. All those relays and stuff... I mean nowadays they could put it all on a chip that would be no bigger than your fingernail but it just wouldn't have that same appeal. There's just something about those old gaming machines...
Anyway, thanks for putting that together. Have a good weekend !!
Yours ghouly,
JJ
Any chance on putting the sound file up again? Perhaps mediafire? I would LOVE to hear what this sounds like!
Sure... the sound effects are online here...
http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/haunted.htm
Enjoy! :)
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