Good morning and greetings, Earthlings! It’s been a minute since we’ve had an upgrade in our arcade! (Okay, that’s not entirely true, we did just put in Shrek pinball about a month ago). Maybe it’s been a minute since a non-pinball upgrade. This is a post not to let you know that there is a new game, but just to let you know that we upgraded one of our games – GALAGA, to include a trackball and a few extra games. The official lineup on the machine is now as follows:

1. GALAGA
2. GALAXIAN
3. GAPLUS
4. GORF
5. ICE CLIMBER
6. JR. PAC-MAN
7. JUNGLE HUNT
8. JUNGLE KING
9. LADY BUG
10. LIZARD WIZARD
11. LOST TOMB
12. MAPPY
13. MILLIPEDE
14. MISSLE COMMAND
15. MOON CRESTA
16. MR. DO
17. MR. DO’S CASTLE
18. MR. TNT
19. MS. PAC-MAN
20. NEW RALLY-X
21. PAC & PAL
22. PAC-MAN
23. PAC-MAN PLUS
24. PENGO
25. PENGO
26. PHOENIX
27. POOYAN
28. QIX
29. QIX II
30. RALLY-X
31. SATANS HOLLOW
32. SCRAMBLE
33. SINS STAR
34. SPACE INVADERS
35. DELUXE SPACE INVADERS
36. SUPER BAGMAN
37. SUPER BREAKOUT
38. SUPER PAC-MAN
39. SUPER XEVIOUS
40. SUPER ZAXXON
41. TAZZ-MANIA
42. TIME PILOT
43. TURTLES
44. TUTANKHAM
45. XEVIOUS
46. YIE AR KUNG-FU
47. ZAXXON
48. 1942
49. AMIDAR
50. ARKANOID
51. BAGMAN
52. BURGERTIME
53. CARNIVAL
54. CANTIPEDE
55. CONGO BONGO
56. COSMIC AVENGER
57. CRUSH ROLLER
58. CRYSTAL CASTLES
59. DIG DUG
60. DIG DUG II
61. DONKEY KONG
62. DONKEY KONG PAULINE EDITION
63. DONKEY KONG 3
64. DONKEY KONG JUNIOR
65. ELEVATOR ACTION
66. EXCITEBIKE
67. EYES
68. FROGGER

That’s a lot to unpack right there. That’s definitely hours upon hours of gaming ahead of us right now. The underground Springfield pinball forum is more alive and well than ever, and discussion on these games has already begun. The other great thing about all of these games is that it does save high scores on everything!! Most high scores on these games are easy to get right now, so come on down! The Dumb Records arcade is open everyday along with the store from 10am-7pm. Entry is $5 or free with purchase of $10 or more, and from there all of our games are set to free-play. Be on the lookout for a new arcade contest to be announced soon.

Now that it’s July, that means it’s not June anymore. And now that it’s not June anymore that means our June Bubbles arcade contest is officially over. Great! Here are our final results:

1. Chris O – 81,900
2. Nia T – 71,500
3. Corbin – 68,020
4. Levi – 64,300
5. Lanny D – 55,320
6. Eddie O – 51,080
7. Zach H – 47,250
8. Tyler S – 44,270
9. Kolton – 44,170
10. Connor S – 41,100
11. Shelby W. – 40,760

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this contest! We have prizes for all of the top 11 scorers. Almost all of those prizes are ready (whoops we still have to get our bubble gum and big bubble gift basket together)!!

What will are next contest be? We don’t know. The next contest just might be our big downtown Springfield business pinball tournament later this year! We will see!

Good morning and happy 4th of July weekend! We just realized something very special – exactly one year ago on July 2nd, 2020, we opened up our Dumb Records arcade to the world. We haven’t had it open for a full year exactly – since we did have it shut down again for all of December and January this past winter, but this is still one year from when we opened it.

Almost completely coincidentally we are debuting a brand new game today! That game is an original Stern 1982 pinball called “ORBITOR 1.” It is really wacky. Check out a video below. This is one that you are really going to have to just come play in person.

Our arcade is still open along with regular store hours (every day 11:00 am – 6:30 pm). Entry is $5 or free with store purchase of $10 or more. – One more side note: we will be closed this upcoming Sunday for 4th of July!

Are you ready for our next arcade contest?? Here it is… for the month of JUNE we are holding an arcade contest for the game BUBBLES. What is BUBBLES? From the Bubbles wikipedia page:

“Bubbles is an action game where the player controls a soap bubble from a top-down perspective. The object is to clean a kitchen sink by maneuvering over ants, crumbs, and grease spots to absorb them before they slide into the drain. As the bubble absorbs more objects, it grows in size, eventually acquiring first eyes and then a smiling mouth. At the same time, sponges and scrub brushes slowly move around the sink, cleaning it on their own in competition with the player. Touching either of these enemies costs a player one life unless the bubble is large enough to have a complete face. In this case, the enemy will be knocked away and the bubble will shrink. Sponges and brushes can be knocked into the drain for bonus points, eliminating them from play. Two other enemies in the sink are stationary razor blades and roaches that crawl out of the drain. Contact with a blade is always fatal, while the bubble can safely touch the roach only while carrying a broom, which will kill the roach with one hit. The broom can be acquired by running over a cleaning lady who appears in the sink from time to time.^[1][2]“

In our arcade, BUBBLES is the third game on the Joust arcade cabinet. If you are looking to dive further into some BUBBLES tips and tricks before you venture out to our arcade, then check out the BUBBLES thread on our underground pinball forum. How fun!

This contest goes from June 1st through the 30th! Everyone is welcome to play, as long as you pay the $5 entry to the Dumb Arcade (or get entry by spending $10 or more in the store). You can play as many times as you like, just let us know what your high score! For this contest we actually have ELEVEN different prizes for all of the top scorers and this time we are going BIG:

• 1st place prize: $100 in cash + free entry to our arcade for a month
• 2nd place prize: your own private party!! *2 hours afterhours on any date
• 3rd place prize: a bubbles gift basket! + $25 dumb records gift card
• 4th place prize: a limited edition Bubbles Arcade t-shirt
• 5th place prize: a lava lamp
• 6th place prize: a bubbles lawn mower
• 7th place prize: the tiny Tetris arcade game that we have
• 8th place prize: bubble gum
• 9th place prize: hangout with the band Bottom Bracket for 1 day
• 10th place prize: GROOVE GOO
• 11th place prize: a Donna Summer poster

That’s it we think! Good luck out there, nerds!

This is just a post to let you know that our Fish Tales Pinball contest has happened, and it’s over, and we have winners! Congrats to Chris O, with the number one high score of 100,664,040. Cole J came in a close second with 100,337,690, and Greg from USPS was also close behind with 97,456,220. Brian G blew all of those scores out of the water in the “staff” section though with a score of 154,168,600 (good thing staff is not in the running for the real contest).

When will we do another arcade contest? Maybe next month in June. For this month, enjoy our brand new game – CROSSBOW (1983).

Look at that, we can make pictures circles now. In case you haven’t heard, our Dumb Records arcade now has a new game. That game is CROSSBOW – manufactured by a company called Exidy and released in 1983. As you can see, this game has a built in crossbow. Here’s a description of what goes on from Wikepedia:

The player protects a band of adventurers from afar by shooting objects that threaten them. The adventurers enter from the left-hand side of the screen and attempt to cross the screen unharmed. If the player helps them reach the opposite side of the screen safely, the adventurers survive to the next scenario, and new adventurers are occasionally granted between scenarios.

In addition to the obstacles, the adventurers are vulnerable to the player’s shots. The first time the player shoots an adventurer, an on-screen message is shown: “DON’T SHOOT YOUR FRIENDS!” Thereafter, shooting an adventurer will cause him/her to emit a cry of pain, and to walk at a slower pace the rest of the way. A second shot will kill the adventurer.

Scenarios are chosen by shooting a destination on a map screen, which include: town, desert, volcano, cave, bridge, jungle, and castle. The goal is to reach the final scenario, past the castle, in which the player confronts the Master of Darkness, who presumably created the dangers in the game. Defeating the Master of Darkness requires shooting him in the eyes when they turn red (and deadly). The player is treated to a brief congratulation and a challenge to defeat the Master of Darkness again, “IF YOU DARE”. Following this screen the player starts over with however many adventurers survived the confrontation.

We are now up to 13 games in the arcade including six pinball machines, 1 racing game, now 2 shooting games, and 4 other standing arcade machines. Our arcade is open during store hours right now from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. Don’t forget we are still doing a limited offer of renting out the space for private parties during after hours.

Today we are announcing us doing something a little new that might kiiiinda be the next step for us as we ease back in to some type of normalcy and are eventually able to host shows again. Starting NOW we are open to booking private parties at the Dumb Records arcade after or before our regular store hours. (Our store is now open every day from 11:30 am to 6:00 pm at 418 E Monroe Street downtown).

We are now doing a limited offer of $50 an hour to rent out our venue and arcade spaces for private parties up up to 12 persons. You can come in the store to talk to us about reserving calendar space, or email us at dumbrecs@gmail.com or give us a call at 217-691-8991. This is a limited offer and we are trying things out, so we could change our policies on private parties in the future!

November is over. We extended November through the end of February for our Ghost N’ Goblins Arcade Contest, so now it’s really over. Now that it’s over over, that’s a wrap on our first ever arcade contest (finally)! Here are the high scorers (official):

KOLTON – 164,300
LUIS P – 160,900
ZAXXON – 61,500
JIM W – 52,000
CONNOR S – 24,700
TYLER S – 18,300
TOM R – 16,700
LANNY D – 12,300
GREG – 7,700
SAM R – 4,500

Wow! Congrats to all of these winners out there. Kolton and Luis P come on down to our office to claim your prizes! Kolton gets $100 in downtown gift certificates for places including Prairie Archives, Jerk Shop Go, Whimsey Tea Company, and Custom Cup.

We will be launching a new contest here very soon!! Keep your ears peeled. In the meantime, join our underground Springfield pinball discussion forum!