Roll-A-Bingo is a new-this-year arcade game at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It's a group game, becoming more exciting --- and rewarding more points --- with a bigger crowd. To play, you take two rubber balls and roll them along a nearly flat table, trying to drop the balls through holes to light up a Bingo row. Or, depending on the game, a cross, or all corners, or the whole board. (The ball returns after it drops in.)
You may think this sounds a bit like Fascination. It is in fact very like Fascination, an attempt to make the venerable arcade game using modern technology. There are a couple clear improvements, such as hardware that isn't cannibalizing 1940s telephone-relay switching for maintenance. Lights around the holes show what you have, and what you're aiming for, in a nice clear way. The holes use optical switches, like many pinball machines do, so it's possible even for a ball to roll into a hole enough to trigger the sensor, but then roll back out, giving the possibility of getting credit for several holes on a single ball. And there are some changes that seem aimed at getting the games done quicker. The two-ball rule, instead of a single ball as (most) Fascination games take. The tables are shorter, too. But these are quibbles; the game is recognizably the one we discovered we liked in Wildwood, and have gotten to play at Knoebels and Indiana Beach and seen at Darien Lake. (Somehow, and without aiming to, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger and I have been to an appreciable fraction of the amusement parks that still have Fascination.) Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the first to have this Roll-A-Bingo layout. We're hoping it becomes more widespread.
So one thing we were resolved to do our second day at the boardwalk was play some. We decided to wait until evening, trusting there would be more people playing then and that makes the games more fun. We were mistaken, or at least that Friday was a poor day. By the time we got to play there were only two or three other people playing, and they left after a couple games. It's fun playing against each other, yes, especially when we're using the same swipe card and so building up the points run either way. But it makes the games run longer and be less exciting. On the other hand, it gave us the chance to appreciate how this compares to Fascination. We're hoping it gets installed in more places; it may not be exactly like Fascination, but it's much closer than the version Fantasy Island had, with rubber balls and tiny baskets.
Still, this would be much of how we spent the night until thinking we had to go, soon, and should maybe get a last ride in.
I know what you're thinking about these pictures: enough with the W E ``Bill'' Mason Carousel and the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad. Where are the Californian squirrels?
Oh yeah, there's the squirrel spread out on the ground, trying to keep cool when it was already half past 80 degrees (see picture from the other day).
Western grey squirrel wondering yes, can they help us in some way? Mm? ... Love the little white polka-dot pattern there.
And here's another squirrel, taking advantage of the cement to sploot out. Look at how wide those hips can go.
And then here's where these squirrels live, or at least get reliable water; it's the river that the train bridge goes over.
Here's the river bank, with the bridge in the background. I would not cease to be amazed by how much difference being ten feet closer to the water makes in how lush the terrain is.
And a picture of the carousel building from near where those squirrels had been. You can see the counter where they sold souvenirs, as well as ride tickets.
Trivia: It was not until October 1969 that space shuttle project managers definitely decided on using a high-pressure bell, rather than an aerospike, for the shuttle's main engines. (For a while in summer 1969 they even considered shuttle designs that would allow for interchangeable bell and aerospike engines.) Source: The Space Shuttle Decision: NASA's Search for a Reusable Space Vehicle, T A Heppenheimer.
Currently Reading: Rocky and Bullwinkle: Complete Newspaper Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1, Al Kilgore.
