While my family was in Lawrence, Kansas over a weekend in May for my son’s college graduation (kid just earned his Master’s Degree in Architecture, you know, no big deal or anything), we spent a day visiting a few fun places in Kansas and right across the state line in Missouri. Kansas City boasts a few arcades/barcades, including an Up-Down location (see my visit to Up-Down in Des Moines, Iowa, which I also visited on a trip to see my kid), but from what I saw online, the one that intrigued me the most was Draftcade.
Much like Up-Down, Draftcade is a small chain with a location in KC, one in Toledo, Ohio, and another in Richmond, Virginia. They seemed to feature a decent collection of video games and pinball, as well as Skee-Ball (which will always convince Mrs. SuperHyper to accompany me to an arcade), and of course drinks and food.
Located on a corner in a very cozy shopping area, Draftcade presents itself very nicely with a cool logo sign and a spacious interior with the bar as its centerpiece. For the most part, the games are all kind of in an area to one side and towards the back, while there is plenty of seating on the other side. TVs throughout play various sportsball games.
Gameplay works on a paid wristband type system. Just ask a bartender, and for 7 bucks you get your wristband which allows you to play all you want. The machines are either on free play or have credit buttons installed.
I’ll get this disclaimer out of the way first: We went here strictly for the games, and none of us had any drinks or snacks, so I can’t speak to anything such as the beer selection or the quality of the food. The place is all-ages during the day — as evidenced by somebody’s shrieking toddler running around the arcade during our visit — and 21+ in the evening.
The most important criteria upon which I judge any arcade is, of course, the game selection. I counted roughly 40 or so video games, about 7 pinballs, two Skee-Balls and a couple basketball shooters. Draftcade had many of the GOATs represented (Pac and Ms Pac, DK and Junior, Sinister, Dig Dug, Centipede, Robotron, SF2), which to me are kind of your must-haves — a solid starting base, if you will.
Add to that some titles from the next level or two of uncommon-ness, such as Crazy Climber, Strider, Make Traxx, and Galaga ’88.
Making me very happy indeed were a few laserdisc classics! Space Ace, Dragon’s Lair II, and the first functioning MACH 3 I’ve gotten to play in probably 40 years. I’m not sure if they were all running on original LD hardware or Dexter substitutions, but it’s always a treat to see them nonetheless.
Then there were some pretty great rarities: Polaris, Tin Star (both beautiful Taito cabs), Sarge, and even a couple I hadn’t heard of before, Zwackery by Midway and Megatack by Game Plan. Zwackery is a wizard-themed platformer with an overly-complex control scheme, while Megatack is a fairly easy yet addictive spin on the Space Invaders-style single-screen shooter.
There was also a cool tabletop Nintendo PlayChoice-10 on one end of the bar.
Behind one row of games, there was sort of a weird dead area with some kind of equipment in the corner that I can’t identify behind a metal fence. Whatever it was, it was blocked off, and a fair amount of space that was not currently being used.
Most of the games were in good cosmetic shape, but a few of them needed some tech work — Popeye’s screen was very dark, Polaris’ screen was all the wrong colors, and Dragon’s Lair II wouldn’t start despite displaying “FREE PLAY” on the screen. There was a Capcom 3 Wonders, but it was entirely out of order. A few monitors had some minor stretching or pinching issues.
Unfortunately, things were worse on the pinball side — only three of the seven tables would start, despite being on free play or having credit buttons. With a diverse but small selection of titles, that was a disappointing ratio.
The biggest bummer of all, though, was that only one of the two Skee-Ball machines was working (one displayed an error message) — and it felt like it wasn’t quite level. The balls kept getting stuck in the return track, and my son even said it was so off that you could cheese the game by aiming your roll at the corner for almost guaranteed 5000-point shots in the middle.
When I bought our wristbands, the gentleman behind the bar (who I don’t think was one of the bartenders but maybe a manager) told me that if anything wasn’t working, he’d try to fix it — and confessed that he wasn’t an electronics guy, but he’d at least try turning it off and on again. It sounded to me like he knew there were numerous games with issues. Having hung out in arcades my entire life, I totally realize it’s a constant and almost impossible game of virtual whack-a-mole to keep things in 100% working order (I can’t even keep the six machines I own at home going all the time), and there are always a few machines with issues in every arcade. Maybe we just hit the place on an off day, but I’m hoping they do have a skilled tech who can get them up and running.
All in all, I was happy with the curation of titles in the arcade, and the games that were working were a blast to play (I put my initials on quite a few), but felt that many of the machines deserved better upkeep. This blog is never about being negative and I very much want places like this to be successful, but I also have to be honest about my experience. As a video game nerd, I was understanding, but as regular folks who wanted to play pinball and Skee-Ball, my wife and kids left pretty disappointed. Hopefully by the time you read this and visit Draftcade yourself, they’re having a better day.
Visit the Draftcade at 7260 NW 87th St, Kansas City, Missouri.