Crane Madness
However, it is a more expensive option, while packing peanuts are more common in countries like the United Kingdom. In some machines, such as UFO Catchers in Japan, plastic balls are used for decoration. Most claw machines drop and grab with one push of a button; some need two pushes—one to drop the claw, another to close it—but that’s rare. Either way, “Most machines give you enough time to position your claw, and most of them will let you move it forward and backward and then sideways,” Yamato says. “I usually try to spend most of the time of the clock running down to make sure that I’m exactly above where I want the claw to drop.” Once you’re in the absolute best position, drop it.
What followed was 20 failed attempts at pushing the cursed toy into the chute, losing my temper at the adorable money trap, and spending way more than I had intended. One of the potentiometers controls the claw strength as the claw retracts upwards to the carriage ; the other controls the claw strength while it is traveling, with or without the prize, to the chute. “That is the dark truth about claw machines,” quipped Umehara, who also calls himself the Arcade Ninja. The claw has three fingers if it is a traditional design or two fingers if it is the Asian-style "UFO" machines.
Claw machine gantry assemblies typically consist of two main moving carriages. The first controls the movement along the forward and back axis. On these rails sits the gantry carriage, or gantry box.
They’re not necessarily hard to catch, like real-life crane games that often feel rigged against the player, but there is a definitely a skill to learn in perfecting the catch. It’s designed to play in a single sitting, so there’s no save button — if you don’t catch all the fish in one go, you’ll have to start up again when arriving, again, at the arcade. And yet, when I’ve played, I haven’t felt pressure to rush myself to catch all fish within whatever amount of time I had.
By the 1980s, crane machines had become much larger, with plush dolls the major prizes, and cranes common at carnivals and arcades. A boom in crane games occurred with the release of Sega's UFO Catcher in 1985, and since then the term "UFO catcher" has become synonymous with crane games in Japan. It stood out for its eagle claw shape, hence the name "UFO" catcher, along with its kawaii family-friendly design, helping to make them more marketable to casual audiences.
Players would put a nickel into the slot of a glass-fronted cabinet and crank a wheel to engage a series of internal gears. The tiny bucket-jaws swung down, closed over a piece of candy, rose, and dropped the sweet into a chute where it could be retrieved. Early versions of these games include the Panama Digger, Erie Digger, and Iron Claw. The most successful model was the Miami Digger patented by carnival operator William Bartlett in 1932.
Normally, the small prizes next to the entrance offer the best chances to win—i.e., small prizes hugging the edge. This is particularly true for the big places like Taito or Sega game stations. They want people to be seen winning and having fun at the entrance to their den of lies.
Claw Coach talked about the handy “double-tap” technique アンパンマン クレーンゲーム that most people don’t know about. After tapping the button once to drop the claw, try tapping the button a second time when it is right above the prize. This would allow the claw to move into the “ideal position” to grab the prize.
This is because these machines have claws with strengths that are fixed with a screw by opening the machine. In the case of such an older machine, skill can make quite a difference. The monkeys in the experiment are tufted capuchins, which are an especially intelligent species often used for movie work. Still, the Bio Park staff wasn’t sure if their monkeys would be able to win those delicious raisins.