Pengo

Not sure if this one has hit many arcade game collector’s radars or not, probably because this Craigslist listing was filed under games / toys which is not as typical. For $200 you can get yourself a working Pengo if you are in Northern Michigan. (more…)

Short post, can’t resist when one of my favorite games come up for sale nearby on Craigslist.

Best offer takes it - i have a 80s pengo machine by sega. i was told it needs a new transformer to make it work. perfect for someone who knows a little about repair. Selling for the top offer - please email me if you have questions.

(more…)

Over the weekend I trashed my newly achieved high score in Sega’s Pengo. My score of 226,610 was the first time I had beaten all 16 levels and started over, and I knew that I could break the top 10 Pengo high scores on Twin Galaxies with a touch higher score at just over 250,000. Little did I know that I would just storm my un-official way up to 6th place all time worldwide with a Pengo score of 347,430.

Since that first time I cleared all 16 levels I have done it four more times, and with my new high score of 347,000+ I played to level 40 before I died. I still have my setting at the hardest gameplay, and for a couple of reasons I am still weary about changing it down to the medium difficulty for true Twin Galaxies “tournament” settings.

• The harder gameplay makes me better - Don’t want to have to step down and lost that edge
• I’ll lose my High Scores:(
• I am not going for anything official - yet

In the last week I have been in email contact with Blaine Locklair at Twin Galaxies to find out a little more about the submission guidelines. The high score submissions are fair, but kind of a pain (from turning the game on and off, getting a boot screen, stating name etc.), and right now, I am still small chips on the Pengo high score list. With my current score, I am in a league where the best scores taper off fast with my next closest competitior, Francesco Vasta from Italy, is at 457,400!

In order to be official, I would have to remove my Jrok high score board, and I would prefer not to if at all possible. So for now I won’t worry about high score submissions. If I start to score 800,000 or higher for a couple of games it might be time to think about going for the Pengo world record, but right now I have a way to go. I feel like I can knock off Vasta, and Terry Tanaka at 460,000 and that may be it.

Would you go through the work of submitting a score to Twin Galaxies if you were in the top ten? I want to hear from some other collectors. I am guessing most might say it’s not worth it.

I was taking a break from reading my economics tonight, playing my favorite game Pengo and trying to decide what my blog entry for tonight would be. I have a list of items I want to write about, but before I realized it, I had made it to level 14 in Pengo without dying and I was racking up quite a score and I knew what my topic would be.

I swore when I played Sega’s Pengo in Mame, that the levels and the difficulty rolled over at some point back to level 1. I was thinking Pengo rolled over at level 14, but as you can see below I had proven this wasn’t the case. Tonight I beat level 16 and got a nice surprise, I was back at level one, with the less aggressive and lesser quantities of Sno-Bees and all sorts of opportunities to easily line up the diamond blocks. By the time I was done, I had trashed my previous high score with a score of 226,610! Check out my high scores list;

Before that point, I had given up on returning to easy levels, and couldn’t fathom how all of the top Pengo players on Twin Galaxies lasted long enough to get scores higher than 400,000, 600,000 and even a score of over 1,000,000 (Rodney Day). My Pengo score in theory would put me at 11th place! I was hoping I cracked the top 10, but now I know to concentrate harder on beating level 16 to really run up that score.

I checked my dip switch settings (set for freeplay on Jrok’s Pengo enhancement pack), here’s my configuration;

Switch Bank 1

• 1 - On
• 2 - On
• 3 - On
• 4 - On
• 5 - Off
• 6 - Off
• 7 - Off
• 8 - On

Switch Bank 2

• 1 - Off
• 2 - Off
• 3 - Off
• 4 - Off
• 5 - On
• 6 - On
• 7 - Off
• 8 - Off

According to my switches, I am playing Pengo on the “hard” setting, and I am setup for three lives. The settings for Twin Galaxies Tournament Settings are for medium difficulty with five lives. I don’t want to erase my Pengo scores and start over, but I know for sure that I would do that much better with more lives and an easier difficulty.

Can anybody out there informally challenge my high score? Meaning, a higher score played on an actual Pengo machine? A score not submitted to Twin Galaxies because it’s a little self indulgent and because it can be difficult to submit.

I have my RSS feeds setup such that I immediately see when new auctions are listed concerning my favorite arcade games. Within 2 minutes of the initial listing, I saw a Pengo come up on ebay on January 30th, 2008. The starting bid was $20! As things usually go, I opened the link and figured the game would be in Oregon or something. It was in Plainfield, IN! For $20, how can that be possible? The story the seller gave surround the Pengo sounded true and it appeared as if this would be a great deal for someone.

My dad owned a video arcade that went out of business in the 80’s. I bought this upright Pengo Arcade game and brought it home. It got a lot of use by my wife and daughters. I remodeled the basement and decided to move it to the new Rec Room, but the basement door was too narrow. I moved it to the garage during a remodeling project, where it has been for the past 10 years. Now my girls are grown and gone, and even though I’ve purchased a wiring diagram for the machine, I still haven’t managed to find the time to work on it.

I called him that morning right away asking for photos of the Pengo, not even sure what I was going to do with it if I bought it. Would I buy a second Pengo? But for $20 starting bid, how could I pass it up? I decided that if this Pengo had the other control panel, the one with the roman numerals, I would drive out to Plainfield, make and offer on it and snatch it up and then have the two different Pengo UR’s in my basement. How long would I wait for photos if the seller never got back to me? Would I drive out sight unseen the next day? Did I feel that strongly about the idea of a good deal without really wanting another arcade game?

I didn’t have to make those decisions because four photos were updated in the auction later that night, and I saw that this was going to be a great deal for someone.

This Pengo has the exact same control panel overlay that mine does, and even though it has most of the sideart and will be a steal for someone, I decided to pass.

Well, today, the auction ended. $81! (Right click this link and choose “Save As” for an ebay screenshot of this Pengo auction.) What a rock bottom final auction price. Just goes to show you how weird the market for these games can be, and timing. A non guaranteed working Pengo, but probably an easy fix, sold in the Indianapolis, Indiana area for less than $100. A true steal if you want to keep the game in your collection. The Pengo fixed up to the right buyer might bring in $300, but if you ebay it, probably less. If the bid had stayed under $50, I would have gone for it and figured out the rest later.

Also, it really is true that patience is a virtue. If I had waited about 18 months, I could have bought this Pengo here less than 10 miles away. But instead, I drove to Nashville, TN for mine.

But mine was HUO for most of it’s life, has perfect sideart, and it just a great looking machine. Plus, I had my first bulk buy, my first arcade game adventure, and I ended up getting my Pengo for free. Once I sold off all of the other machines I paid for the trip and the Pengo. (View the Nashville bulk arcade game buy photo album.)

I am just glad to know that it is staying here locally with Aaron Demaree over in the Speedway area. Once you get it fixed 7146aaron, you should definitely look into Jrok’s high score save kit. I play my Pengo every night, trying to best my own scores and enter my initials. Sega’s Pengo is one of the best games ever.