Poly Play was made by Machine: VEB Polytechnik Karl-Marx-Stadt Box: VEB Raumkunst Moselt between approximately 1986 to 1989, in East Germany. Coin Operated videogames were seen as a bit of a capitalist icon in the Communist world, and so coin operated amusement devices were banned in the GDR. I would imagine that the majority of the communist world weren't even aware of coin operated videogames, or if they were, the brain washing was just as good in preventing them from demanding them. East Germany was a little different, and one could imagine that people there were a little more enlightened as to the existence of coin-op videogames. It may well have been that the upper echelons of the communist 'class' would have probably fealt hard done by, without their videogames. There shouldn't be a 'class' distinction under communism by definition, but you of course had public servants, and party members who were getting paid a lot more than the mud farmers and therefore had some disposable income to spend on entertainment. This probably created the demand for coin-operated video games. Now, being Communism, not just anyone could start this up, it had to be an organisation that the local government could ultimately control.. Hence, what was produced was with the blessing of the communist party. This would explain the deer hunting game in the selection menu, it was said to be included because Erich Honneker (eastern dictator, um, I mean... Chancellor) liked to hunt in his free time. He also had the worlds largest porn collection, but thats another story :-) The machines also did not take regular currency, but tokens instead. I'm not sure how this would have worked on a site, but from other sources, it sounds like leisure centres had them installed, so I guess you could buy the tokens from the reception and stuff...

Anyway, I don't know a great deal about this machine, other than a brief smattering of info, but what I do know is that this machine was developed in complete isolation from the west, therefore every little 'component' was completely re-engineered, and in some instances they came up with methods that western games never did employ.

the coin mechanism
another ingenious bit of engineering when you don't have any example to go by. The coin switch is an optical or infrared diode gate, not a microswitch. The coin box is an amazing bit of mechanical trickery. There is a lock on the side, which turns a shaft which transfers 90 degrees to screw a shaft through the rear of the box and thereby securing it to the bracket in the cabinet. The lid has a latch to padlock it shut also. As well as that, the lid has a spring loaded mechanism that shuts off the three coin entry windows. In my opinion, hideously over-engineered, considering Atari used a cake tin for their first coin box :)

The actual bus cards
This is the brains of the system, pictured here removed from the rack, and its all Russian. All of the IC's have Russian script on them, so I just hope I never have to try fix it. The machine works most of the time, but occasionally plays up, but frankly it scares me just looking at his lot. There are two of PCB1.JPG, and one of all the others in the cage.

Interestingly, the date code system is the same as in the west, and the date codes are from 1987 and 1988.

Back door off view

The back door is a very thin (4mm) sheet of plywood, screwed in with about 14 screws with metal washer type things on them. Once again, the foil coating is everywhere. The serial number plate, hard to make out, I will get transcription of this soon. Serial number 1492.

The 'Light Organ'
Ok, now ignore the big black thing in the background, thats a spare control panel I needed to use to prop the lid up. Two screws either side releases the lid to be lifted up where you can see the marquee sits in front of the light organ. The marquee is that horrid 1960's door glass that has a bumpy, angular surface to refract and diffuse the light. The poly play logo is screened onto the back of the very thin and fragile glass. The light organ itself is nothing more than a bunch of 240v lamps that fire sequentially, reds then blues, then yellows, then greens. Very fast too, not sure why this is intrinsically linked to the computer rack when it could be done with basic electronics instead. All the bulbs (bar one or two) are made by Osram, Slovakia.

Marquee

here is a view of the rear of the marquee, and the light organ in action.. (But see the video link below for the best effect!!.)

The menu screen, this is the attract mode. thats about as fancy as it gets. You can select a game by moving the joystick up and down, then pressing the button to select the game. You can then read the instructions and decide whether you want to play it or not. If you don't like it, you press the button. You hear a clunk, as if there's some kind of relay kicking in, then it returns you to the main menu.

Translation:
A play is selected by up and Abbewegung of the play lever. After pressures of the play button the play selected by you appears.

Hase und Wulf (Hare and Wolf)
This is an infuriatingly crap game based on pacman I'd assume. The movement of your character is so 'sticky' its virtually unplayable. I can't see what I'm supposed to do on it anyway, the carrot looking things which I would assume are power pills don't seem to do shit. You're not missing much.

UPDATE 23/07/04: this is apparently based on a Russian kids TV series

Schmetterlinge (Butterflies)
How weird is this? you appear to play a black man in dungarees who catches different colour/patterned butterflies for a living. The net action is so appallingly animated, that is very hard to judge how to catch them. Its an easy game though. I'm still scared by the notion of an overweight gay black man catching butterflies. Creepy.

update : This character in dungarees was apparently another kids TV character from Czechoslovakia at the time. He was known for catching butterflies and wearing dungarees. Known as "the little mole".