Looking for nightlife on the Oregon coast? Head to Seaside on a warm summer day or long winter night, where you’ll find people crowded into a room at the Funland Arcade, seated along a row of wooden tables, rolling little rubber balls into holes.
The game is called Fascination, and while it’s often described as a hybrid of bingo and bowling, if you ask anyone who’s sat down for a few rounds, it’s really something you have to experience firsthand.
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“[Fascination] has got its own kind of feel, and its own aura to it,” Funland manager Rob Johnson said. “If you have this whole room filled, 40 tables with people, the games are going quick, everybody’s excited and it’s just an experience you have to come in and see.”
Fascination is a vintage arcade game found at the Funland Seaside Arcade on the north Oregon coast, drawing crowds of tourists and locals who play against each other for a quarter per game. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Fascination is a vintage arcade game found at the Funland Seaside Arcade on the north Oregon coast, drawing crowds of tourists and locals who play against each other for a quarter per game. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Fascination is a vintage arcade game found at the Funland Seaside Arcade on the north Oregon coast, drawing crowds of tourists and locals who play against each other for a quarter per game. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
The history of Fascination is a little hazy, but at one point it could be found at arcades and amusement parks across the United States, starting around the 1920s. Most Fascination tables seem to have been lost to time, as modern arcade and video games replaced the old, vintage attraction.
Johnson said the tables at Funland, which were installed in the 1950s, are among the only ones left in the United States. The game is still played at about a half-dozen locations around the country, including arcades in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. Funland appears to be the only place west of the Mississippi River where people can try their hand at Fascination.
The game is indeed played like bingo, but instead of marking cards, you claim a space by rolling a rubber ball up a ramp into a board filled with holes. Once you make it into a hole, the corresponding light illuminates and stays lit up no matter how many times you roll the ball into the same hole. Be the first to get five in a row in any direction and you’ve won.
Unlike most other arcade games at Funland, Fascination isn’t played alone or with another person, but against the entire room. Funland requires a three-person minimum to start a game, but up to 40 people can play at a time.
Winning is exhilarating and losing can be frustrating. Either way, the feelings are fleeting, as the winner is quickly given a coupon to exchange for prizes, and a new game immediately starts up.
With just enough randomness to create a level playing field, Fascination is one of the best all-ages attractions in town — and at 25 cents per game, it’s also one of the most affordable. If you manage to win enough times, you could also collect enough coupons for prizes that range from toys to camping gear. Melissa Clark, one of the Fascination emcees at Funland, said one local man recently spent 19 hours playing the game over two days in order to walk away with a TV.
“It’s a lot of fun; you get addicted to it,” Clark said. “It’s the thrill of trying to get that five in a row before everybody else in the room.”
The best way to accumulate coupons is to join “blackout” games, when players get two balls and must light up every hole on the board. Payout for a blackout win is 10 coupons, instead of just one.
Fascination is a vintage arcade game found at the Funland Seaside Arcade on the north Oregon coast, drawing crowds of tourists and locals who play against each other for a quarter per game. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Fascination is a vintage arcade game found at the Funland Seaside Arcade on the north Oregon coast, drawing crowds of tourists and locals who play against each other for a quarter per game. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Fascination is a vintage arcade game found at the Funland Seaside Arcade on the north Oregon coast, drawing crowds of tourists and locals who play against each other for a quarter per game. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Johnson’s first job at the arcade was running games of Fascination himself, before gradually working his way up to manager. When he was younger, growing up in Seaside, he said the energy at Fascination was always electric.
“We would stay up really late because it was so much fun, there was so much excitement in here,” he said.
It’s impressive that Fascination has withstood the test of time, still drawing crowds of players after nearly a century. Games have come and gone in the Funland Arcade, along with fads and updated technology, but Fascination has never left. Instead it’s become an intergenerational tradition for the families who visit Seaside every year.
“I’ve come to Seaside since I was really little and so we played this game for many years,” said Ellie Skinner, who played a few rounds at Funland on a recent January afternoon. “I guess it just kind of reminds me of my childhood.”
Each generation of Fascination players gets the opportunity to learn the exhilaration, the maddening frustration, and the sweet joy of the retro arcade game. What is it about Fascination that’s so fascinating? It’s something you just have to experience for yourself.
Fascination is open 1 p.m. to close Fri., 11 a.m. to close Sat. and Sun. in the winter, 11 a.m. to midnight daily in the summer; 201 Broadway St., Seaside; 503-738-7361; funlandseaide.com.
–Jamie Hale; jhale@oregonian.com; 503-294-4077; @HaleJamesB
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