Games

I plan to visit the Point this summer with my nieces. It would be nice to be able to win them a prize at one of the games. I've walked by them plenty of times, but have never stopped to play. So, tell me group, what is your favorite amusement game and what "tricks" are there to winning?

The trick is not to play them. ;-)

Seriously though, if you play them make sure it is NOT a basketball game. If I hear basketballs being bounced up and down the midway again I may do my Jason Vorhees/Michael Myers imitation on those balls!

The Guess Your Age/Weight games are usually pretty good for winning a prize easily. Or else the squirt-gun racing games are pretty good too.

The squirt gun games are only good if your group is large enough to meet the player minimum and there is noone who is not in your group playing as well.

Most of the games take skill so if you really have to win a prize go with a game that matches your skills.

If you have no skills try the game where you throw a wiffle ball onto a table covered with glasses (if they still have that game - they seem to be cutting it out). All you have to do is get a ball in one of the colored cups. It is more luck than skill.

Another option would be the ring toss - buy a hat full of rings and get to keep the hat.

If all else fails - sneek off to one of the stores and buy a "prize".

We have always had good luck with the squirt gun games. Some of them only need 2 people to play so if it is just you and your niece one of you is guaranteed to win. We like this game for the younger kids because an adult can easily let the child win. The prizes were usually a good size stuffed dog. Not bad for $6. Make sure you use the coupons from the guidebook as I think they have a couple of BOGOs.

Keep playing till' you eventually win....

Im really good at guessing how fast I pitch. Its not that hard if your good at baseball so you could try that.

The 2 person squirt games worked great with the Buy 1 Game Get 1 Game Free coupons that were in the Getaway Guide last year. Get 2 people from your group to compete and you have a guaranteed prize for $3. I also used to like the Plinko-ish game where you catch the metal ball at the bottom after it falls through the pegs. That wasn't too hard to get good at. My favorite game right now is the skeeball in the midway arcade. $0.50 per game and you can play on the same one and get used to it until you win. However, the prizes aren't very large so depending on who wants the prize, that might not be a good option for you.

my bf is pretty good at the fast pitch game so i would try that it seems really easy & he always wins. you just have to pay attention to how you are pitching so you can make an accurate guess!! i would avoid the weight, birthday, or age games bc the guesser gets an advantage in my opinion but thats just my opinion.

Some great ideas!

Thanks all!

Your bf must be a stud!!!

Anybody know the best approach to winning on the round metal circle wand around the moving metal tree that buzzes when contact is made.(Sorry, I tried to describe the game. Don't know the booths name).Wacky Wire

Patience is my way. Also, I never try more than twice because after my second loss my nerve is shot. I'd like to hear any tips so I can finally defeat that thing. I've even asked the person working the game and she said she'd never won and only one person that day had won.

The bounce game where you bounce the ball off the board and into the basket. Pretty easy once you know the tricks.

Well tell the tricks, DJTheC. That's what this thread is for. Rapids 77-78 is asking what the tricks are.

Put some spin on the ball, either way has worked for me. The must spin on the X-axis where the top of the ball spins either toward you or away. Grip it like you'd hold a cup and twist your wrist. Just watch the pole on the bottom, heh.Football is another skill one. For me, I step far back as I can and put a nice spiral on it.Sorry I was busy making my avatar while searching for my old one...I forgot where I got the old one from...

Coming from someone that spent a year working the games at the Point, your best bet to get a guaranteed prize is to play a race game (squirt gun game). Most of the ones that require 4 players for a choice prize will let you just pay for 4 guns and then your guaranteed the prize (and that was my favorite option because then I got to use one of the guns haha).

As for Bank-A-Ball, if you were going to do it, your best bet is to get the ball as low to the ground as you can get, and try to bounce it upwards towards the top of the board very lightly so it will bounce back in to the box. I guess its kind of hard to explain, but you need to be careful about it because anyone with experience working the game is going to have a good watch of your elbow, which isn't allowed to go past the red line. This one takes an awful lot of practice to do.

And then theres Wacky Wire, which is what Frito Joe was talking about. This game isn't for everyone, and really just takes patience and practice to get right. Because I know better than to spout out CP secrets here, I guess all I'll say is the person in that game makes it look like he/she can do it 100 times in 10 seconds, and its not really that easy...

But good luck to all of you in your attempts. Hopefully you all won't end up like some of the people dropping $100 just because they refuse to lose.

I won the "bank-a-ball" game described above last year. I think it's also called "rebound". I think I got lucky that the bars stayed on the board, but that one seems completely winnable. Anyway I won an enormous gorilla stuffed animal. It was so big I had to push it around in my son's stroller and force him to walk. Everyone had to make a comment about how big it was. Unfortunately there was no way I was going to fit it in my car. It would not fit in any of the doors. I would have had to rent a U-haul to get it home. I tried to give it away to someone but their wife overrulled them. I eventually gave it to some girl scouts people or something that were manning the ticket booths.

Moral of the story - make sure the prize can fit in your car!

I always wondered how people thought they’d get those huge stuffed Gorillas home. I’ve never seen one just left laying around. But I’m sure that happens. A lot of people like carrying them on their back down the Midways.

I saw a little girl win the Bank-a-Ball across from MaXair on her third try. She must have been 6 or 7 yrs old. She tossed it underhanded out of one hand. She jumped a little bit while she tossed it. It had very little if no spin. It hit softly towards the top third of the board. She “pushed” it up in the air with a quick motion more-so than “tossed” it like she was getting rid of a hot potato. But it had the effect as if she would have made a touch shot off a basketball backboard. She may have been the ideal height & strength (or lack thereof) to pull off such a soft shot. In other words she got lucky. But it worked. In the sports world they’d say she was "Unconscious.“ It was fun to see her reaction. It took a couple of seconds before she realized she had just won a prize literally bigger than she was. Family photos ensued documenting her triumph over adults & teens who failed at the same game :)

If you must take a prize home, buy one. Your wallet will be much happier......everybody wins if you think about it.