Prize games (UFO Catchers)

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The Good	The Not-So Good
Fun to try (set a budget)	Will eat your money
	Blatant rigging on many games

Prize games are a popular obsession in Japan for young people (and a few older, anime figure obsessed otaku). They involve part game-of-chance and part skill and knowledge of the game with the aim to spend as little money as possible getting a prize such as a fluffy toy, anime model figure or chocolate. The prizes vary in value as does the mechanism of play. However, there are some golden rules valid on all games.

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The major types of prize games

Below is a list of the major types of games with starting strategies plus things to avoid at all costs!

Rotating Chocolate Push!

Fun Rating:	(4.0 / 5)
Difficulty:	(4.0 / 5)
Frustration:	(4.0 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(5.0 / 5)

These games are often at the entrance of the game center and are very popular with everyone, especially groups or couples. The basic idea is to press a button to lower the scoop, which grabs chocolate from the rotating bucket below. You then press a second button to drop the payload on the moving platform above. That then pushes chocolate toward the prize, which eventually gets pushed off into the prize drawer. Easy? Not so fast.

The main thing to remember is that the prize doesn’t drop until all foundation items have dropped first. The prize tower will just sag onto the domed cover and not move. You have to, without exception, push the prize tower foundation items completely off before the tower will fall. Even then, you will probably only get half the tower and the rest will topple into the inner area (which is invalid – the attendants will not allow you to take them).

• Only scoop up boxes if you can. The packets are mostly air and will just get in the way and absorb any pushing power, or block boxes and send them off diagonally to drop off the platform.
• Use the initial boxes by placing more boxes behind them. This way the lower platform will stay fairly clean of packets.
• Wait until the prize and boxes have stopped moving. Often they will continue to shift with each push of the moving platform, so get the most movement per play.
• The prize drawer will close after about 10 seconds unless you put more money in. If the prize does look like falling, don’t forget to put an extra ￥100 in otherwise you won’t get anything.
• If you do topple the prize tower, it will almost certainly block the prize drawer from opening. Call the attendants to help.

Once you have a load of packets in the way it is basically over. The boxes will just wash up against the packets and provide no pushing power. Give up and move on.

Tower sweets and ramp

Fun Rating:	(4.0 / 5)
Difficulty:	(2.0 / 5)
Frustration:	(2.0 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(3.0 / 5)

This is a great game to finish up someone else’s walk-away. Each of the chocolate tubes (like Smarties), are about ￥300 in the shops. If you get lucky, you can get one tube per play. You just need to look for the right setup.

• First, using the outer pincer arm, push some of the middle tubes so they topple over down the ramp.
• The ramp is sticky and the pincers weak so the tubes cannot be pushed down on their edge; they have to twist round and roll down.
• Aim to get the pincer arms either side of a diagonal tube so that the tube is twisted round and then rolled down the ramp.
• Don’t bother with the tubes at the ends as the pincer cannot reach them well enough.

If things so well you can get 4-5 tubes in a row.

Pulling boxes

Fun Rating:	(3.0 / 5)
Difficulty:	(4.0 / 5)
Frustration:	(3.0 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(3.0 / 5)

The aim here is to get one of the pincers into the pull ring and then pull the prize to the edge were it will fall off. This seems simple however of course it is more complicated than that.

• Note where the pincers open up to (using the circles) and then use that marker to aim the pincer arms up with the pull ring hole.
• The pincers almost always rotate a bit as they drop down so you will have to aim the pincer arms slightly before or after the hole, depending which direction and how much the arm twists.
• The prize closer to the edge is heavier so it set closer. Check the start position marks first before assuming an easy get.
• The pincers power is strongest in the first few moments of closing. Try to get the pincers to enter the hole close to the edge so you get the maximal pull.
• The shorter the pincers, and the closer the prize is to the pincers, the weaker the pincers settings will be. If it looks easy then that will have been compensated for by the pincer settings.

A variation is the boxes facing forward rather than to the side. You still have to pull the box however it will twist round. If the prize is in the center, then you will have to alternate the pincer arms to nudge the prize forward little by little. Just twisting a center box round one way will only move it into a position too far left or right where the pincers cannot go – game over, call an attendant and apologize for being such a newbie.

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Once the prize is almost half way over, you can often push the top of the prize with a pincer arm and topple it over. You probably didn’t need to, but it is very satisfying.

A variation is having to drag the prize down a slope. You can sometimes push down on the edge of the box you nudge the box down the slope. Otherwise pull from alternate sides until the box falls off. The slope games sometimes are not set up correctly and the arm cannot reach the ring. If so, complain to the staff.

Pincers push and drop

Fun Rating:	(3.0 / 5)
Difficulty:	(2.0 / 5)
Frustration:	(3.0 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(3.0 / 5)

The aim of this game is to push the prize off the rod using one arm of the pincers. However, the rod is very sticky so it will take 10-20 pushes. One pincer may be weaker than the other in the case where there are two prizes on opposite sides. Once you get the hang of it, the game is not so difficult.

• Always push from the extreme end of the handles so as to maximize the pushing force.
• Don’t hook the pincer arm under the handle (pulling up only) or you will waste a turn as the handle will not move at all (it has to be pushed).
• Alternate pushing either side of the handle (the two, red arrows in the picture above) to slowly nudge (twist) it off the rod.
• Look for the starting mark. If the game looks easy but the prize is on the starting mark, then probably the rod is very sticky or the prize is additionally being fixed in place by some string to make it harder to push.

A variation will include a string that pulls the handle back to add resistance (if the prize is light or just if the manager of the center needs to increase profits that week). The shape of the handle will also vary to change the sections of the handle that you can actually reach with the grabber arm. Sometimes the grabber arms will only just reach the handle parts that are best to push.

Cutting the string game

Fun Rating:	(4.0 / 5)
Difficulty:	(3.0 / 5)
Frustration:	(4.0 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(4.0 / 5)

The aim is to move some cutting pincers right, and then forward, but holding down and then releasing two buttons. The point the cutting arms stop is the point the pincers close, ideally on the string which will then be cut and the prize will fall down.

From the back you can more easily.

• Moving the cutting arms to the right is easy. Line up the rails above the cutter with the string and you can get it right every time. This is not the tricky part.
• Moving the cutting arm forward is also simple, however the software will not let you stop on the string (if it did, you can get the prize is 5 goes easily). When you release the button, the cutting arms will usually continue forward, just missing the string. Shenanigans? Well, if they didn’t have this setting it would be too easy. So you just have to get lucky, or else spend the money until the software changes settings and starts allowing you to stop on the string.
• Some versions of this game are easier however the blade is blunt and will not cut the string on the first go. These versions are actually fairly rare and may need 2-3 cuts before dropping – check if there are any half cut strings). Usually when you get the blades on the string, it cuts first time. You can tell the software knows exactly where the string is, because when it is on the string, the cutting motion is much, much longer (to ensure a clean cut).

This is a good game to spend your last couple of￥100 on as in some cases you will get lucky and the software will allow you to stop dead on the string first time.

Takoyaki ball bounce

Fun Rating:	(2 / 5)
Difficulty:	(1 / 5)
Frustration:	(2 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(3 / 5)

Based on the “Takoyaki” hot plates (octopus balls that are famous in Osaka), you have to scoop up a ball and drop it on the plate. Getting a ball in the silver indentation will drop the prize.

There is no secret method to this. The ball drops are totally random. You will always get on average 1 ball per scoop. You just have to keep trying until luck causes the ball to bounce into the correct indentation. This is a good game to spend your last couple of￥100 on as sometimes physics will grant you a win first time.

Sometimes the starting configuration of the balls will vary. “When Japan” has seen games where all the non-prize indentations are full up from the start. Easy win? Be careful! Check the colors of the initial balls and the scoop balls. If they are different, then you know the game has not been played yet and it still in the initial setup (i.e. still difficult to win).

Rotating stop game

Fun Rating:	(2 / 5)
Difficulty:	(1 / 5)
Frustration:	(4 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(5 / 5)

Stop the spinning lights on the yellow platforms holding up the prize and the platform will drop away, allowing the prize to fall down.

As if obvious, the software won’t let you win until the game is in profit. So don’t expect the game to play fair and stop when you smash the stop button. This is a good game to spend your last couple of￥100 on as sometimes the machine will pay out due to random luck.

If there are only two platforms, you software will allow you to get the first one easily (often the first try), so don’t fall for the ruse. The last platform won’t drop so easily. “When Japan” has a hunch that if the game is going to pay out, the moving lights will be a lot slower than usual (indicating the machine is playing fair), so look out for that.

Push a thing into a hole games

Fun Rating:	(3 / 5)
Difficulty:	(2 / 5)
Frustration:	(4 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(3 / 5)

There are a bunch of variations of moving a rod, hand, or some other thing into a hole to get a prize.

There are plenty of variations on this theme, such as rod into holes, keys into locks, etc. As with the “string cutting” game, the first dimension of movement is a freebie that is guaranteed or as close as. The second dimension will not allow you to hit the target until the machine has past the profit setting. The hand or rod will slip past the target most times regardless of how accurately you release the button to stop it. However, it is a good way to spend ￥100 as sometimes you can get it first go if the machine hasn’t payed out for a long time.

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The classic grab game – “UFO Catcher”

Fun Rating:	(3.0 / 5)
Difficulty:	(5.0 / 5)
Frustration:	(5.0 / 5)
Money Grabbing:	(5.0 / 5)

In the SEGA game centers particularly, the classic “UFO Catcher” games are often stacked machines deep, filled with the latest anime figures for both boys and girls (usually boys of course). One section of the game center will have all the action anime like “Dragon Ball Z” and “One Piece”, and in another section will be all the big-breasted, scantily clothed, barely legal, semi-porn figures of late night anime. The method to obtain the prize is mostly the same and does not involve “grabbing” the prize with the pincers.

So how to you actually get the prize? “When Japan” hates these types of prize games as the prize is prone to landing in a position that makes winning impossible, and you often don’t seem to make any progress from try to try, which can get frustrating. If you want some tactics, then try the video below which shows the basics. Don’t think however that you can get the prize in just ￥300 because you can’t. The guy who did that video had the machine set to a strong setting on purpose. Usually the pincers are set so weak they can barely lift the box and you end up just having to nudge it a bit at a time. Remember that these figures are worth ￥1500-￥3000 so you will be forced to spend more than that on average.

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There are many, many types of games (if you avoid SEGA game centers) however this article is getting a bit long already. Head over to part two for some interesting, rarer variations.