Poly Play

Manufacturer: VEB Polytechnik
Year: 1985
Type: Videogame

Class: Wide Release
Genre: Other
Monitor:

Orientation: Horizontal
Type: TV Monitor
CRT: Color

Conversion Class: unique
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 1
Gameplay: Single
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Controls:

Buttons: 1 [Fire]
Joystick: 8-way

Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel)

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Poly Play Description

An East German arcade machine with seven different games. It was made in the mid 1980s. It was really something quite unique considering the eastern standards back then.

Cabinet Information

The cabinet is made of chipboard with beech veneer. The craftsmanship is excellent, but you can see that it was handmade with standard parts not designed for arcade machines. The manufacturer of the cab is the VEB Raumkunst Mosel, a GDR "company" that made furniture. The cab is covered with aluminum foil on the inside for shielding. The marquee is lit by colored blinking lamps.

Game Introduction

This is a second-generation GDR arcade machine. It features seven different games: DeerHunt, Wolf and Rabbit (a Pac-Man-type game), Ski, Butterflys, Shooting Hut (Carnival clone), Car Race, and Waterpipe. The games are really simple and most are just variations of preexisting games. Due to the character animation, the scrolling effects are like those of early PCs and terminals with text-only displays.

When being switched-on, the machine shows a text menu in which you can choose the games. Instead of an attract mode with sound and motion, it simply has a screensaver with the words "Press Button To Play" (in German, of course).

Game Play

The game play varies between games. Choose the game from the menu and press the Start button. To play, you then have to insert a coin (a token with the Poly Play logo).

VAPS Arcade Census

There are 6,993 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 4,022 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 65,237 machines (3,799 unique titles).

Very Rare - There is one known instance of this machine owned by a Poly Play collector .It is an original dedicated machine (not another machine converted with a kit).

Wanted - There is one VAPS member currently looking for Poly Play.

This game ranks a 1 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 2 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often wanted, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. [More Information]

Technical

Nothing in this game was designed specifically for arcade machines. The monitor is a GDR Television set, modified with an RGB input. Its resolution is quite good with about 60x40 chars (nearly PAL). The TV also provides sound. The computer consists of 4 PCBs, all made with russian ICs and parts. Its main processor is probably a Russian Z80 CPU. Except for the cyrillic letters, it looks like a standard early western-style arcade game. The power supply was made for other purposes and was modified for +5V and +12V.

If you look at all the parts, it is hard to believe that they were all made in the 1980s. The TV set is typical of the early 1970s, the cab looks like early 1960s; only the computer may be of the same era. From a technical standpoint, this machine used technology about ten years behind that of western manufacturers, but considering that there was no arcade business in the GDR and this was only the second arcade machine ever released with not many cabs produced, it is still quite remarkable.

The game in the picture above has the serial number 1492.

Trivia

This was the second and last arcade machine built in East Germany. Its predecessor was a Pong-like game with a standard home console in the inside. There were maybe only a few thousand of both built for the market behind the Iron Curtain.

Contribute Links

eBay Listings

Click to search eBay for Poly Play Videogame machines and related items.

Click to search eBay for machines and parts made by VEB Polytechnik.

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Photo contributed by: Zx-man

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