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<< Previous   of   Next >> Jennifer Buchanan/The Herald  (click to enlarge) Arcade game collector Dave VanDlac stands with his games at his Snohomish home. Jennifer Buchanan/The Herald  (click to enlarge) A bright green neon sign glows brightly over the entrance to Dave VanDlac's game room. Jennifer Buchanan/The Herald  (click to enlarge) The brightly colored control panel of Robotron 2084 is a graphic treat. Jennifer Buchanan/The Herald  (click to enlarge) Game art decorates the walls and ceiling while the games beep and blink on the floor.   ADVERTISEMENT   Own your own games Collector Dave VanDlac's tips on buying arcade games: Get one that works: "Nothing's worse than having something the size of a refrigerator taking up space that doesn't work." Be prepared for heavy lifting: "You always have to bring it up 15 stairs and the guy selling it to you is 80, so he's not helping. You learn to bring your hand truck." Vintage games work better than ones from big-box stores: "People buy them and pay $2,000, $3,000, $4,000. They don't know they're buying something that's going to crap out on them in a year or two. These (older) things were made to last, and that's why they're still working now."   Related Stories • On a helium high 7/6/08   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, July 6, 2008 He's got game: Snohomish man's arcade game room deserves a top score By Andy Rathbun Herald Writer It started simply enough. "I saw a Pac-Man in the paper, so I went and bought one," Dave VanDlac said. "It was broken. I fixed it and said, 'I wonder if there are any more out there?'" That was seven years ago. Now VanDlac, a Boeing inspector, has 20 arcade games in a retro-styled room of his Snohomish home. He can fit another seven -- and plans to do just that, once he finds the right machines. He prefers originals from the 1980s. Yes, he has grown a bit choosy. "I used to try and collect every one from every manufacturer," he said. "That room just wouldn't hold that many. So I was like, 'OK, Ms. Pac-(Man) or Pac-(Man)? Well, everyone likes Ms. Pac the most.'" Still, the games are a hobby, not a hang-up. VanDlac, 40, tools around on them during rainy days, or squeezes in a game before his household wakes up. During holiday gatherings, his family is more liable to get sucked into the room than he is. "Everybody just goes up there," VanDlac said. "Last Christmas, we couldn't even get everyone down to open presents." THE GAMES Machines fill the room, each bearing an iconic name: Space Invaders, Frogger, Asteroids. Finding originals can be tough, but VanDlac manages. "Q*bert is a really hard one to find nowadays," he said. "The other one is Wacko. Really rare one. Really hard to find. There are not that many around at all." He's got both of those, by the way. THE ROOM The L-shaped room that houses VanDlac's arcade began as a bonus space above the garage, albeit a difficult bonus to put to use. "We didn't know what we were going to do with it," he said. "We had it as an exercise room at one time. Another time it just had a little bit of furniture in it. Then when I started collecting these I said, 'Hey honey, I know what we can do with it.'" THE STYLE VanDlac likes vintage items. The green neon sign outside his game room once hung in a Whibdey Island arcade, he said, while the graffiti-styled art on the walls was salvaged from Seattle's now-defunct Hi-Score Arcade. "It's kind of cool keeping some nostalgia from a place that thousands of people went to," he said. Andy Rathbun, Herald Writer, arathbun@heraldnet.com, 425-339-3455

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