# The Story of Alan 1, Games, Inspiration, and History with James Anderson | Ep 182

**Source:** Indie Arcade Wave  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2026-02-03  
**Duration:** 32m 13s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g5Cw9z9MNc

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## Analysis

James Anderson, CEO of Allen One, discusses the company's origin story stemming from fixing vector arcade monitors at his arcade Flynn's Retrocade in Roy, Utah, and their evolution into publishing Atari Recharge arcade games and the Aven Knights cabinet system. Allen One has developed a platform combining indie games with haptic feedback mechanics (knockers, shakers, fans) and created Major League Esports (MLES), a tournament circuit with prize pools and competitive ranking systems. The company is launching multiple new Atari Recharge titles and planning a major showcase at Amusement Expo 2025 in Las Vegas.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Allen One solved vector arcade monitor heat issues by moving transistors off the Wells Gardner monitor onto a larger heat sink with a fan, preventing deflection board failures. — _James Anderson explaining the technical foundation of Allen One's first product during the interview._
- [HIGH] Allen One has a partnership with Atari to produce 10 Atari Recharge arcade games (exclusive arcade versions different from console versions) including Breakout Recharged, Caverns of Mars Recharged, Yars Recharged, and Gravitar Recharged. — _James Anderson detailing the Atari games lineup and noting Atari gave them access to original code to modify while keeping game spirit intact._
- [HIGH] Major League Esports (MLES) is a free-to-enter competitive league for arcade games with daily, monthly, and special event tournaments, where top 8 players are flown to championship events at company expense. — _James Anderson explaining MLES structure, which won an IAPA brass ring innovation award in 2024._
- [HIGH] Allen One's Aven Knights cabinet system uses a custom Video Arcade System board (VAS) with USB connectivity to run Windows or proprietary Linux-based 'oneOS' to provide haptic feedback (knockers, shakers, fans, LEDs) for indie Unity games. — _James Anderson demonstrating the custom hardware and SDK for indie developers to add physical feedback to digital games._
- [HIGH] Allen One met with Atari's Cassandra Ross and Dave Paige after publishing Aven Knights exclusively on the Atari VCS, which led to the broader Atari Recharge licensing deal. — _James Anderson explaining how the Atari partnership was initiated through prior Atari VCS publishing._
- [HIGH] Aven Knights will be releasing on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation in addition to arcade cabinets. — _James Anderson stating the multi-platform console release plans alongside arcade focus._
- [HIGH] Allen One is planning to announce three new games not yet publicly revealed, including an unannounced Unreal Engine project launching in November with developer partnership. — _James Anderson mentioning he cannot announce the new games but confirming they exist and one uses Unreal Engine._
- [HIGH] Flynn's Retrocade in Roy, Utah (James Anderson's original arcade venue) generates 'a couple thousand every month' and survived the COVID-19 pandemic closure. — _James Anderson discussing his original arcade venue that inspired Allen One's founding._

### Notable Quotes

> "Allen one is the password for um Tron when he goes to the input output temple and he takes the disc and he raises his hands and he says Allen one that's how he accesses the users in the outside world"
> — **James Anderson**, ~12:30
> _Explains the thematic origin of the company name rooted in Tron film lore, establishing the company's creative inspiration and brand identity._

> "we just didn't I wanted to keep the games on and I felt like there's got to be newer tech to solve the problem from the 1980s"
> — **James Anderson**, ~4:45
> _Core motivation for Allen One's founding—solving practical arcade preservation problems with modern technology._

> "even though some people don't like Atari, don't think it really exists anymore, I still think it does in spirit"
> — **James Anderson**, ~32:00
> _Philosophical perspective on Atari's relevance and his commitment to preserving the brand's legacy for new generations._

> "we have to kind of do both so distributors take you seriously. And once we started doing that and had some introduce some FEC ticket games, now we're having more distributors buy our Atari games, too."
> — **James Anderson**, ~41:30
> _Reveals market strategy shift: Allen One learned to balance indie/hardcore games with family entertainment center redemption games to appeal to operators and distributors._

> "it cost you nothing to compete or to play in. It's just the more you play, the more league points you earn depending on how you ranked in that tournament"
> — **James Anderson**, ~26:30
> _Key feature of MLES competitive system—free-to-play model designed to drive repeat venue visits and engagement._

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| James Anderson | person | CEO of Allen One, former full-time dentist, founder of Flynn's Retrocade arcade in Roy, Utah. Drives company vision around arcade preservation, indie game publishing, and competitive esports platforms. |
| Allen One | company | Arcade game publisher and cabinet manufacturer specializing in Atari Recharge games, Aven Knights multi-platform game/cabinet system, and Major League Esports competitive platform. Based in Utah. |
| Flynn's Retrocade | venue | Classic arcade venue in Roy, Utah opened by James Anderson next to his dental office. Inspired Allen One's founding and serves as headquarters for MLES tournaments. |
| Aven Knights | game | Indie arcade game by Allen One featuring eight-player competitive gameplay inspired by Joust and Night Squad. Released on Atari VCS first, now coming to Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation. Features haptic feedback cabinet system. |
| Atari | company | Licensed partner for 10 Atari Recharge arcade games. Gave Allen One access to original game code to create exclusive arcade-specific versions. Includes Breakout Recharged, Caverns of Mars Recharged, Yars Recharged, Gravitar Recharged, and others. |
| Major League Esports (MLES) | organization | Free-to-enter competitive tournament circuit created by Allen One with daily, monthly, and special events. Top 8 players flown to annual championship at company expense. Won IAPA brass ring innovation award in 2024. Third championship scheduled for Amusement Expo 2025 in Las Vegas. |
| Cassandra Ross | person | Atari executive who connected Allen One with broader Atari partnership opportunities after their Aven Knights Atari VCS publication. |
| Dave Paige | person | Atari team member involved in Aven Knights Atari VCS publishing and subsequent Atari Recharge licensing partnership with Allen One. |
| Joe | person | Host of 'Today in the Scene' podcast by Indie Arcade Wave. Conducts the interview with James Anderson and plans to cover Amusement Expo 2025. |
| Asteroids Recharged | game | Atari Recharge arcade game published by Allen One with exclusive arcade version different from console version. Featured at IAPA and will be at Amusement Expo 2025. |
| Missile Command Recharged | game | Atari Recharge arcade game published by Allen One with exclusive arcade version. Part of MLES competitive platform. |
| Breakout Recharged | game | Upcoming Atari Recharge arcade game by Allen One featuring 'Mirror FX' or 'Halo FX' Pepper's Ghost cabinet design with floating blocks. Contains Easter egg written in ASCII code. Debuting at Amusement Expo 2025. |
| Caverns of Mars Recharged | game | Upcoming Atari Recharge arcade game by Allen One, exclusive arcade version debuting at Amusement Expo 2025. |
| Yars Recharged | game | Upcoming Atari Recharge arcade game by Allen One, exclusive arcade version debuting at Amusement Expo 2025. |
| Gravitar Recharged | game | Atari Recharge arcade game by Allen One currently being polished. Features system-level update capability via settings mode. Will be at Amusement Expo 2025. |
| Amusement Expo 2025 | event | Major industry tradeshow in Las Vegas where Allen One will showcase seven arcade cabinets including all new Atari Recharge games, conduct MLES Championship #3, and offer booth space to indie developers. |
| Compulsive Pinball | company | Pinball distribution and operation company sponsoring the podcast. Offers Stern pinball sales and routing services on East Coast and Orlando. Joe (podcast host) will be attending Amusement Expo with Compulsive Pinball. |
| Jeff | person | Arcade Hollywood operator who will be present at Amusement Expo 2025 MLES Championship broadcast. |
| Nolan Bushnell | person | Atari co-founder. James Anderson met with him in 2020. Bushnell reportedly regrets selling Atari and attempted to repurchase it, believing it was mismanaged. |
| Indie Arcade Wave | organization | Podcast and media outlet producing 'Today in the Scene' series. Joe is host. Covers arcade industry, pinball, and arcade developer news. |
| Johnny | person | Early collaborator with James Anderson at Flynn's Retrocade who helped troubleshoot vector monitor heat issues every three months. |
| Jerry | person | Early collaborator with James Anderson at Flynn's Retrocade who helped troubleshoot vector monitor deflection board issues. |
| Soda Slam | game | Allen One FEC-style game. Has Dr. Pepper licensed version and Liquid Death licensed version. Uses DSM Arcade technology in partnership. |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Arcade hardware preservation and vector monitor repair, Atari licensing and Recharge game series for arcade cabinets, Indie game development platforms and haptic feedback arcade systems, Competitive esports tournaments for arcade games (MLES)
- **Secondary:** Arcade industry business models and operator/distributor relationships, FEC (Family Entertainment Center) ticket games and redemption mechanics, Atari legacy and brand revitalization in modern arcade market, Amusement Expo 2025 showcase and industry participation

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — James Anderson is enthusiastic and proud of Allen One's achievements. Tone is collaborative, passionate about arcade preservation and indie game development. No negative sentiment detected toward competitors or industry figures. Respectful toward Atari despite acknowledging mismanagement history. Optimistic about future growth and market opportunities.

### Signals

- **[product_launch]** Allen One planning to debut multiple new Atari Recharge arcade cabinets at Amusement Expo 2025 including Breakout Recharged, Caverns of Mars Recharged, Yars Recharged, and Gravitar Recharged. (confidence: high) — James Anderson confirming seven 32-inch classic arcade cabinets will be showcased with new games polished and ready.
- **[licensing_signal]** Allen One has partnership with Atari for 10 exclusive Recharge arcade games with modified code and features not available on console versions. (confidence: high) — James Anderson stating 'Atari gave us access to all the code' and detailing exclusive arcade modifications including Easter eggs.
- **[business_signal]** Allen One shifted from indie-only focus to include FEC ticket games and redemption-style games to appeal to operators and distributors, increasing appeal of their Atari game lineup. (confidence: high) — James Anderson: 'And once we started doing that and had some introduce some FEC ticket games, now we're having more distributors buy our Atari games, too.'
- **[event_signal]** Allen One hosting Major League Esports Championship #3 at Amusement Expo 2025 in Las Vegas with live broadcast, top 8 player finals, and industry showcase of new arcade games. (confidence: high) — James Anderson confirming third championship event will be at Amusement Expo with live broadcast on YouTube/Twitter/Twitch and press coverage.
- **[machine_intel]** Allen One has three new unreleased games in development that cannot yet be announced, including one Unreal Engine project launching November 2024 with external developer partnership. (confidence: high) — James Anderson: 'we have a a project in November. We'll we'll incorporate into a new game that I can't announce, but it's a popular one that the developers reached out to us.'
- **[technology_signal]** Allen One developed 'oneOS' proprietary Linux-based operating system and custom SDK for Unity games to enable haptic feedback integration (knockers, shakers, fans, LEDs) in arcade cabinets. (confidence: high) — James Anderson detailing VAS (Video Arcade System) board with PDU unit, IOP board, USB connectivity, and 'oneOS' system that boots directly to game with no Windows/Linux logos visible.
- **[competitive_signal]** MLES tournament platform won IAPA brass ring innovation award in 2024 for unique player engagement mechanics including cross-venue score tracking, push notifications for score challenges, and ATP-style ranking system. (confidence: high) — James Anderson: 'we won it. And it was because that when somebody uh beats your score in the tournament, whatever that tournament is you're playing in, you'll get a ping on your phone.'
- **[product_strategy]** Aven Knights releasing across arcade cabinets, Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation, positioning it as both arcade and console game. (confidence: high) — James Anderson: 'we do have a console digital download arm too but that's minor compared to our love for physical cabinets but to answer your question that's how Allen one was born.'
- **[personnel_signal]** James Anderson transitioned from full-time dentist to full-time CEO of Allen One to focus on arcade game publishing and preservation business. (confidence: high) — James Anderson: 'A couple years ago I was a full-time dentist and I stepped away from all that now. I'm now full-time here at CEO of Allen One.'
- **[venue_signal]** Flynn's Retrocade in Roy, Utah has survived COVID-19 closures and generates several thousand dollars monthly despite inconsistent profitability, serving as headquarters and tournament venue for MLES. (confidence: high) — James Anderson: 'It survived CO. It's still around. Makes a couple thousand every month. I mean, it's just sometimes it just breaks even, but it's a lot of fun.'
- **[industry_signal]** Arcade bars and indie game spaces are opening and succeeding at increased rates. Allen One positioning to serve this growing market with both classic and new content. (confidence: medium) — Joe noting 'We're seeing a resurgence. We're seeing a lot popping up and we're seeing arcade bars everywhere that are that are continuing to open and succeed.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Allen One's core design philosophy integrates haptic feedback (knockers, shakers, fans) into modern indie games to create physical arcade-like experiences with digital game depth. (confidence: high) — James Anderson detailing Aven Knights' haptic elements: 'We have fans that blow on your hand when you're flapping your Avenite bird. We have um shaker motors that go off when something blows up in asteroids.'

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## Transcript

Hey yo, welcome everyone to Today in the Scene by Indie Arcade Wave. I'm Joe, your host, and here on In the Scene, we dive into what's happening in the arcade space from new arcade developers, arcade owners and operators, pinball, and just news in the space in general. Now, a while back, we did an interview about Aven Knights and Allen One, which was in the very early days of Allen One. Now, they're working with Atari. They've got a whole bunch of Atari remastered games coming out, and we've got the CEO, James Anderson, with us. How you doing, James?
Good, Joe. Good to finally see you online here. Great to meet you. back at IAP. It was fun hanging out.
Yeah, it was awesome hanging out and seeing the games and finally meeting for meeting in person for the first time. Um, and now we get to dive a little bit more into the story and and talk about all the new games you got coming out. So, let's just jump into who is James Anderson and how did you get into the arcade space in the first place?
Like I said before, thanks Joe for having me on and I'm a big fan. I appreciate the work that you do and I hope that your listeners find value in what we're talking about today. Um, you know, but before I go there, you've got quite the life. I understand you travel all over and you do these podcasts everywhere throughout. You camp and you stay and you just have a lot of fun everywhere throughout life and you're doing it right, man. You're doing it right.
Yeah, it's fun. I'm enjoying it.
Uh, thanks. Thank you again for having us on and I really appreciate you. A couple years ago interviewing Luke and the guys and at that time I was a full-time dentist and I stepped away from all that now. I'm now full-time here at CEO of Allen One. Having fun, building fun. That's our mantra. You know, we we just um it started because I built a classic arcade next to my dental office. We had a bunch of games in my basement. You know, it's everybody's story. It's very common. We're hoarding these games and they need a home. They're supposed to be played. We opened up a smaller arcade. It's still live. It survived CO. It's still around. Makes a couple thousand every month. I mean, it's just sometimes it just breaks even, but it's a lot of fun. Brings a lot of joy. It's in Roy, Utah. It's called Flynn's Retrocade. Allen one was born through Flynn's Retrocade. Uh when we opened, the day we opened, our vector games were all down. Does that sound familiar to most of us? Like, they go down all the time, every three months when they're on six days a week, seven days a week. Like, it's a problem. The heat kills it. Uh and I had some buddies who I got to know, Johnny and Jerry. came over and every three every three months we were at the arcade uh when it was closed fixing the deflection boards, replacing the bottle caps. Nine times out of 10 that's what we were doing. So Flynn's was Allen one was born to solve the vector problem. like we I just didn't I wanted to keep the games on and I felt like there's got to be newer tech to solve the problem from the 1980s that that you know caused the vector color vector monitors to kind of go out prematurely and there's just not a better game than a color vector from Atari in my opinion. Sega's got some cool stuff too.
And so Allan one was born. This is one of our first products. We we built this custom we took the transistors the bottle caps off of the Wells Gardener monitor. I mean, that's the it's aluminum. It's a terrible heat sink. Like, it doesn't work and those things blow. And we, you know, is is it the low voltage 2000? Is that is it the low voltage is causing the problem? Is it something else? Well, we really didn't know. We just wanted to throw the everything in the kitchen sink at the problem. And we realized this is it. Once we took the transistors off of the monitor and put them behind a fan with a super large heat sink, um, and then plug it into a repaired deflection board. All of a sudden, your vector game lasts forever. It never goes out. The deflection board won't go out. Something on the AV, you know, the AV chip might go out or you might have the AR2 board might go out. Big blue might go out. Something may else something else will go wrong, but your deflection board will always hum. We solved it by accident. We didn't even realize. We thought the problem was on the main board. So, we even built a main board. I mean, this is the box for our main board. And that's another piece we have. I'll show you right here, Joe. This is the real hobby here. But this is the foundation of how Allen One, you know, started and why we exist. We love Atari. We wanted to keep these Atari games alive. We did not want to see any more vector monitors turn into LCD screens. And so, you know, we first thought it was just the deflection board. We have our own deflection board. The heat sinks are a lot bigger. We even put some pots to make the deflection board um so you could you could control X and Y without going to the main board. So we upgraded a little bit um to control some of the screen on on on site. But the real solution was this and Allen one was born. The next thing we did is we made some Star Wars yolks to replace the yolks that were going bad in my favorite game, Star Wars uh sitdown cockpit. We put aluminum gears instead of plastic gears. We sold a bunch of them. We got some partners in Taiwan and built the whole thing. And a lot of people thought we were RAM controls at first. Some stuff. We're not. We're just guys trying to have fun, build fun. And that was the genesis of Allen One. That's why we exist. That led to Aven Nights. Avian Knights led to the Atari stuff. We can talk more about that, but that's why we're here. Even the name Allen one, Joe, do you know where that comes from? Yeah, we were talking about it at App. It's all It's all Tron. Everything you do is like Tron related. It's all in that original movie. It's all in that universe. And I I love that that the theme holds true the whole way through.
We're inspired by I mean, even the little discs on our logo, you know, but but it's not it's just inspiration. We're not ripping anything off. We're just having a lot of fun. Allen one is the password for um Tron when he goes to the input output temple and he takes the disc and he raises his hands and he says Allen one
that's how he accesses the users in the outside world and you know our first mantra was we fight for the users
every game counts is another one that we use because of our major league esports that we have I don't know it's just been a journey Joe an expensive one but a fun one [laughter]
yeah I mean you're learning as you go you're fixing problems that you know, I mean, in the arcade, you you dealt with problems that were a headache for you. You know, you're talking every 3 months. You're fixing these vector screens. So, now you're not doing that all the time. It's it frees up time and
you solved a problem for yourself that probably solves for a lot of other collectors. Hey guys, quick break. If you want to support the channel, one of the best ways to do that is purchasing your next pinball through Compulsive Pinball. They're helping bring some amazing Stern pinballs to players everywhere. And the next game that they're releasing, you're not going to want to miss. Whether you're looking to add a machine to your home collection or you're an arcade owner or operator, Compulsive Pinball has you covered. They offer special pricing for operators and can handle routing operations for businesses all over the East Coast as well as down in Orlando, Florida. Check out compulsive pinball.com for your next Stern and let them know that you heard about them from Indie Arcade. Um, let's let's talk about the the early games, right? I mean, obviously we got uh we got Aven Nights and it moved into Atari. Like, how did all that progress? because that's what I spoke to Luke about last time was was just the Aven.
Avian Knights. How it went. Well, um I dreamed that one up. I was going to the gym and I was like, why don't we what I was playing with virtual pinball and I built my own virtual pinball machine. It was so cool. I we got a a for a wide bed widebody pinball game and some a great hobbyist put it together for me. And then I put the monitor in the 40-in whatever and I put all the pinball toys in. And and I for about a year I was just fascinated by virtual pinball. How you could get all these tables with hyperspin too and the interface and and then you could attach selenoids that would fire when you push the buttons and give you some haptic feedback like you were playing on an Xbox controller or something inside the pinball machine, a virtual pinball with some haptic feedback. And then you could do some bells and some whistles and some large shaker motors and some fans. There's all of it's there. Pinball knockers too. All tri trigger triggered digitally through this, you know, h virtual pinball interface. And I don't know, I put 250 tables on it. Had a lot of fun playing with it. And I thought, wouldn't it be cool to do something like that for Unity? Like Cubert had a pinball knocker that went off. It's the only game I remember in the 80s that had anything pinball related inside the game. It fell off and Ed Boon, it was just cute, right? First time you you felt that like, oh, what? Oh, that's cool. He fell off in the bottom of the cabinet. I thought, well, they're already doing it with virtual pinball. Why don't we build a system? This is why AB Knights was born. Why don't we build a system to take virtual pinball into the indie scene where we could build games using Unity and eventually Unreal Engine too? Like our SDK doesn't work for that yet, but it does work for Unity. But that is the plan. We have a a project in November. We'll we'll incorporate into a new game that I can't announce, but it's a popular one that the developers reached out to us and they're partnering with us. That's one thing we hope that we accomplish in this podcast is we want to help people release their own games. If you're an indie publisher and you want to make a game, we'll make it with you. We'll be your publisher. We'll build the cabinet with you, put our stuff in, you know, one-offs here and there. We'll make it a win-win all around. But, um, uh, so we designed this board we call the video arcade system. That's a a play on the video computer system from Atari. And we even use the same edge connectors that Atari used back in the day. This is a three-player version. And uh the power comes from a power supply. And we we have our own custom power kit here. I'll show you. This goes the back of the cabinet. So all you need to turn any indie game into a haptic feedback whatever fun virtual T uh T- molding LED light it up if you want to. fans blowing bells whistle shaker motor shaking whenever the game goes is these two pieces are these two pieces this this PDU unit we call it and then our IOP board this has a USB connector that goes into two of them that goes into a a PC it'll run off of Windows we have our own operating system that runs off Linux we call it the one OS so our games are just Unity games um with a Linux build with all of our SDK K stuff inside of Unity to fire off all this cool virtual pinball stuff. We have a pinball knocker that goes off when you get a high score, for instance. We have fans that blow on your hand when you're flapping your Avenite bird. You We have um shaker motors that go off when something blows up in asteroids, when you blow off a an asteroid, you know. Um, it's just Aven Nights led to the Atari deal and I Aven Nights was born because I wanted to make the hardware like interact with the user. We felt like that was the next thing and I wanted an easy way to do it and then make it available to everyone in the indie scene. Like if you want to build something, I would love it to be exclusive through you Joe where they together we do it and you sell their games and whatever. Like we can make it a win-win for everybody. If you're interested, you know, reach out to Joe, reach out to me. we can make some magic happen. But um Aven Nights was then created to make this work. Joust was always one of my favorite games inspired by Joust. But a g there's a game on Xbox called uh it's an eight player game called Night Squad. Have you ever played that before, Joe?
I haven't played that one. No.
It's cool. It's a I got six kids, you know, family guy, dad, been married 30 years, and just fun. And we get together at night, all eight of us sometimes on a Sunday, we just play this Night Squad or other eight player games. There aren't very many of them. And I thought, would it be fun to make another game like Night Squad, but like Joust? And I was also inspired by, you know, Killer Queen. And but I wanted to be an eight player shooter there where we had different weapons like Aven Knights and and the birds can have like different powerups where you can upgrade your bird and some birds can shoot fire out of their mouth and you can shoot uh thunderbolts and whatever and shake your like we added all sorts of cool little features too much for an arcade game I think but perfect for a console and at first you know we we released it on Steam and now we're about to release it on Nintendo Switch and Xbox and PlayStation so we do have a console digital download arm too but that's minor compared to our love for physical cabinets but to answer your question that's how Allen one was born we wanted to build something fun that [clears throat] incorporated virtual pinball stuff in a modern indiepired game.
Yeah, I think that's that's great. I mean, it really is you guys trying to propel the the independently developed games space forward, you know, giving people the hardware, giving people potential option for manufacturing, giving people uh a platform to also show their stuff off. And that kind of leads into, we'll talk about like all the Atari stuff in a little bit, but that leads into like the MLES. Like I think I think that's a pretty cool platform and that's something that you guys have been working on and developing and growing quite a bit. We we spoke about it a lot at IAPA and um that's something that you know I'm going to be involved with when we go to amusement expo with you guys. So tell us a little bit about like what the MLES is and and what uh like why you guys built it and what purpose it shares for the for the development space. So, you know, when I was a kid in wood shop, seventh grade, I built when you after you're done with your projects where I went to school, you could build your own like hobby project. And I built a high score table. It had I got my word burner out and it put Atari on it and I put this laminated thing and it had like 30 pot spots for scores. I still have it in my arcade home arcade at home downstairs in the basement there. I still have it. That was so many years ago. There's something about the thrill of competition that I just love. High scoreboards like to me that's fun. I want to compete. I want to win. I want to go, you know, I like sports. Playing anything is a competition. You can have a ball or a digital ball. Like it's, you know, you got to have both maybe, I think, to stay balanced. But it's just fun to compete against your friends and your family and, you know, hyper casual stuff. And I I was in Germany at a Gamescom convention before. Have you ever been out there to see what that's like? And I have you ever taken a tour there? You got to go. We got to go next year, Joe.
Yeah, I haven't. I haven't done
Oh, man. It'll be a great podcast. There's a lot of in It's It's not indie. Like, there are a bunch of indie developers that are there that could turn their games into great arcade cabinets for sure, but it's primarily focused on consoles. And I I don't know, it was three years ago, four years ago, I was there and I saw this esports event sponsored by Snapdragon, I think, and it had Monster in the back and they were one of the sponsors and then they had these announcers like it was we were watching a football game. I was fascinated. I could I've never seen anything like it. I just sat there and thought, man, I've been drilling too many teeth for the last 20 years that this is what's what's been going on. This is amazing to me. And I just sat there and thought, "How can we do this for arcade games? This is amazing." And they had two teams. They were competing and one person, you know, teams were, you could see them on the big screen, but they were these players. And I thought, why don't we build is part of what we're doing with with a Knights. Let's experiment with a whole new competition league that'll be free. We'll call it Major League Essor League Soccer and Major League Baseball, Major League Rugby, Major League. I thought this fits nicely. Major League Esports and um let's see if we can build something that allows people to compete against each other. But instead of focusing on like who has the highest score, let's make a bunch of tournaments, daily tournaments, monthly tournaments, and special event tournaments. And let's let's take a page out of the tennis club, tennis world, where in tennis they you know you the more matches you play, the more points you get, and your ATP ranking is all based on who you played and how many times you played. And I thought that would be fun for an arcade like ecosystem. Let's let's make it so that you play more. When you play more, you actually earn more league points. And the top eight players will bring them at our expense to Flynn's Retro Cade. That was the first venue. This will be our third year we've done it. This year we're doing it in Las Vegas at the American Amusement Expo. And I know you're coming. Excited about that. Um we got our eight top eight champions all locked in for this year already. We just did a press release today. I think you can go look it up to see who's coming. But we give away $5,000 for player number one and then two and a half thousand for the second player. Again, this cost you nothing to compete or to play in. It's just the more you play, the more league points you earn depending on how you ranked in that tournament. It's all controlled by an app. You just log in and scan in with a QR code before you play and it knows who you are. It knows where you rank. and we won an IAPA brass ring in 2024 for this tech. I didn't even know the brass rings existed. We weren't shooting for that. We're grateful for Tony and the folks at ABS. They said, "Hey, you should apply for that. We think you guys got a shot." And we won it. And it was because that when somebody uh beats your score in the tournament, whatever that tournament is you're playing in, you'll get a ping on your phone a week later or two weeks later or whenever that score gets beat saying, "Hey, so and so just beat your score. you better go back to Flynn's Retrocade or wherever you beat the game and play again and beat it back. Like that pull out to players to come back to the bar arcade or wherever you are was something new that IA and the guys there thought, "Hey, this is cool. Let's give these guys an innovation award and we're grateful for all of that." That's all included in our kit. So, if you decide to have us help publish one of your games, we include that in. You can become a part of our ecosystem. And right now we got we have Aven Nights, Asteroids Recharge, Missile Command Recharge, Soda Slam, Dr. Pepper Soda Slam, Liquid Death Soda Slam that's a part of all that, including three new games we haven't announced yet, Joe. So this is new. This will be your your exclusive right here coming from Indie W coming from Joe. Uh, we have a a breakout recharged um with we call it mirror FX or Halo FX with the Pepper's Ghost cabinet design like Tato did for asteroids where the blocks are floating in front of a background with two screens rather than cardboard. We also have a a Caverns of Mars recharged and a Yars Recharge. Now, these games are not the same. We have a Gravitar recharge, too. Also, these games are not the same games that you can buy for 10 bucks on the console. Atara gave us access to all the code. Jason and the team there allows us to modify whatever we think we need as long as we keep the spirit of the game intact. And we add Easter eggs. We add new codes. Like for Breakout Recharged, we added an Easter egg written in asky code at the bottom of the thing. I can't I won't tell you what it is, but they love it. You know, we're Atari nerds and at heart and and these games aren't the same. They're newer versions. They're designed for an arcade machine. um they run on our our platform and exclusive to what we do. Uh Avit's got us that. You asked earlier, Joe, how did we get the deal? We met with Cassandra. You know, I they reached out to us because uh of their Atari VCS. We published Aven Nights exclusively first on the Atari VCS. I know that platform is being retired, but you know, we like Atari, so we published it there. And Dave Paige and the guys said, "Hey, you should meet Cassandra." Um, we think you guys are having fun and we'd love to make some more stuff with you and maybe you can find some licensing that works and and we did and we're grateful for the partnership. So, we have 10 Atari Recharge games. Again, they're different. They're not the same games. They're special arcade versions. We could call them Supercharge, you know, they're different, but um, we keep the same mantra to keep it all intact, but it the end of the day, it's been a wonderful relationship. We hope it continues for years to come. Making new things with new IP, not just the Recharge series, but if anybody has any fun game they want to make with Atari, we can make some introductions for you. Happy to do all that. You can take it or we could publish it and and and parlay our relationship with with the team over there to see if we can get a licensing deal. But, you know, at the end of the day, Joe, even though some people don't like Atari, don't think it really exists anymore, I still think it does in spirit. And I met with Nolan Bushnell um back in 2020. He regrets selling Atari. He tried to buy it back. Um he thinks it was mismanaged, but it's still there at heart and all the memories that we made are still there for guys like us and we just want to have a whole new generation experience what we did back in the day, innovating on fun concepts that are familiar with many.
Yeah. I mean, I love that. But I think Atari is awesome. They've had so many good games in the past and they're trying to revitalize. They're trying to bring something new. I mean, even we worked on Food Fight Frenzy, you know, we got the classic license. We turned it into a four player. Like they're trying to find more people that that want to revitalize these license and want to do something new and creative with the space and
and really re bring the bring the arcade back, right? Like we're seeing a resurgence. We're seeing a lot popping up and we're seeing arcade bars everywhere that are that are continuing to open and succeed. So, um, you're seeing it in the pinball space, too. I mean, you're you're talking about MLES, like that's a lot like the Stern Insider Connected thing, right? You need you need the modern tech to bring people to the older stuff, and that's how you introduce this younger generation and and hopefully, you know, things keep moving forward and people continue to be interested in these spaces and we see more more all ages spaces open up because a lot of them are arcade bars. But, um, let's talk a little bit about amusement expo, right? Like, this is something that I'm super excited for. I'm going out there with Compulsive Pinball. Um, so I'm gonna be, you know, checking stuff out and working a little bit, but also, you know, hanging out at your booth and the Allen one booth. And one thing that I I sent out in the Discord that I absolutely love is you said, you know, anybody that needs a booth space, just reach out like indie guys, let's bring you in here. Let's let's get some more indie games in the space. So,
kind of tell us what your plan is for Amusement Expo.
Well, we've got, like I said earlier, we've got um all of our new Atari games. We'll have a total of seven, I think, six. seven with Alien Knights, asteroids recharged, missile command recharged, gravitar recharged, which we're just polishing up. Um, we've released it, but our system has built-in updates, so we can, and that's all part of our SDK. We have a settings switch. You flip a button and it goes right into settings mode. You know, there is no Windows logo that loads up. When you turn on the machine, an All-in-One logo appears. You don't see any Linux, anything. It's just super super tight. And uh it feels like an 80s arcade machine. Never crashes, no overhead. So you flip the switch, you go to settings mode, and then you go to automatic updates, and it'll pull down any update that's already out there. And so we can push new updates easily to all of our guys. Um and so we we plan on bringing the gravitar recharged, our new breakout recharged, cav mars recharged, and yards recharged. And then eight and nine. So, we have those seven 32-in classic style arcade cabinets. And then we have our butts on things cranes. It's just a cute little thing. We licensed it from a guy 10 years ago. He made these things. What we've learned is there has to be a combo between the classic stuff and the new stuff that the kids like. Dad needs something to do when the kids are putting quarters and cranes. And and distributors need to make money, operators need to make money. They don't make as much money on indie stuff as they do and what we're doing, but it plays an important role in the arcade because it gives dad something to do when the kids are putting money in 10-second little redemption spin the wheel games. But yeah, we've learned that you got to kind of do both. And once we introduced a couple of games like that, our Dr. Pepper Soda Slam, you know, um, and our Liquid Death and in conjunction with DSM Arcade [snorts] and all those guys over there. They're great. Uh, we've licensed their tech and we work it with them and it's all it's all officially licensed. But like Dan and he's great and now he's a friend of yours, too. um that that all of a sudden we're able to make these experiences that people can have and distributors now take us seriously because we actually have some cranes that we're doing that are all licensed and we have these larger FEC style games that are just 60-second games that you know Joe you and I wouldn't really be interested in those as much as the kids are but they want tickets and so we've learned we have to kind of there's a reason why Eugene Jarvis and Roths makes the kinds of games they do he made Robbitron for heaven's sake like he's so good. Um the what we learned is you have to kind of do both so distributors take you seriously. And once we started doing that and had some introduce some FBC ticket games, now we're having more distributors buy our Atari games, too. It's interesting. I never thought we would have to do both, but we do and we will continue to do both as we grow, you know, all one hopefully filling a need that has been underserved. So at IAPA, we're going to have our cranes, we're going to have our Dr. pepper stuff. We're going to have if we get we have two more new games I can't announce yet that are FC style games. One is a um an Atari recharged game that's a bigger cabinet that's a showstopper. We hope to have it done. If not, it'll be released in IPA. And then we have another ticket game that that creates that actually gives you stickers, too, when you play the game. Kids love stickers. So, we've got that there to demo. All the while, we're putting we're actually hosting our Major League Essports Championship event number three for 2025 and 26. We'll fly in our top eight champions and it'll all be broadcast live. Uh Jeff from Arcade Hollywood's going to be there, too. And again, we hope that you're there broadcasting as much as you can, too. Uh it'll be on YouTube and Twitter or Twitch. Um, and we we just hope to show that look, there's a bunch of guys like us out there that love to have fun, don't take ourselves too seriously, and these new games have the spirit of the old, but are just better, um, more interesting, more engaging. So, we'll have that event. We'll give our winning trophies. We'll we'll take a bunch of photographs. We'll do some press releases. We'll have press there hopefully more to others, even some traditional media. All the while we just uh sell cabinets to distributors and show them what is possible now in the indie scene. You guys can buy this stuff, make a little room in your FEC kind of on the corner there for dad next to the pinball machines. Um put all the indie stuff over there too that still engage and have LED lights and bring dad over. But you know, it won't be your biggest earner, but it'll help your game room earn more. So that's what we're doing. That's what we're demoing. We hope it's a great success. Yeah, I love it. I'm I'm super excited for Amusement Expo and I'm excited for the tournament and and the live stream and that's cool that you just mentioned Jeff from Arcade Hollywood. I I hung out with him at uh Pinball Expo. I haven't talked to him since so that'll be cool to see him there. Um and yeah, I'm I'm I'm excited to see the new games because I think you had four you had four games including Aven Nights, I believe, at Aappa. Um and then all the the butts on stuff, cranes and all that. That's hilarious. I love that. Um,
so it'll be cool to see kind of where you guys have come and I mean it's going to be a couple months. So I mean
yeah was that four months, five months to see kind of what has has grown since the last time I saw the booth.
Um yeah I mean that's that's pretty much all I had for you James. So just go ahead shout out social medias websites where can people find you and how can they support Allen1.
Thanks a lot. Visit our website allen-1.com alan.com. You can see it spelled there. Um, and then all of our social media tags are there. Uh, you know, we hope that you join our Discord, too. You can find our link to Discord. Join it there. Ask us questions, engage with us, give us ideas, uh, give us feedback. if there we still make these retro parts like we we just released a an arcade or a transistor upgrade kit for the Sega GO8 just like we have for our Wells Gardener because those Star Wars captain chairs go out not every three months but every six weeks because of how hot those are. This solves the problem too. a little more difficult to install, but you know, anyone that can anyone that can uh swap out some RAM on a PC can do this, too. Um, and we just want to ensure that we're supporting the community. Having fun, building fun, the mantra, and we hope you have fun, too. So, we we want to help you. We want to support you. Really, that's what we're about. We want to make people's lives better. We can make yours better, too. Reach out. See see what kind of magic we can make together. Thanks a lot, Joe. Awesome. Thanks for coming on, James. I really appreciate your time. For anyone that's interested in any of this stuff, I'll have a link down in the description. I do have an affiliate code if you want to support the channel. That helps me out, helps James out, helps you out. We all win in that situation. Um, and uh, if you're looking to add a new stern to your collection, your arcade, anything like that. I did partner with Compulsive Pinball, so I'll have a link down in the description for that, too. And until next time,
Joe. One more thing, Joe. One more thing, Joe, before we peace. You know, we have those new pawn cabinets that we released about eight years ago, six years ago. Those mechanical pawn cabinets. I have 250 of them over there in our warehouse and we got the license again. We found the manufacturers that are doing it and it's it's an upgrade of what was there before. We're super happy about it. If you use Joe's link, we sell them for 3,000 bucks.
Yep.
And they if you use Joe's link, Joe's gets a Joe it helps Joe too and the support. So, click on that. Go check it out. If you want something for your game room and you missed the chance six years ago for those cool mechanical pong tables, they really are something. Um, they're in stock now. We hope to always keep them in stock, but go check them out. We have some specials every now and again. And, uh, you know, add a piece to the collection. Help Joe out. Thanks, guys.
And these ones are a little bit different, too. They're they're shorter. They're more of like a sit down as opposed to the full standup cabinets, which they're they're really nice. I played one at a
That's right. So, that's the We have That's the home version that you play.
The home version. Yeah.
And we have 250 of those. They don't have any coin. It's not for a bar, arcade. Um, they actually have USB chargers and they fold up and next to have a clock. So, you put it in front of your co your couch is a coffee table and then they're 3,000 bucks and they're smaller. They're perfect. It's the size of a coffee table. Now, we do have the cocktails that are for bar arcades that are standup. Those are, you'll also see those at IP. They're being released for the first time. We have a hundred of those coming in off the boat. So, we're excited about all that. That'll be a part of our booth, too. And if you have a bar arcade and you want one of those, um, they will they will be available for the first time in six years from Alan and our distributors. So, exciting times. Thanks for reminding me about that, Joe.
Right.
Make it happen.
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks again, James. And for everyone that's still watching, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. Helps us a ton the way we'll continue to grow and we can all ride it together. And until next time, peace.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 01fc7358-7267-42e6-b804-344e01aa8170*