The Star Chamber Arcade

07/16/2026

Come join us Thursday July 16th at 6:30 pm for our Brew In Hand Split Flipper Tournament!

We're Celebrating Ohio Brew Week with a Pinball format that keeps one hand free for a drink at all times. In a split flipper tournament, we play in teams of two: one teammate works the left flipper, and the other works the right flipper. Each player must keep their spare hand off the machine at all times (can't use it to nudge or for the action button), keeping that hand free for one of our many Ohio Beers or Seltzers.

We are planning on this being a head-to-head three strikes tournament. In each round, teams face off on one machine with the losing team earning a strike. After the third strike, that team is eliminated from the tournament. Due to space restrictions, we may pivot to a single elimination bracket if we have a large turnout.

You do not need to have a teammate to register for the tournament. If you come solo, we'll match you with a partner! Players are not required to have a brew in hand during play, just to keep that hand off of the machine during play.

Costs:
Tournament Fee: $10 per person. All of this goes to the cash prize pool. Please bring cash for the tournament fee (laws are weird)
Venue Entry Fee: $10 per person. Star Chamber arcade has a flat $10 entry fee for tournament participants from the start of registration (6:00 pm) until the end of the tournament (or 9 pm, whichever is later). All machines are set to free play, no quarters necessary. Tournament players may continue to enjoy the arcade after being eliminated.

Prizes:
The cash prize pool (from the tournament fee) will be split among the top three teams as follows:
- First place: 60% of prize pool
- Second place: 30% of prize pool
- Third place: 10% of prize pool
Total prize pool is number of participants * $10

Registration and reduced entry fee begin at 6:00 pm and registration closes at 6:30, with the tournament starting shortly after.

07/15/2026

We know that word's gotten out about the amateur apiary experiments happening afterhours at The Star Chamber, so we're bringing the truth out into the bright light of social media's purifying rays: WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO HUSBAND A BREED OF SUPERBEES.

We don't really have an endgame with this--maybe we use the bees as endless swarms of supersoldiers and overthrow the world's governments, or maybe we just teach them tricks and go on the vaudeville circuit with "The Star Chamber's Electrifying, Wholesifying Bee Circus" (like a flea circus, but with bees, get it?).

Anyway, today, Wednesday, July 15th, we're going to be doing some active superbee training exercises during daytime hours, so the arcade will be closed from 3:00 to 5:00pm. But we will have all the bees put back in their beeboxes by 5:00, so then you can come game!

07/12/2026

NEW GAME INCOMING!!!!

Took a road trip today to pick up a title I think we'll make a lot of people happy! If you are the first person in the comments to correctly guess what game it is, you'll win a $15 gift certificate to the arcade!

(A few people received advance Intel and already know what game it is. If you're one of those people, please don't post --that's not guessing, that's cheating!)

Hints:
(1) Pinball machine
(2) Made in the last 5 years
(3) Zany

07/11/2026

Creature from the Black Lagoon is finally in the arcade!

The history of this game in its 1 year of ownership by the Star Chamber is pretty ridiculous.

The game was purchased from Automated Services in Connecticut last August (as part of a bulk buy with King Kong and GNR), and after being safely transported back to Athens, operator error when setting up the machine caused it to catch fire on its inaugural play.

The transistor on the power driver board had been accidentally shoved into a plastic molex connector, and 5 minutes after the game started, smoke begin bellowing out of the backbox! The power driver board was toast: A new one was ordered, but upon installing it, pop bumper coils kept locking on and smoking, and it was clear that some awful doodoo had occurred deep within the central nervous system of the machine.

Still a novice at pinball repair and desperate to get the arcade open on time, I mothballed the game, with plans to fix it at a later point when time and knowledge were more plentiful.

That day came in early April, when I set the machine up in my garage and begin the time consuming process of tracing down the various secondary faults that had occurred as a result of the initial calamity back in august.

By late April, the machine was fixed! But it was still not ready to go out on the arcade floor. There are three enormous plastic ramps in the game which take up about 40% of the viewable playfield space. The ones that came with the game were cracked and darkened, and made the whole experience pretty shabby.

So I ordered spiffy new ramps, and REALLY spiffy aftermarket LED addressable light controllers for the lights that go on said ramps. While waiting for those parts to arrive, an 80 ft Black Oak tree fell onto my garage, and, (as you may have seen in a previous post) Creature from the Black Lagoon single-handedly held up the entire collapsed mess--the tree, the roof, ceiling, and garage door structure--thereby saving countless other belongings within the garage. AND CREATURE SURVIVED WITHOUT HARDLY A SCRATCH!!!

And now, after having received all new plastic art inserts, CREATURE IS AT THE ARCADE PLAYING LIKE A DREAM!!!!!

07/10/2026

Dudes, if you didn't already know, Brew Week is here!

Like many watering holes in town, we're excited to welcome out-of-towners to our wonderful little burg.

VISITORS, PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

We are not merely an arcade with tons of great video games and pinball machines. We've also got an amazing selection of local and regional fermented beverages curated by our ever-perspicacious Liv!

AND, we are the only place in town where you can play the legendary bartender-simulator-game Tapper whilst throwing back cold ones. LIFE DOESN'T GET BETTER THAN THIS!!!

07/09/2026

Are you self-financing an opera exploring Miss Piggy's humble origins amidst a porcine community of overbearing religious fundamentalists, with most of the libretto comprising lines of dialogue lifted verbatim from the movie "Footloose"?

Well, if so, you should stop! Because there's already somebody doing that, and they're renting out our arcade for 2 hours tonight to put on a dress rehearsal. Why do a dress rehearsal of a weird misguided opera at a video game and pinball arcade? Man I don't know, just let eccentric be eccentric.

Point being, come game from 2:30 to 7:30 today, or 9:30 to 11:00. But don't come from between 7:30 to 9:30, as there will be operatic tomfoolery afoot!

07/08/2026

TWILIGHT ZONE PINBALL MACHINE GOT A NEW POWERBALL!!!?

Does this warrant a post? Well, it depends on how much you care about Twilight Zone pinball machine, I suppose!

Twilight Zone uses a complex series of electrogmagnetic eddy sensors to track the position of its five metal pinballs, but the Powerball is the sixth ball in the machine, and it's ceramic.

AND GUESS WHAT!?!? CERAMIC ISN'T MAGNETIC!!!!

Only by getting the Powerball through an intricate series of shots can you complete "Lost in the Zone" wizard mode.

Our old Powerball (maybe the original one?) was so worn it had turned gray, and couldn't really be visually distinguished from the regular metal pinballs anymore. So we got a new one (man, don't ask, but they're surprisingly pricey!). We also replaced the proximity eddy sensor in the trough with an upgraded version, so all the tracking is accurate now!

COME GET LOST IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE!!!!

07/07/2026

IT WAS ONE YEAR AGO TODAY THAT THE VERY FIRST GAME WAS PURCHASED FOR THE ARCADE!!!!!

Let's all take a moment to raise our glasses in a toast of appreciation for Attack From Mars!!!

(To be clear: The game itself is like 31 years old, but we're celebrating its first trip around the Sun under our possession and stewardship!)

07/06/2026

07/05/2026

Come join us Monday July 6th at 6:00 pm for our next event in the Summer Slam Tournament Series, The Amazing Race!

In an Amazing Race Pinball Tournament, each pinball machine is a "Leg" of the race. In each leg of the race, everyone will play a game on the machine, recording their scores. The lowest scoring player(s) for each leg will be eliminated before the next leg of the race. The final leg of the race will determine our winners. More than one player could be eliminated in each leg of the race, depending on the number of participants. After being eliminated, tournament participants are welcome to stay until completion of the tournament and take advantage of the lowered entry fee.

This tournament was previously advertised as a "Flipper Frenzy" tournament, but we are trying a format that we think will work better in our venue.

Costs:
Tournament Fee: $10. All of this goes to the cash prize pool. Please bring cash for the tournament fee (laws are weird)
Venue Entry Fee: $10. Star Chamber arcade has a flat $10 entry fee for tournament participants from the start of registration (6:00 pm) until the end of the tournament (or 9 pm, whichever is later). All machines are set to free play, no quarters necessary. Tournament players may continue to enjoy the arcade after being eliminated.

Prizes:
The cash prize pool (from the tournament fee) will be split among the top three players as follows:
- First place: 60% of prize pool
- Second place: 30% of prize pool
- Third place: 10% of prize pool
Total prize pool is number of participants * $10

Registration and reduced entry fee begin at 6:00 pm and closes at 6:30, with the tournament starting shortly after.