Since early September we’ve rebuilt most of the ways you explore Atlas Arcadia, and nearly every way you add to it. Here’s the tour of what’s new, where to find it, and what you can do with it.
Find arcades faster
The Locations List is rebuilt from the ground up. Every Location in the archive is now a card you can filter, sort and search, and Load more replaces clicking through page after page.
The Map finally works the way it should on a phone. Tap Filters and a drawer slides out; close it and the map is all yours. Panning no longer sends you off the edge of the world.
Locations now record their Game Currency: tokens, quarters, game cards or unlimited play. And you can tag more than one, since locations often changed this over time. The Map can filter on this new field, so finding the arcades still running on near you, takes only a click.
Last but not least, the List and the Map now share one search. Type the same words into either and you’ll find the same places.
Meet the Token Vault
The old token directory is now the Token Vault. All 294 Tokens sit on a newly-designed page. Hover over any coin to see its Back, narrow things down by composition, size, mint or venue type, and open a Token’s details without leaving the Vault.
Photo: Vince Scalabrino
We have many more tokens from our founders’ collections coming soon, so stay tuned!
Each Token’s own page is redesigned too, with the Front and Back side by side. Two new things for members:
- Your collection. Mark the Tokens you own, and see how many other members have each one.
- Corrections. Spot a wrong or missing detail? Suggest a fix right from the page. Each accepted correction earns 5 points.
We have many more tokens from our founders’ collections coming soon, so stay tuned!
Location pages, now with video!
Location pages got a full redesign in September: a big photo, the key details up front, the map, and the gallery. As of today, they can hold videos too.
Found an old news segment, a walkthrough or a home movie of an arcade? Paste a YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or Internet Archive link into Add a video on the Location’s page. Once we’ve reviewed it, it appears on the page and you earn 10 points. A video only loads when someone presses play, so pages stay quick to load.
Photo: Vince Scalabrino
Easier to contribute
- Add photos to any Location, not just your own submissions. Give each photo its own description and, if it came from someone else, its own credit.
- Submit a Token is now a step-by-step form. Big phone photos are shrunk in your browser before they upload, and the first photo becomes the Token’s picture automatically.
- A receipt for every Location you submit. Right after you send one, you’ll see what you sent, the pin as we saved it, and where it is in review. It’s linked from your Profile, so you can check back any time.
- Notifications. The new bell in the header, plus an email, tells you when a contribution is accepted. Rather not get the emails? Turn them off in your notification settings.
- Points for all of it, tallied on the Leaderboard.
Your player page
Every contributor now has a public player page showing what they’ve added to the archive. Contributor names across the site link to it. The Profile page is rebuilt as well, and members without a photo get a tidy initials avatar instead of a grey silhouette.
We take security seriously. Your player page now uses a public handle, not your sign-in username. We’ve also closed the places where usernames used to leak, so this no longer shows up anywhere public.
Credit where it’s due
Every photo on the site now carries a credit line, saying who took it, where it came from, or honestly that we don’t know yet. Along the way we found and restored 310 gallery photos that had dropped off 107 Locations.
Photo: Vince Scalabrino
And a few more things
- A Share button on every Location and Token page: Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, email, text or copy link. On phones it opens your usual share sheet.
- The blog you’re reading has been relaunched, with a new look and categories to browse by.
- Location names follow one style now, “Name: Place”, so they’re easier to scan and search.
- We’re live on Instagram! Check out the link from the footer next to Reddit and Facebook.
Tell us what you think
Take it all for a spin. If something’s broken, confusing on your phone, or missing from the archive, leave a comment below or find us on Facebook and Reddit. Your feedback decides what we build next, so don’t hold back!