A hobby and games shop in downtown Sackville has been gradually piecing together a video and pinball arcade.

Chris Harborne, owner of Vortex Games, says his pinball collection grew during the pandemic. He started off with just two, but now has six, after tracking down limited-run machines that became increasingly sought-after as people quarantined.

"People bought them and put them in their homes," Harborne said.

His pinball collection spans several decades, the oldest being a Dracula table from the 1970s.

The face of Arnold Schwarzenegger gazes down from 1993's Last Action Hero.

A Jurassic Park table from 2019 features a roaring, animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex. A skillful shot sends the ball straight up a ramp and into the dinosaur’s mouth to trigger a two-ball multiball mode as the machine roars. 

Others include Space Shuttle (1984), Stargate (1995) and a “blazingly fast” Transformers table from around 2010, a machine that Harborne himself upgraded with a colour display.

His machines were previously scattered around the shop before Vortex renovated in November 2021, building an unassuming arcade room in the back.

“That created the arcade room so that we could put all of the machines in one space,” he said. 

CHMA’s resident pinhead David Gordon Koch visited the arcade to interview Harborne and check out a few machines on Friday, Oct. 7: