St Mary's Universal Arcade 2018

Remember our inaugural St Mary's Universal Arcade 2017? This is the post for our 2018 edition! It has been nostalgic looking at these pix from a year ago, as we go forth with preparations for this coming year's rendition... From 2017 to 2018, we retained our more popular games and added some new ones. But everyone still had loads of fun! Come have a look!

Universal Arcade Ticket Booth

As you enter St Clare's Hall, you would see our friendly volunteers at the Ticketing Stand. Look at that awesome TICKETS sign board - handmade by Pauleen and her kids! So professionally done, ain't it? Here, you use your funfair coupons to buy our Universal Arcade tickets for the bouncy castle, or to play our awesome games. 

Next you may wish to peruse the prizes up for grabs at the Prize Redemption Booth which is just behind the Ticketing Stand. All prizes you see unique and the only ones available, so you need to redeem them before they get snapped up by someone else. This is because all our prizes are crowd-sourced - donated from friends and family and people around us. In this day and age, most of us in Singapore are blessed with an abundance of material stuff. Thus, we ask around for people to donate to us gifts which they have and are not using, items which they have a surplus of... New items would be wonderful, but we even accept used items in very good condition. :)

Some people were very kind and offered to sponsor a gift or asked us what they can get, to donate. So here is the low down... in particular, we are looking for

- new remote control cars/helicopters/drones (that kids love)

- new electrical appliances (that adults love)

- new or used toys/games in good condition

- new activity/craft/experiment sets

Generally, stuff which you think kids would like. Pass stuff to the person who told you about this call for donations. If there is lots you wish to donate, we can arrange for someone to pick up stuff from you. Anything not suitable for prize redemption, we will donate to our church thrift store. So feel free to pass us stuff you can spare. Best by end of June, if not then latest by mid-July. If you don't know who to contact, whatsapp Pamela @ 94301421.

On with the tour! As usual, we had our Bouncy Castle for the young ones to expend their energy, and for their caregivers to have a breather! ;p And while the adults wait for their kids, our coffee corner provided them with fragrant, hot piping coffee, along with a selection of home baked cake and cookies! This coffee stand fulfilled the dream of a number of our team mates to run a cafe in their lifetime :)

Coffee, tea, or me? :)

Next up, a new game! E-Current! We made two sets of the game, of differing difficulty level. You're supposed to run a metal ring through the curvy metal route without touching it. Doing so would connect the circuit and trigger the alarm - a light and a buzzer. See the young gentleman in red tee in the lower right hand picture? He is R, one of our pioneer Children's Liturgy graduates! He took a break from manning his chye tow kuay store downstairs to come lend us a hand! So sweet, eh?! He must have been selling black carrot cake! hehehe...

E-Current - The Electrifying Game! 

We brought back the old favourites. Channel Captain America as you throw the mini-shields into the rectangular holes in the banner in Shield of Faith. With so many lobangs in the banner, how can you miss?! 

Shield of Faith - The Captain America game. 

Slide the cars down the ramp to Park Your Car into any of the three garages! Get the most stamps if you manage to park your car in the smallest garage. Skid your car to victory!

Park Your Car - The Valet Speed Parking Game

Do you have Inner Peace? Sure, you do! Show us your Inner Peace by stacking all 7 of the pandas onto the wheel using chopsticks! You can do it, we know you can! See the look of concentration on their faces!

Inner Peace - The Panda Stacking Game with Chopsticks But No Dunplings!

Our most eye catching, most popular game - F1 Rally! Look how we have improved our race track from the Poke Kart track of the year before! After we got the wood from Triple Eyelid Studio, Peter volunteered to take charge of this project. With the help of his wife Ivy and their boys, they cut the wood, sanded the surfaces, painted them, screwed on hinges, designed and playtested their Formula One racetrack. The result was this brilliant looking track that worked very well!

F1 Rally - The Game of Precision Driving!

Nerf Wars - The Game Where You Shoot the Dark Side, of course!

What's a funfair without it's shooting games? Here are two! Shoot up the bad guys with a space age Nerf gun (above). Or hone your sharpshooting skills at Howdy's Shooting Range using traditional rubber band guns. 

Can you shoot straight and aim for the bullseye at Howdy's Shooting Range? 

In 2018, the lovely people from our parish's Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS) ministry teamed up with us to help source for prizes as well as man game stalls on the actual days of the funfair. Their offer to man stalls came right after we discussed our worries for lack of manpower on the actual days - see how God answers our prayers! :)

We rethemed our Villians throwing game, to a Dinosaur theme. We figured that even villians need a second chance eh. So let's throw stuff at pictures of prehistoric animals that don't exist anymore! No animals were hurt in the process, we promise!

Universal Arcade 2018: Eggs Run, Slinky Elly, Pin It On Me!, Dino Slam

We had two new games: Slinky Elly and Pin It On Me!

Slinky Elly - Players wear a head band on their forehead which has a slinky attached to it, flowing down, much like an elephant's trunk. Within a set time frame, players need to use the slinky to knock down bottles on the floor. 

Pin It On Me! - Players are blindfolded, turned around three times. Listening to verbal cues from their friend/parent, they and need to pin a magnet onto the donkey's butt.

These two games didn't cause huge waves, but we noticed they were quite a hit with the younger ones, the preschoolers. And boy did they have fun with! We even overheard some of the mums taking photos and saying to each other that they can use these two games for their next birthday party! :) You're welcomed!!!

The Game That Should Be Called "The Triwizard Tournament Mazes"

Our marble run mazes where you have a number of checkpoints to get to before time's up, were as popular as ever. However, last but not least, one of our most popular games ever - Flush It! Everyone loves clean toilet humour, and our 'toilet bowls' are definitely clean! ;p

Flush It - The Toilet Bowl Game

So that was Universal Arcade 2018 of Church of St Mary of the Angels, Bt Batok, Singapore -  brought to you by St Mary's Children's Liturgy + CGS Team. We not only teach kids about Jesus, we show them how to have good clean, device-free fun too! 

Universal Arcade 2018 even had its very own two homegrown radio talk show deejays Jo & Kelvin!!!

This year, for 2019, we are changing most of the games... so come 3rd and 4th August 2019 you need to come check us out to play our games... but most of all, you need to go turn out your cupboards and storeroom now to pass us the good stuff that you haven't been using anyway!  Marie Kondo your stuff our way, please! :)

We need your help!!! :)