Two games I played obsessively when I was a kid. I lost more quarters to these games than I could count.
Tempest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(video_game)
A game full of completely abstract art, all vector-based. You're at the top of a glowing tube, things crawl up the tube to try and kill you, and once you're killed them all, you race off to the next tube (using a cool 3D "flying through space" effect). This might be one of the first games where the "next level" had a new layout vs. the same layout with more difficultly. When you got to a high enough level, the level colors weren't blue anymore! You got reds, greens, yellows, even invisible etc. Quick trippy for my teenage self at the time.
There was no joystick, instead there was just a big left-right dial. I loved this game since when you spun the dial really fast, it made this awesome
gggrrriiinnnddd sound. If I ever run across the right cabinet on E-Bay one day, I might go for a renovation project.
WIZARD OF WOR:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Wor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Wor
A fun two player co-op game where you went through this small maze killing monsters. Some would just lumber around (easy), some would actually shoot back at you, some would phase in and out of existence so you had to get the timing right when you shot them. Plus the first "boss fight" I ever remembered: The screen would turn pink and static-y, and there would be
one insanely fast moving monster out in the middle of an open arena. Scared the Hell out of me at the time.
You could play solo, sure, but two players got a lot further (plus if you died you could put in another quarter to keep going), so I'd just play with whoever else was in line for the machine. It was a great way to make friends IRL back in the day.
There are tons more: Pac Man, Battlezone, Tron, Dig Dug, Centipede, Satan's Hollow, Donkey Kong, etc., but these two really stood out for me.