Tigard -- Claw City

 Friends who know my sisters and I know that we really enjoy claw machines. 

Normally that means something we try on our way out of the grocery store (or sometimes restaurants), but we will occasionally go to arcades with more options.

Claw City has a lot of options.

Machines are mainly small, with a few that are even smaller.

There is the option to trade up for prizes.

Sometimes you may look on top of the machines and notice a larger prize, but mainly you are going to notice all of the ducks on the ceiling.

There is a lot of visual stimulation.

The obvious question is "How is the clawing?" Pretty good.

The grocery store machines go through cycles where how the claw drops and how tightly it grips changes. Sometimes grabbing something is impossible, sometimes it is almost impossible to miss, and sometimes it is somewhere in between when knowing what to choose and where to position the claw before dropping it makes a big difference.

These are not automatic wins, but they don't seem to go through the impossible part of the cycle.

More than that, they told us upon entering to let them know if we had trouble getting the toys. I never asked for help, but when I dropped a seagull and employee was suddenly behind me saying it was probably positioned a little wrong. She opened the machine, re-positioned the seagull, closed the machine, swiped her own card and told me to try again.

That left me with an extra swipe so I went and clawed a mouse.

There is a level at which that felt a little weird for us. We were only helped once, but still, we knew it was easier. We knew we were paying a little more, but it was also pretty fun.

For people who would like to try but don't want to keep fruitlessly putting in money, this is a great option. They do have birthday parties.

COVID: It is indoors in kind of close quarters. Yes, a lot of the people there are children who are breathing a foot or so below you, but this is a very good place to wear a mask.

Accessibility: The surface is flat and it could be pretty easy to get around, but it is not spacious and there were a lot of people, at least on a Saturday. This could cause some difficulty navigating.

Over-stimulation is probably the bigger risk. That includes some flashing lights, though not with a strobe effect. Also, hand-eye coordination seems like less of an issue here than anywhere else.

https://clawcityusa.com/tigard/