Air Hockey Table Games

If you spent enough time at a kid's pizza restaurant arcade or large casino arcade, you've probably seen a table game with a metallic surface with holes in it. Two players stand on opposite sides with handles and seem to bounce a flat puck back and forth. What you were looking at was a table hockey game. The table hockey game has survived computers and advancing technology mainly due to the simplicity of the game.

Function

The table hockey game involves the use of a table that incorporates an air compressor to push air through holes on the table surface. As the puck disc moves across the table, it floats on this bed of air jets. Players hit the puck back and forth with paddles, trying to get the puck in the opposing player's goal cavity to score a point. The game lasts generally for five to seven points and then the air turns off, effectively shutting down the game.

Design

The table itself is generally a rectangle table supported up to about hip height. This allows the player to lean over slightly to get "middle of the board" shots against the opposing player. Once the puck goes into the goal cavity on either side, it drops into a tray at the bottom of each end for retrieval. While most tables have the air design noted above, this is not an absolute rule. Some tables have been created with very slick plastic surfaces to make the table entirely non-electric. While most tables that exist are two-player models, a few four-player tables have been created.

Basic Rules of the Game

The basic play of the game is fairly obvious: Get the puck into the other player's goal. If the puck happens to fly off the table surface, some rules count that as a point for the opposing player who didn't hit the puck. Others just put the puck back in where it left the field of play. Fouls occur if you stall the puck by sitting on it with the paddle or holding it in your zone longer than a certain amount of time. No player is allowed to touch the puck by hand unless it is off the table or to be retrieved from the goal tray below.

History

Air hockey as a table game first appeared in 1969. It was designed by three engineers trying to create a non-friction playing surface. Redesigned later with a point scoring system and lights that flashed when a goal was scored, the game table started to become a ready product for widespread marketing and sales. The original paddles were referred to as mallets and came in square shapes. Rounded paddles appeared later. The table game saw significant production in the 1970s and waned a bit when video games began to be introduced, taking up less floor space per machine. Most tables today are in large recreation rooms, family pizza restaurants and big arcade game halls with sufficient space.