| In one line | An extra life. On old cabinets the phrase also marked player one's score - 'your turn is up.' |
|---|---|
| Spotted in | Retro Pinball, Juggle Master, Tank Arena |
| Related ideas | Extra life, Lives, High score |
The Full Story
1UP is the oldest piece of arcade slang still in daily use. On the earliest cabinets it was literally a label: the corner of the screen that tracked player one's score, as opposed to 2UP for the second player. Because those same machines flashed the label when it was your turn to play, '1UP' quickly came to mean 'player one, you're up.'
The meaning most players know arrived a little later, when games began granting bonus lives at score milestones. The reward was announced next to the 1UP label, so the label itself became shorthand for the prize. By the mid-1980s '1UP' simply meant an extra life, whichever player earned it, and mushroom-shaped versions of it became some of the most recognizable icons in gaming.
The spirit of the 1UP survives on this site in every machine that stretches a run: an extra ball in Retro Pinball, a spare miss in Juggle Master, one more crash forgiven in Tank Arena. Any time a game hands you another chance instead of a game over, that is a 1UP doing its job.
Heard on the Arcade Floor
“I was one hit from a game over, then the 10,000-point 1UP saved the whole run.”
Where You'll Feel 1UP on This Floor
Definitions stick better with a joystick in hand, and 1up is live machinery in 3 of our machines, starting with Retro Pinball:
- Retro Pinball (flippers, bumpers, and one silver ball with plans) - keep the ball alive with your flippers and rack up bumper points forever, and 1up helps decide whether you manage it.
- Juggle Master (one paddle, three balls, no apologies) - keep an ever-growing set of bouncing balls airborne with a single paddle, with 1up doing quiet work underneath.
- Tank Arena (one arena, ricochet shells, last tank standing) - outmaneuver enemy tanks in a walled arena where every shell can bounce back, where 1up shows up on every single run.
Five minutes inside Retro Pinball and 1up stops being theory.
