I’ve known about Round One since I attended San Jose State University. Thursday afternoons were spent with friends; bowling for hours, eating good food and winning as many stuffed animals as we could. Then I graduated, and San Jose was a drive, but every now and then it was fun to visit. One existed out in Concord as well that my mom, boyfriend and I would visit when going to the Disney Store.

Then one opened in Hayward, which became our go-to spot. It was one of the places we’d frequent before Covid happened. We’d go look around for any new stuffed animals in the claw machines and see if there were new prizes we could redeem our points for in the victory zone. We’d even go bowling occasionally.

As things started opening up again, we’d drive by to see if our location had opened. It hadn’t yet, but San Jose and Concord were open. One Saturday, we decided to make the drive to Concord (bonus Disney Store visit) but found their server was down so they were not open. It was a bummer, but we grabbed some Wetzel Pretzel and decided to take the drive over to San Jose instead. We tried to win some prizes and earned enough points for some adorable ice cream Nyanko cat plushies.

A few weeks went by, and we’d wonder if our location would ever open. I had been checking their Facebook page for updates with no luck. One Saturday morning we were going to Southland Panera and thought we’d check to see if anything had changed. We happened to see someone coming out of the building, so we drove over to take a look, and we had never been so happy ! We saw the ‘We are Open!!!’ sign outside and immediately parked and went to see if it was true.

There we were, after a year and a half of no arcades or claw machines, going up the escalator to see what was open. We checked our card balance* to see if we needed to recharge then went to check the claw machines. We saw some new stuffed animals we didn’t have yet and tried for those. We ended up winning some Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma plushies in these adorable cow outfits. I don’t know why but I’m now super into Rilakkuma/Korilakkuma. I think they’re just adorable. We tried a few more claw machines but didn’t have much luck before the plushies would get stuck. So we took a break and went to play some arcade games.

We have a few games we always play, my boyfriend likes to try and beat the high scores on basketball games (which he does sometimes) and I enjoy the giant bouncy ball drop game. I’d played it as a kid and I just love that they scaled it up so big. We try to get the bonus ball drops and monster jackpots. After roaming around playing various games, we’d do a final walkthrough of the claw machines to see if any got reset so we could try again. If we didn’t win any that was alright, then we’d head over to the victory zone.

Sometimes we don’t spend our points, we’ll just hold on to them for future prizes. This time I found a Rilakkuma/Korilakkuma set of plushies holding cookies. They weren’t too expensive points wise, so I picked those. My boyfriend found some Nenderoids of the anime he likes so he got those. Then we’d get ready to leave, checking out the coin games on our way out. We used to play the DC Comic ones, but sometimes the machines are reset and the cards are adjusted. If we see one that’s been played, we’ll try to get more cards to redeem later.

Then we’ll go home, happy with our winnings for the day, with new goodies to enjoy.

*Keep in mind the cards used for the Hayward location may not be the same as other locations. We currently have 2 cards that can’t be combined because some locations are on different systems.

If you’re ever curious whether a Round One exists near you, you can find your closest location on their site here. They don’t just have bowling and arcades either, they have tons of other activities to do at various locations. You can see a list of those activities here.

Below are some pics from our most recent trip ! Keep in mind these are Japanese style claw machines, and do not work like typical 3 prong claws. Some tips for winning the plushies:

1. Look up ! Usually there’s an image showing where you should aim for first.
2. There are two buttons for these games. A left/right direction and backwards direction. You can only press and hold each button once per turn ! So keep in mind how far you want it to go to one side and how far back before pressing those buttons.
3. Depending on what side the plush is vs. the drop box, you’ll want to use the opposite claw arm to try and win it. Example: Below image shows the plush is to the right of the drop box, so we want to use the left claw arm to try and push it over to win.
4. Know when the plush is stuck. Usually that means no matter where your claw arm lands, the plush will not budge. In those cases, we request a reset by one of the associates.
5. Be careful of plushies that have accessories. The below Hello Kitty is an example. The first time we tried to win this, the bow ended up getting it stuck between the black holders. We asked for a reset and were able to reposition it so the bow wouldn’t get in the way.
6. Be patient ! It takes practice to learn where to position these claws to win. I’m sure there are handfuls of videos online with tips and tricks.

Our Round One currently has a win one figure per person/per day and is not exclusive to one machine. To win the figure below, we had to pick up and drop the dice to equal 7. It didn’t seem too bad, since there were 3 different combos you could get to win. The first time we tried, my boyfriend completely missed the dice (keep in mind where it drops, it’ll help you adjust for future tries). The second try I helped guide him backwards, and it dropped on a 6 and a 2. When we looked at the dice, the 6 was really close to the front glass, so we figured we’d have to try and flip the 2 to a 1. Lucky for us, the third try gave us the 1 we needed. We showed an associate and got our prize.

The machine below is one of the newer ones we hadn’t really played before. There are 7 conveyer belts that move when you land the green light (moving left to right) on any of the 3 columns in front of that conveyer. It was a little misleading at first, the light they show moving when you’re not playing is way slower than the light moving when you actually play. But we tried because we wanted a mini Hello Kitty to go with the bigger one we won before. It took way longer than we hoped but after some patience, we were able to get one of the conveyers to roll one all the way forward for us.

Have questions? Feel free to reach out ! We have plans to revisit the Concord location soon to see what new plushies they have and will try our best to post winnings !

Happy gaming(: