Challenging players to fly their space fighter through an array of twisty mazes in an attempt to reach the final goal – destroying the “brain” of an enemy rocket – SNK’s Vanguard is released in American arcades. This is one of the first coin-op video games to present the player with an option upon running out of “lives”: allow the game to end, or insert another quarter or token to continue from the last position. 
Better known for making jukeboxes and speakers, Rock-Ola continues trying to make inroads into the video game industry by releasing Fantasy in the United States. The arcade game, originated in Japan by SNK, is one of the very first coin-op games to allow players to insert additional coins to continue from the location of their previous game’s end within a set amount of time. With several screens requiring players to develop completely different strategies on the fly, Fantasy doesn’t gain much of a following; many arcade operators gut and convert their Fantasy machines into other games. (This is your webmaster’s all-time favorite arcade game.)