Caine’s Arcade is a fully functional cardboard arcade guaranteed to make your day better.
I’d write you a nice little intro here, Escapists, but it’d make me feel guilty for keeping you away from the video embedded at right for longer than is absolutely necessary. Go on, have a click. I guarantee you in the strongest terms that learning about Caine’s Arcade, an all-cardboard games arcade located in a used auto-parts store in eastern Los Angeles, will improve your day immeasurably.
This short film, Caine’s Arcade, tells the story of nine year-old Los Angeles resident Caine Monroy, a kid who loves arcade games and basic engineering. Finding himself short on entertainment last summer, he decided to use all the cardboard boxes floating around his dad’s used auto-parts store to build a cardboard arcade. Having built the basic components of his business, Caine went on to open the arcade to the public, charging patrons one dollar for four turns or two dollars for a security-protected Fun Pass which provides the user with five hundred turns on Caine’s machines (holla holla, EA).
Shortly after Caine’s Arcade opened for business, filmmaker Nirvan Mullick stopped by the store at random. He was immediately floored by the intricacy and creative endeavor involved in the arcade, and was more than happy to be the first person to buy one of Caine’s Fun Passes.
Disappointed with how few people were coming to Caine’s Arcade, however, Mullick decided to rally the internet into publicizing east L.A.’s most prominent cardboard gem. Unsurprisingly, Reddit responded gleefully to the heartwarming tale of the arcade.
Caine’s Arcade is still open for business on weekends if any of you in California feel like dropping round for a few games of tabletop soccer. For everyone outside of California, Caine’s family has set up a page where you can donate a few dollars towards his college fund. The site has already raised tens of thousands for the boy’s future, mostly by asking visitors to imagine what Caine could be capable of when armed with a degree in engineering. The mind boggles at the thought.
Keep at it, Caine Monroy. Fun Passes for all!
