iClaw Taiwan (Jurong Point)

iClaw Taiwan runs four units wide on level three of Jurong Point, at the far end of a stretch that also holds a full arcade and a rival claw shop.

It is the Singapore arm of a Taiwanese brand, and the machines are the Taiwanese sort — pastel pink cabinets, played on tokens, with prizes leaning towards anime goods and small electronics rather than the generic plush most claw shops stock. Anime-branded earphones turn up in the cabinets alongside the character figures. The other thing separating it from the claw shop along the corridor is that there are staff here.

The prizes people actually come for carry high thresholds, and you can feed a machine for a long time before one of them becomes catchable. Since somebody is behind the counter, you can ask what a machine is set to before you start instead of working it out at your own expense. Ask before you commit to one, not after.