GAMETOILET#504: 32 SHORT FILMS ABOUT Q*BERT – @!#?@! THAT!
[Wednesdays on Venus Patrol are GameToilet Days, where we feature new installments of the brilliant comic series from artist & game dev Jerry ‘King Baggot‘ Carpenter. You can find hundreds more entries in the series at the comic’s new permanent home, gametoilet.venuspatrol.com!]
My original post for this one looked like a toddler’s drawing of an Echochrome level – but I then lost it on the train.
Also missing from the above is ‘J*Bert’, which is, of course, the J-pop remix with shitloads of kittens & a banging Morning Musume soundtrack.
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ANGRY DAD, THE GAME: TAITO’S ARCADE TABLE-FLIPPER CHO CHABUDAI GAESHI
Is it too much to expect to just come home to a little god-damn peace and quiet after an exhausting day at work? Taito’s Cho Chabudai Gaeshi makes a game of the impotent seething rage of a frustrated father, letting you “up-end the tea table” (as Miyamoto himself famously figuratively does) for high score. [via Taito]
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ART OF THE ARCADE: YOUR NEW FAVORITE TUMBLR FOLLOW
Just launched and ready for your doting ‘reblog’s and ‘like’s: Nick Dart‘s Art of the Arcade tumblr, which has already given us this excellent quote about the meaning behind Atari’s instantly iconic logo, and about which he explains:
As a frustrated 24 year old arcade collector and designer, I decided to put Art Of The Arcade together to make people aware of the forgotten design and illustration work that took place in the golden era of arcade gaming in the 70’s & 80’s. The idea behind the site is to try and show this work in a new context, and give exposure to the designers that helped create a billion dollar industry and a new social past time.
Add it to your list which should already include PixelStyle, TextAdventure, Nerd Music, and Box Art. [via FFF]
Previously:
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ONE SHOT: STREETPONG, THE FIRST
A gorgeous night shot by one of indie gaming’s leading renaissance men, Vincent Diamante (also: thatgamecompany’s Cloud and Flower composer), used to illustrate Chris Dahlen’s similarly wonderful Edge piece on Diamante’s own Mobile Gamer 1: a street-ready version of Pong that you play by physically rolling the cabinet on its casters.
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SCREENBURN: LOWREZ’S GLITCHED-OUT ARCADE BOOT-SCREEN T-SHIRTS
For the person that finds ErrorWear’s Pac-Man killscreen shirt just a bit too, like, obvious: LowRez is offering a series of shirts featuring the glitch-out bootup screens of various arcade games, named only by their year of release.
Above: Booting1982a, Booting1982b, and Booting1980. Tons more pixel, vector, and retro designs are also available at their web shop. [Well spotted as usual, GSW]
Previously:
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ONE SHOT, DARKSTALKING, WITH PAUL ROBERTSON
‘Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006’ and ‘Kings of Power 4 Billion %’ animator and Scribblenauts contributor Paul Robertson shows off his contribution to Udon’s art book tribute to Capcom’s classic supernatural fighter Darkstalkers. I always feel like a chump stretching and squishing his pixels, so be sure to view it at its native res for maximum impact.
Previously:
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VIDEO: 8-BIT ARCADE CLASSICS ARE BACK, IN LEGO FORM
Lego Arcade, by YouTube user MlCHAELHlCKOX, whose Lego/game obsession goes back several years to his original Lego Marios (the first of which is below the fold). [via Morgan Tucker]
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15 KOPEKS AMAZING: A VIRTUAL LOOK INSIDE MOSCOW’S SOVIET ARCADE GAMES MUSEUM
This started to make the rounds a few weeks back, but hasn’t gathered nearly as much attention as it should, for as outstandingly wicked as it is: you may have originally heard of Moscow State Technical University ‘Soviet Arcade Games Museum‘ from an April 2009 Edge article that told the story quite well, but was accompanied by painfully tiny images.
But now, of all people, Art Lebedev‘s design studio — the same creators as the OLED-driven Optimus Maximus keyboard [the same as was featured on, of all things, a 2007 cover of Edge] — has given the museum a full website makeover, complete with a growing collection of its games recreated and playable online.
Of the collection, the most playable is Sea Battle (above, dig the fantastically ambient faint whirr of its machinery as you play, and its rustically smudged viewfinder), but there’s also the Street Racer-esque game Magistral (right), Rally, another competitive racer, and finally Gorodki, a digital adaptation of a traditional sport that, even now having read about, I still don’t quite understand.
In addition to the recreated versions (look around for the ‘play’ link on each page), the site’s collected PDF versions of the machine’s manuals, close-up money shots of its coin slots, and more gorgeous photography of each machine than you could ever want.
The only thing it currently lacks is a full English translation (I’ve somewhat annoyingly linked to Google translations of each of the pages above), but presumably they’re being added over time, as the museum itself continues to restore and collect more historical information on each game.
If you only visit one site today, make it this one.
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ONE SHOT: GALAGA, STREAK’D
Offworld favorite design blog Kitsune Noir discovers the iPhone camera takes wicked long-exposure arcade game shots, like lo-fi versions of Rosemarie Fiore’s own long-exposure series.
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LISTEN: KONAMI’S ARCADE POWER ON SELF TEST THEME, MORNING MUSIC
Also wonderfully spotted by Tiny Cartridge, this little bit of classic arcade musical trivia: a small number of Konami’s arcade machines operating on an obscure “bubble memory” hardware setup — which literally required warming up to get to fully functional — also feature this little minuet known as “Morning Music” to accompany the slow start.
The tune’s gone on to be included in tribute in some of the company’s later music games like KeyboardMania, but, as Cartridge points out, the net effect of starting up a number of the machines every morning, must have been daily cacophonous hell for arcade operators.
See more posts about: Arcade, Listen, Music, Offworld Originals
