Can we have our ball back? Pong changes the world

Posted by: Paul Smith

In November 1972, a heap of litter appeared in one corner of Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.  Upon further inspection, however, it turned out to be a black and white television, a coin-op mechanism from a local laundrette, a largish chunk of circuit board, and a milk bottle.  When correctly assembled and shoved into a small wardrobe with a hole cut into it, the telly, the circuit board and the coin op mechanism blinked into life and became Pong, the very first arcade game to appear in public, ever. The milk bottle was there to catch the coins. 

After an hour or so, curious drinkers started to fiddle about with it.  In a very short while, the incessant beeping from the game was attracting the attention of other patrons.  The next morning, there were long queues outside Andy Capp's well before opening time, and the game was played incessantly for 12 hours, at which point it broke down due to having too many coins jammed into it.  Also unsurprisingly, it started the entire gaming industry, although this would perhaps not have been obvious to the people still queuing outside and the bloke who nicked the milk bottle.

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Quickly Shoot Those Cultural Icons! - It's Space Invaders!

Posted by: Paul Smith

How different things might have been had the aliens in Space Invaders not been aliens at all, but aeroplanes as originally intended. Sadly for Tomohiro Nishikado's design vision, but happily for retro games merchandisers ever since, processor output at the time was roughly equivalent to a modern candle, which meant that aeroplane graphics could not be rendered convincingly enough. Neither could alien space craft, but as no one knew what an alien space craft looked like, there was far less room for debate.

And so it came to pass. Enemy Invaders became Space Invaders and engineering graduate Nishikado, with his tenth attempt at game design, became known as the father of the coin-op. Curiously, continuing a pattern we've seen before, the whole thing started with a dream.

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Ashtrays A Go-Go - it's Galaxian!

Posted by: Paul Smith

Galaxian was the last of the first arcade games, featuring as it did a lone, undergunned ship battling against several rows of relentlessly descending invaders from space - much like Space Invaders, come to think of it. It would be harsh and wrong to simply dismiss it as a Space Invaders clone, however, so whatever you do, don't.

Released in 1979, Galaxian bought a host of innovations to the table.  In fact, it bought the table itself, being the first commercially viable non-cabinet arcade game. This new table top format proved popular with arcade owners who noticed that players purchased more space dust, Quattro and non-sugarfree sticks of Juicy Fruit while sitting down, and were also more likely to place cigarettes in an ashtray, rather than perch them on the cabinet housing, melting the vinyl decorations and releasing highly toxic fumes.

 

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Win tickets to the Retro Flea Arcade at the Future Gallery

Posted by: Gary Stanton

After two sell out retro arcade installations, those nice chaps over at www.handbakedarcade.co.uk are at it again, this time at the beautiful 'Future Gallery'€™ in Leicester Square.
The installation will run for 10 solid hours of pixelated fun from 2pm to midnight, with unlimited play across a giddy pick'€n'€mix of Mega €Drives, Master Systems, Gameboys and SNES.

We've been told that this event can be described as '€˜giant', which sounds good to us.
As you'€™d expect from a HBA gig, there'€™s the usual line up of top electronic artists supplying the music.

It'€™s only £2 if you turn up before 6pm, and £4 thereafter, but you can win two tickets and a free drink simply by sending an email to info@handbakedarcade.co.uk guessing what retro gaming character they'€™re thinking of. It's a long shot admittedly, but worth a go.

Market opening times: Saturday 7th August 2pm - €12am
Dress code: What? Don't be silly
Ticket Prices: £2 before 6pm, £4 after - All games free inside!
Location: The Future Gallery (5 Great Newport Street, WC2H 7HY) on the corner of Longacre and Great Newport Street -€“ 1 minute from Leicester Square tube stop.

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Collision Games Inc - The story of a web developer that decided to become a game developer

Posted by: Gary Stanton

One of our lovely Twitter followers, Dan Bridge (@woosabitronic) has made a gutsy decision. He's quit his day job developing web applications, in favour of spending the next six months designing a video game for mobile and social platforms.

This in itself is a pretty difficult task, but Dan has also undertaken to document the entire process in some detail... and write a book about it! It makes for an interesting read, and quite a resource for the aspiring games developer.

Check out the project at: http://www.collisiongames.co.uk/

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Hand baked arcade 'Pure Gaming'

Posted by: Gary Stanton

Those guys at the Hand Baked Arcade are at it again. After the success of their recent showcase at Pure Groove, they're back with a regular event - ?Pure Gaming'.
The first is on Saturday May 29^th 2010, with a vast selection of free to play retro video games, alongside their usual range of electronic music from E:LF, Randomoidz, Scheme Boy and Magimix.

It's only £3 entry, so get yourself down to to Pure Groove Records, 6-7 West Smithfield, Farringdon, EC1A 9JX

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Take Cover - it's Missile Command!

Posted by: Paul Smith

People were obsessed with impending nuclear Armageddon in the 1980's, presumably as a way to take their minds off the awful music and rubbish clothes. However, even in 1980, with Two Tone dominating the charts, the mod revival in full swing and the decade still quite fresh and exciting - apart from all the rioting - Chicago student and technology tinkerer David Theurer was a troubled young man. Obsessed by ghastly recurring nightmares in which neighbouring cities were wiped out by atom bombs, and strongly influenced by American attempts to train pigeons for military purposes in World War Two, he set about writing computer games.

Theurer claims that the pigeon training stuff was gleaned while studying for a psychology degree, and came in handy when creating addictive computer games. While this may or may not be true, he was certainly adept at turning horrific dreams into arcade gold: another common nocturnal frightfest involved decomposing bodies emerging from holes in the ground to attack him, which formed the basis of Tempest.

So, putting aside the belated advice that it might have been an idea for him to switch from cheese sandwiches to cocoa before bedtime, let's prepare to release the launch codes, paint the living room windows white, and go to DefCon 1 as we embrace the starkly marvellous world of Missile Command.

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Partying With The Jet Set

Posted by: Paul Smith

As we discovered last time when we examined Manic Miner, Miner Willy's working life was arduous, risky, and set to royalty-free classical music on an endless loop. So, like anyone in the 1980's, his chosen method of relaxation was to have a massive house party, which, if the popular cinema of the time is to be believed, would have been generously populated by nerds, dorks, dweebs, babes, jocks, frat boys, and mutant humans riding motorcycles up and down the stairs.

This kind of thing does require a bit of clearing up after, however. In this, the second in the hugely popular Miner Willy series, our partied-out subterranean robot dodger has to get his Marigolds on and tidy up his entire house before his housekeeper, Maria, will let him go to sleep. This is a slightly strange premise, as tidying up is presumably the sort of thing he is paying a housekeeper for in the first place, not to mention how an entire mansion can be purchased on a miner's salary. But let's leave hair-splitting to one side for now. Prepare to join Willy in his unfeasibly large house with its just-sack-me housekeeper and start chucking Domestos about.

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Get Your Willy Out - it's Manic Miner!

Posted by: Paul Smith

In the 1980's, miners were more notable for picket lines, pitched battles with the police and their part in an ideological struggle with Thatcher's Britain that threatened at times to boil over into an actual gloves-off class war. There was little time for jumping around on conveyor belts in abandoned uranium mines to Johan Strauss' Blue Danube waltz. Unless, that is, you were the lucky owner of a ZX Spectrum, and were playing the Software Project's ground breaking platform game, Manic Miner.

It was, in fact, the royalty-free Danube Waltz (and also the equally gratis Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg, which also featured) that made Manic Miner a bona fide legend: they comprised the very first in-game soundtrack. It was generally felt that a computer would collapse in on itself like a black hole under this kind of pressure, and Matthew Smith, who wrote the game, achieved a considerable feat by doing so. Smith discovered the fairly obvious trick of switching processor time betwixt game and music, which accounts for Manic Miner's occasionally slightly jerky soundtrack. Smith's breakthrough is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that he was also trying to do his A levels at the time.

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Can I Feel Your Chopper? - Mincing Through The Buttercups With Golden Axe

Posted by: Paul Smith

Apparently, in First Blood, a character called Sgt Galt falls from a helicopter, and registers his concern by screaming. Elsewhere in the film, someone called Deputy Mitch also has a bit of a scream upon discovering that Rambo is hacking his leg off with a bayonet. In 1989, it was surprisingly tricky to capture noises like this and reproduce them in a video game.

If you have a good working knowledge of thinly veiled mainstream homoerotica, you'll also hear the outrushing breath of someone leading something called a Snake Cult in Conan the Barbaian. Conan himself has just caused the breath in question to vacate the thoracic cavity by elbowing the Snake Leader in the solar plexus. This sound was also incorporated into the same video game, as was the understandably crestfallen cry of someone called Thorgrim as he is - yes, that's right - fatally impaled on a rotating spike of some kind.

Bearing all this in mind, it's time to pump up those pecs, remove your body hair, get all oiled up, develop a surprisingly good eye for interior furnishing, and follow in the footsteps of Golden Axe, as he battles his way through a medieval fantasy world. Don't worry ladies - he's a good listener.

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