“Growing up you were either a ‘Sega kid’ or a ‘Nintendo kid.’ I was a Sega kid!”

• OhNo!DOOM – Tyler Coey

Related posts:

1. Super Button Mashers: a Gamer Tribute at OhNo!ARCADE
2. Quotables

This could well be the first-ever ALL GAMES-THEMED exhibit to ever open in Chicago.

“Super Button Mashers,” opening February 11, 2012, features an incredible roster of artists:

Aya Kakeda, Alex Willan, Ben Spencer, Blütt, Brandon Garrison, Brain Killer, Brian Stuhr, Brian Walline, Brianne Drouhard, CHema Skandal!, Cory Benhatzel, CZR PRZ, David Palumbo, David Rettker, Eric Broers, Glen Brogan, Isaac Bidwell, James Liu, Jason Castillo, Jenny Frison, Jeremiah Ketner, J.Shea, Joey D, Jordan Elise, Lana Crooks, Leeanna Butcher, Luisa Castellanos, Martin Hsu, Matt Hawkins, Matthew Ryan Sharp, Max Bare, Melissa Sue Stanley, Mike Budai, Mike Graves, Mr. Walters, Natalie Blue Phillips, Nathan West, Sean Dove, Shawn Smith, Shayne Labadie, Steff Bomb, Steph Laberis, Tyler Coey, Yosiell Lorenzo, Zoë Bare, and Plush Team

What an all-star cast! I am so damn thrilled I don’t know what to do with myself.

And one more thing: curator Max Bare somehow convinced Chicago’s own Jake Elliott to submit an arcade game to the exhibit! It is an all-new game, and it will be playable at the show.

OhNo!Doom
Super Button Mashers Mega Opening
February 11, 6:00 PM-10:00 PM
1800 N. Milwaukee
Chicago IL 60647
Tuesday and Thursday 4:00 PM-10:00 PM
Saturday 12:00 PM-7:00 PM

Isaac Bidwell, Donkey Kong.

Yosiell Lorenzo, Princess Toadstool.

David Palumbo, The Graveyard.

Related posts:

1. Quotables: artist Tyler Coey does Sega
2. Boozing in the arcade
3. Classic television, arcade style

Strap in! I’m not sure how much I can—or want!—to tell you about this gallery show, but know this: it opens on February 11, and there will be art. Details forthcoming.

That man, Kinn (also known by his handle “Robotron,” or by his real name, Kim) was more than just another guy who played video games in the Metro Detroit area. He was a patriarch to the gaming scene who worked to foster a sense of community, and whose breadth of classic gaming knowledge made him nigh-unstoppable in games such as Mr. Do, Burgertime, and Zanac. An old school player through and through, Kinn grew up in the heyday of arcades in the late 70s through the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. He worked in arcades, won local tournaments in games like Robotron: 2084 (leading to his handle) and generally enjoyed gaming as a pastime on par with fishing, comic books, and cheesy science fiction featuring robots. Naturally he picked up the consoles of the day as well, and even started importing Japanese games in the early 90s once catalogs became available to purchase them through.

After a grievous injury on the job, Kinn lost his left leg, limiting his chances to take part in his more active hobbies and exacerbating preexisting health problems he already had to deal with, and so he spent more of his time with games and movies at home. While he did not entirely eschew modern gaming systems and genres, from the Dreamcast era on he focused his new purchases on arcade-style shooters (shmups, STGs, whatever you want to call them), multiplayer games such as Mario Kart, classic games, and of course, fighting games. Due to this fairly small trickle of new content he was picking up –- both domestically and imported –- he was able to focus much of his new-game budget on the newest releases for his favorite console, the Neo Geo, right up until the end of the console’s run, topping off at over 60 games before he ultimately sold the whole thing. In context, these were all critical components to a weekly event he held at his house off of 8 Mile since the 90s, known as Friday Night Gaming, or FNG.

Unlike game nights I’ve seen from most other people, Kinn’s were open to anyone who wanted to come and play some games. He would advertise the events on a variety of forums that he was active on, including shoryuken.com, neo-geo.com, atariage.com, 1up.com, shmups.com and undoubtedly many more that I never learned about. Additionally, he lived near the legendary Wizzards Arcade, once located on 8 Mile near Gratiot, where all the local fighting game players would compete in everything the arcade would stock, such as the Samurai Shodown series, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Guilty Gear X, Puzzle Fighter, and yes, the KOF series. Once the arcade would close down for the night at around 1 am, many of those players would roll on down the street to Robo’s to join in FNG, where frequently the Neo Geo and PS2 imports like the Guilty Gear XX games were stars of the show. Game selection was done purely democratically, with the players themselves choosing what went on at any given time. Depending on how many people were there and who they were, this meant the popular releases of the day such as Super Smash Bros. Melee or Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike had about as much chance as oddball games like World Heroes Perfect, Tecmo Bowl, Karnov’s Revenge, or League Bowling as getting thrown onto the big TV.

KOF was always very popular. Kinn owned nearly every single Neo Geo cart of the KOF series, only missing King of Fighters 2000 and and King of Fighters 2003. Unsurprisingly, the most popular editions proved to be the newest releases and the acclaimed KOF 98. KOF 2001 may have topped them all however; Wizzards declined to get the arcade release, but Kinn picked it up as soon as it went on sale. As a result, 2001 became THE game of FNG for months, running for hours, both at the beginning of the night and again once Wizzards would close. On a few occasions there were over 30 people packed into his living room, hallway, and kitchen doorways watching the game and waiting for their rotation; eventually he proposed making it a “team game” where a person would choose a character on a team and they would hurriedly swap controllers in between rounds. By no means was 2001 the best KOF game, but the sheer amount of time sunk into it and the nostalgia make it one of my favorites in the series. Even once King of Fighters 2002 came out, 2001 still would find its way back into the rotation.

Eventually additional setups were thrown together in the kitchen and in Kinn’s computer room, so more games could get played when the main living room TV was pretty much locked down. Generally these ended up being “old school” games like Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II Turbo for Super NES, 80s game collections for PS1 or PS2, or just another place for people to run Guilty Gear XX when the living room was taken. Moreso than games, however, FNG was a place to socialize, and it was a regular occurrence for people, Kinn included, to just hang out in the kitchen or computer room and chat, usually over some Happy’s Pizza. Eventually, however, the game night crowds began to dwindle a bit partially because of Halo nights other community members were running, and shrunk moreso once Wizzards closed for good in 2004. Despite the shrinking attendance, his own health problems, and the addition of romance to his life from his eventual wife, Kinn continued to run them every few weeks right up until he moved into a new home off of 7 Mile. He ran a couple more dedicated FNG sessions there as well, but not trusting the neighborhood, they quietly ended around 2009, and simply became gaming sessions whenever friends visited. At one of the last FNG nights I recall playing some of the newer crop of fighters, such as KOF 98 Ultimate Match, Arcana Heart, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix. It was truly the end of an era, though none of us quite realized it at the time.

Last year, on October 15, 2010, I popped over to Kinn’s newest home in the suburbs for our own FNG. A few of our friends I asked were unable to join us due to work or other commitments, but he had gotten a friend of his named Dale to join in for what we planned to be a night of shooters. Kinn was never a huge fan of CAVE games, but was intrigued by Deathsmiles footage he had seen, and really wanted to check it out. I decided to surprise him by bringing along a Vectrex with a game he loved as a kid called Rip Off, which he said only a party store a couple miles from his house ever had, leaving him to walk the entire way to play it with his buddies. After nearly 30 years he still had skills in the game and promptly topped my score in it, while Dale showed us all up in Deathsmiles, Mushihimesama Futari, and ESPGaluda II. As always, though, we got to discussing various movies, comics, cartoons, and games, and Robo and I talked about how amazing KOF XIII looked. We were both incredibly excited to play it at the time, and he requested that I come back over during the week with some of our old crew to help set up his game room so he could kick-start a new era of FNG to take advantage of all these new games.

The next morning, while checking websites before work, I discovered he had passed away.

It’s strange the things that bring to mind the man and his gaming sensibilities (which admittedly hewed close to my own). Kinn was an incredibly nice fellow who treated practically everyone like he’d known them for years, and was very supportive and helpful to anyone who wanted to game or talk shop. He would frequently refer to himself as a “scrub brush” in fighters, but that never stopped him from jumping in and getting a few wins, and his commentary for some of those games still come to mind years later. Not many people got the “Eat at Wizzards!” joke he’d make every single time Marco Rodriguez pulled out the wooden sign in Mark of the Wolves (Wizzards was a restaurant before it was an arcade), but he made the crack every time, and it was funny every time. He also would be blown away anytime people did something unexpected and nice for him; my friend Jay brought him Christmas dinner one year, and I surprised him for his birthday in 2002 with an Atari VCS with many of his favorite games that he had long since sold and regretted losing. Nowadays, playing something for the Neo Geo, or a shooter, or an old early-80s game, or even King of Fighters XIII bring him to mind. In a sense I still am competing with him using his old memory card save data with his high scores on it, and he still holds some of the highest scores on the PS3 leaderboards for Shatter, a year after he has passed on.

More than anything, however, he struck me as the sort of person the gaming community at large should strive to be. He didn’t like FPS games, but he didn’t talk down about the people who played them. He didn’t talk down to women who came by FNG to game. He treated everyone with respect, even online, and was generally supportive even when he was competing. More than that, though, he welcomed people into his home and fostered a sense of community that has endured even after he passed on. Any time I toss on KOF XIII I remember him and all the good times we had, gaming and chewing the fat.

Game on, old friend.

• The new defunct FNG page
• Facebook memorial page

Nicole Gustafsson’s Shy Guys, completed just in time for the SUPER iam8bit exhibit, which opens August 11 in Los Angeles. (It’s nice to see somebody exploring the softer side of “shy.”)

I am pretty sure I have mentioned this every summer for the last several summers, but my birthday is actually that very—oh, never mind. Twenty-three was the last birthday I celebrated, anyway. I know, I know.

• nimasprout – Upcoming Iam8bit show! via Sugoi

Related posts:

1. Doki Turnip Panic
2. ‘i am 8-bit’ paper sculptures by Scott C

At least two of the cutest pieces in the exhibit are video games -themed, and of course I am totally in love with both of them.

Here’s one of Hsu’s recurring characters, Snappy Pig, playing his 360. He appears to be losing to the little fox-rodent on the left:

And here’s another recurring character, Sea Monkee, playing his brand new 3DS in a tree.

Giclee prints of each, signed and numbered by the artist, are available in limited runs of 30 (US$120 framed, $70 unframed). The prints are very nearly the same size as the originals, which is nice.

And at the time of this writing, the originals themselves are unsold—Snappy Pig Xbox can be yours for a piddling $325, while Sea Monkee 3DS is just $350.

CRAKENS runs through June 26, so if you are in the Chicagoland area, stop by Rotofugi Gallery. As always, there is no admission fee.

You can read more about the show’s opening reception at Hsu’s blog.

Rotofugi Gallery
2780 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago
(773) 868-3308

• Rotofugi Gallery – CRAKENS: New Works by Martin Hsu

And now for something a little different:

“For the upcoming show Pixel Pushers, sponsored by Scion and curated by Giant Robot,” Buffum writes, “I decided to explore the carnivorous side of the world of video games.” And sure enough, each of Buffum’s 6 macabre works is styled after the beef chart.

Here, Mario’s nemesis Koopa is drawn and divvied into mouthwatering steaks, while Zelda’s Ganon, with his porcine snout, can be turned into bacon, sausage, and ham. The Final Fantasy chocobo is hacked into like a chicken, as is Mario’s stalwart companion Yoshi—he can lay eggs, after all. But best of all, Bloopers and Cheep Cheep fish (they’re the two adversaries from Super Mario Bros’ obnoxious underwater levels) finally get a chilling comeuppance, served with a side of wasabi. So gruesome!

Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot curated the show, which runs from November 13 through December 11 at Scion Installation Gallery LA. The opening reception will be held on the evening of November 13, 7:00-10:00 PST.

Pixel Pushers: An Exploration of 8-Bit Digital Media
November 13 – December 11, 2010
Scion Installation Gallery
3521 Helms Avenue, Culver City 90232
(310) 815-8840

• Jude Buffum – Koopa, It’s What’s For Supper

• Jude Buffum – SCION and Giant Robot Present Pixel Pushers

Related posts:

1. 3G Show at Gallery 1988 LA promises Jude Buffum goodness
2. Soopa Coin-Up Bros.

note: Umm, this finished draft is dated 09/14. Sorry I didn’t post it earlier.

Learn to Play, a gallery exhibit slated to open at Cupertino’s Euphrat Museum of Art, promises challenging, playable game art for its attendees. Some of the digital installations will ring familiar: there’s Jonatan Söderström (Cactus); Mark Essen (messhof); Superbrothers; and more.

Chicago’s own Jake Elliott’s playable piece will interest vintage Sierra fans, as it’s essentially Roberta Williams’ Mystery House, transformed into an unhappy, domestic drama.

The Learn to Play exhibit runs proper from October 4 through November 24, but rubberneckers can catch its preview September 17-18.

Learn to Play
Euphrat Museum of Art
De Anza College
21250 Stevens Creek Boulevard
Cupertino, CA 95014-5793

• In the Museum – De Anza College Euphrat Museum of Art

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1. Talkin’ bout Jason Nelson’s art games
2. Make a 3D video game, dance at the afterparty
3. Playing through the 2011 IGF Nuovo final-list: A House in California

Geekadelpha’s Dan Tabor attended the Otakon anime convention in Baltimore a couple weeks ago, and today he uploaded his photographs to Flickr! And while I am ordinarily unmoved by cosplay, for some reason, all of these earnest, grinning kids really sell it for me (especially cleanly-shaven, babyfaced Gordon Freeman).

Check out Dan’s set! You’re sure to fall in love all over again with Samus Aran, Mega Man, Magnet Man, Astro Boy, the Companion Cube, Silent Hill nurses, Oregon Trail, Waldo, Zombie Waldo, obligatory Leeloo, Ryu, Ken, and Akuma, adorably unthreatening Zangief, Okami’s Amaterasu (?!), Sub-Zero vs. Scorpion, Pedobear, “Paper” Shredder, Big Trouble in Little China, Inspector Gadget, Lady Gaga, Flo, the Progressive car insurance employee, a lawn gnome, and many, many more.

• Otakon 2010 Flickrset via Geekadelphia

Everything Jude Buffum does and makes is inspired, but these 3 pieces for the upcoming 3G Show (Gremlins, Goonies, Ghostbusters) at LA’s Gallery 1988 absolutely take the, uh, the Zuul.

Each of Buffum’s movies-as-8-bit-video-game has already been making the rounds on Tumblr and Reddit today—although, to be fair, I first saw these at .tiff—but they are well worth reposting. So here they are again!

“I wanted to pick a pivotal moment in each film,” Buffum writes, “a scene where one of the characters makes a crucial discovery (or error).”

I especially like the direction Buffum took in his rendering of Gremlins as a 2D platformer: as in the movie, Kate is holding the gremlin threat at bay with flash photography. It’s very Fatal Frame, isn’t it? I would totally play that 8-bit game!

If you happen to be in Los Angeles this fall, I definitely recommend that you pick up some of Buffum’s limited-edition prints and, you know, mail them to me. The exhibit opens September 3rd and runs through the 22nd.

Also, if you happen to be in San Francisco right now, I definitely recommend the current solo show at Gallery 1988 SF, as it is all collage work by the Chicago artist who moonlights as Rotofugi Gallery’s curator. I think I’m obligated by law to mention that.

The 3G Show
Friday, September 3, 7-10pm
Gallery 1988
7020 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles

• Jude Buffum – The 3G Show

Related posts:

1. Jude Buffum slices, dices, quarters, and vivisects your favorite game characters

Related posts:

1. Daily Linksplosion: Tuesday, March 16, 2010
2. Daily Linksplosion: Monday, July 12, 2010
3. Daily Linksplosion: Tuesday, September 14, 2010

That incredible Samus Aran figurine (with LIGHT-UP HELMET and CANNON ARM) is, bafflingly, a customized Celsius vinyl toy, executed by artist Dave Quiles. Look at the details on her Varia suit!

This lovely bounty hunter is just one custom vinyl toy at the Ganmettal Celsius Custom Show, which opened July 10 at LA’s Toy Art Gallery.

The show also featured at least one Mega Man custom (well, duh, right?).

• Vinyl Pulse – Dave “outtamymind” Quiles for the Custom Celsius Show @ TAG (07.10)

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1. Castle Crashers custom vinyl toys
2. Shawn Smith’s DIY plush toy: launching tonight!
3. Gorgeous Dead Space custom action figure

San Franciscans have the Musee Mechanique.

We have Marvin’s.

The following is an interview I did with the business’s proprietor back in 2007. I wrote an article about it, but wasn’t writing for anything covering the beat. Having just found the article, however, I’ve touched it up a bit and provide to you the story of this odd little place tucked away in the suburbs of Farmington Hills.

Marvin Yagoda is a busy man.

Dressed in an off-white shirt and suspenders, Yagoda is moving all over the place as children and adults both crowd his workplace, Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum.

“I’ve got three birthday parties today,” he tells me. He is working on a small television displaying the tale of the world’s tallest man.

Calling Yagoda’s business a museum isn’t entirely accurate. Nor could you really even call it an arcade. It is part of his collection of oddities. Mechanical arcade machines old and new, video games, pinball machines, animatronics, and large amounts of memorabilia from circuses and magic shows past fill the building. There, you can find an 80-year old fortune-telling machine originally from Coney Island sitting near an F-Zero AX arcade racing game from 2003. The contemporary dance-pad games have a 1930s foot massaging machine in between them, while overhead, a spring-mounted fan from 1902 provides a breeze for players. Oddities such as P.T. Barnum’s reproduction of the Cardiff Giant (a famous 1870s era stone “giant”) and looming animatronic muppets from Showbiz Pizza are on display along the walls.

“I opened the museum so I could share these with people,” Yagoda explains. “Most people never see these machines, since most of them are in private collections.”

Yagoda opened the museum in 1980. Since then he’s seen coverage in local and national media outlets, and has even gotten covered in the AAA tourism guide for the Metro Detroit area.

Yagoda is a Detroit native, born there in 1938. He later went into pharmaceutical science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, graduating in 1961. But his fascination with mechanical arcade machines burgeoned in 1956, when he first came across a KT Nickelodeon. Nickelodeons, of course, are machines that, for the cost of a nickel, display about a minute’s worth of filmed action. Popular well before cinema became widespread, Nickelodeons were phased out as technology improved. Yagoda, his interest sparked by that first Nickelodeon, found a dealer that was selling a number of these types of machines.

“I started my collection buying from a man in Muskegon,” he explains.

But he hasn’t stopped there. Yagoda has traveled across the United States, seeking out classic arcade machines, oddities, slot machines, and other pieces of old technology. Recently he has branched out outside the country, however.

“I’ve started collecting UK stuff,” Yagoda says. “It doesn’t matter to me if it’s new or not. If it’s mechanical, I’m interested.”

Pieces in his collection run the age gamut, with some dating back to the early 1900s, to the most recent ones made in the last decade. Finding and getting these items is not always the hardest part, though.

“It’s a hard job maintaining these machines. For the older ones, it’s hard to even find replacement parts,” Yagoda tells me, working in the box-filled back room of his museum.

Among the museum’s other mechanical amusements, interactive photo booths can be found, and there are music-playing machines, including a 55-piece orchestra automaton. Advertisements and statues that look to have come from an old circus sideshow are scattered throughout the building. But of all his collected oddities, Yagoda can’t pick just one favorite.

“It’s like asking someone to choose their favorite kid,” he shrugs.

Outside of the museum, Yagoda continues to work at a pharmacy in Detroit, and enjoys coin collecting and flying. But to see him in his museum is to see a man in his domain.

Even the location of the museum has a story. Located in an alley in a strip mall, Yagoda likes the location, adding that he thinks it brings mystique to the place. It only covers its own operating costs some of the time, but for Yagoda, that’s good enough.

Related posts:

1. Vintage arcade celebrates midcentury marvels
2. I Love the 80s: Michael Ian Black is REALLY into Ms. Pac-Man
3. The cover art for Halo 3 and Gears of War 2 is nigh identical

Now you can virtually stroll through Julien’s arcade exhibit, as photographed in April. Take your time with it, too—it’s absolutely heavenly. I don’t know what this says about me, but it’s very much the place I dreamt of as a kid. I wish there were photos of the arcade as it stood at Neverland, before the ranch was all but vacated.

• Pinorama – Michael Jackson Arcade, Entryway via Simon Parkin

Related posts:

1. Michael Jackson’s old arcade games up for grabs
2. I Love the 80s: Michael Ian Black is REALLY into Ms. Pac-Man

I was able, however, to skim the headlines:

Um, ‘OH NO!!’ is a gossip blog that just accidentally slipped into my RSS feeds somehow

Aside from hitting up UNIQLO Friday for Phoenix Wright shirt goodness, I actually went to check out the newly opened storefront for the fitted-hat and stylish streetwear aficionados at Mishka. Lo and behold, what did they have there? Oh nothing, just some cool clothes and the most awesome-ist custom-painted Street Fighter II cabinet ever, set to free play.

• Mishka Bloglin – Here Comes a New Challenger! via Bohemian Gamer

Beacon, New York’s Retro Arcade Museum opened its doors late last month. There, and for just $10 an hour, visitors can play curator Fred Bobrow’s collection of vintage pinball and arcade cabinets from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

I suspect the handheld collection isn’t playable—as it’s behind glass—but, uh, it never hurts to ask?

• Flickr – RETRO ARCADE MUSEUM via Retro Thing

Related posts:

1. Michael Jackson’s old arcade games up for grabs
2. Boozing in the arcade
3. The man behind the gears: Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum

“Did you go to the first one?” Adam asked me.

“N-no…” I admitted. “But! That’s why I’m definitely coming to this one. Guilt!”

Game Over: Continue opens at GRSF on March 27. Check out the list—there’s art from trailblazers like CUPCO, Jeremyville, and Bigfoot. Plus, four special game/art installations will be playable in-store.

• Attract Mode – Game Over II Is Now Game Over/Continue?

LAN party at the cinematheque!

Taking residence in a movie theater (this theater, actually), Madrid’s Cinegames combines the flair of Captain EO with the special effects of Alien Encounter. Lights flash and adjust to match the action on screen. “Then we have the smoke,” explains developer Enrique Martínez. “If there are accidents or a car burns rubber, smoke appears.”

The result: a distinctly theatrical, shared experience among gamers who might ordinarily stay home. Yes, please.

• Current – Spain’s Ultimate Gaming Theater via Asylum