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Why did we start
this competition?
“WHEN
I first started out the interest in retro-gaming was still in
it’s infancy, however as my business has grown I’ve been pleasantly
surprised as to how the buzz around these classic games has
snowballed. Like many people I absolutely love these games, they are
my childhood, my nostalgia. That nostalgia sparked my dream to set
up a company specializing in the classic arcade games like Pac Man,
Defender, Asteroids and Space Invaders. Many of these old machines
have been scrapped, but recently arcade-goers have become tired of
the industry’s over-reliance on elaborate cabinets and gimmicks.
I started
collecting any games I could find, most of them I re-built from
scavenged parts. It was understandably difficult get funding and, I
found it hard to get my business off the ground. I was thought of as
mad or very silly by the business community, and there’s many a time
I was told, “It will never work.”
and worse still…“Grow up, get a life.”
Thankfully for
me that lucky break I was looking for came about, and in true movie
style it happened when I was least expecting it! The gaming
industry’s been good to me, and I’d nice to feel like I’ve been
rewarded for doing my bit to preserve it’s history. This competition
is a way for me to give something back, for a start I want to spark
some innovation in the gaming industry . More importantly though, I
know from experience how hard it can be when you’re starting out,
and this competition is a way to give a helping hand to someone
who’s in the same boat when I was first starting out.”
Jonathan “JT”
Thompson.
Where can the
games be used?
GAME for
arcade systems and things like the good old Spectrum, Commodore 64
and the VIC20, can now be found all over the place, like on your
mobile phone and that is what makes this such an interesting
competition. Other ways your game can bring you cash in are from
online game playing, the development of electronic newspapers, hence
our connection to the Mersey Reporter. Also some TV and
other things like the Amstrad Email Phone offer games like this to
play on them. Then you have electronic pocket games and
the list goes on and on. Not only do you get a
foot in the Arcade business, but also you get the chance to show off
your talent to other sectors of the programming and gaming industry.
To much focus has been placed with complex graphic and game play
games, yet it is the simple games that survive. Even if you are not
picked, I hope that this would have helped you develop a game that
can be used not only on Video Game Arcade Systems, but for other
applications, that will in the end make your ideas commercially
viable.
What type of
games do we want?
WHAT we don’t want to see is
retro revival or copycat games; We want new ideas, based on simple
concepts of retro games and game play. This is my motivation for
this competition and it should be the gaming industries as well.
The gaming industry’s become a bit pre-occupied with making things
look pretty, and some games display their staggering system
requirements like a badge of honour. We want people to show me that
we haven’t forgotten the basics, and remind the gaming industry that
it’s playability that counts.
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