For those of you who haven’t heard, we’re hitting Brighton tomorrow with a stand at the new Hand Baked Arcade monthly retro gaming event!
Don’t worry if you can’t make it down this time, there’ll be another on November 13th and again on December 11th.

Details of the event are as follows:
Hand Baked Arcade are at it again, this time taking their arsenal of retro gaming equipment to Brighton’s recently renamed venue the Blind Tiger (previously known as Hector’s House). The Hand Baked Arcade will be open to the public on 3 different dates; The first being October 9th from 4pm – 11pm.

Expect to see many classic games and consoles including:

Mega Drive
SNES
Master System
2-Player Arcade machine
NES
Sega Saturn (10 player!) Bomberman
computer running Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D
+ much more!

The Hand Baked Arcade are well known for their FREE to play arcade events across the UK. Installations have been featured at many of the best music festivals including Glastonbury, Glade and Bloc Weekend. They have also featured in countless night clubs, art galleries and even on The Gadget Show, Channel 5.

Music will be supplied by Hand Baked DJs: lo-fi, underground, wonky, eclectic and electronic music will be served up to create the perfect soundtrack to your gaming.

So whether you are a keen gamer or simply wanting a unique night out then get down to the venue early, get the drinks in and let nostalgia run through your veins, The Hand Baked Arcade is coming to Brighton!

To see a video of hand Baked’s recent event in London click here: http://vimeo.com/28210448

Thanks to political correctness gone mad, the days of watching a midget fight a booze crazed Russian called Vodka Drunkenski in a south east London pub are sadly gone. The magic of those far off nights – and the fine athletes they produced – are, however, celebrated in Nintendo’s Super
Punch Out series, written by Genyo Takeda.

Takeda showed a love of delicate things at an early age,
when he would build tiny trains and automobiles at the family home in
Osaka. Quite what inspired him to come up with this charmingly brutal series is therefore unclear, but he went on to effectively trademark cartoony violence in ice hockey, wrestling and American football games, all successfully aimed at the US market. He would probably do one for bear baiting,
given half a chance.  But enough speculation – it’s time utter those immortal words Seconds away! No punching below the belt and the first one to blub is a
lady! as we stick our gumshields in and prepare for Round One.

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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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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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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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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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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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