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Creating the Retro Gaming Experience To me, sitting infront of a flat screen TV using some emulator and a wireless controller didn't really provide me with the best Retro Gaming experience. When I first tried playing the old games I used to love on emulation, it just felt empty and stale. I wasn't sure why at first, then it hit me. When I was playing the games, I was looking for that nostalgic experience. I wanted to relive the memories of my youth. Unfortunately emulation wasn't sparking that nostalgic memory. I needed a true Retro Gaming experience. I learned then, there was a difference between just playing a retro game at home and actually "experiencing" home retro gaming. I kinda compare it to the experience of playing one of the new Arcade One-Up machines in your house compared to actually going to a real (retro) arcade. Both experiences are extremely different even though you're playing the same game. So it's the atmosphere that plays a big part in contributing to the experience. (I needed to bring the atomsphere back) So a few years ago I decided to create my own Home Retro Gaming experience by creating a retro gaming nook. I had a small space in the corner of my garage to use as a template. This would take a lot of patience and hunting. Though I had plenty of Atari stuff in my collection, I still needed to hunt out the decor I needed for this retro nook. To sit down somewhere and feel like I went back in time. The act of playing on a old CRT TV, being restricted by cords. The earthy tones of the wood paneling. The simplistic decor of the late 70s/early 80s of my youth. To design something that took me back in time would offer the true experience. My first pick-up was this 1977 Sony Trinitron with matching TV Cart: So during the next year-and-a-half I combed eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and local thrift stores. I not only needed the right decor, but I needed it cheap (I didn't really have much of a budget). Once I accumulated enough stuff to make my design reality, it was time to begin. I decided to dedicate a small corner of my garage for a retro corner. I started with the wood paneling. Luckily, many of the home improvement stores still carries wood paneling for very cheap. After getting the wood paneling up, it was only a matter of laying the carpet down and putting the pieces in the place. When all was said and done I only spent around $300 to complete this project. A lot of the cost savings came with patience. waiting to find the right stuff for the right price without overspending (For example, the TV and cart I was able to pick up for $30). Here was the end result. The final Retro Nook came out better than I imagined. Sitting in this corner playing my Atari, I almost thought I was back in 1983. Even the copper colored wing-back chair was the same chair we had a 1983 (my family never had the heart to get rid of it). People have to remember...... Back in the early 80s, most home decor were still from the 70s (unless they recently remodeled). Add a little stale tobacco smoke to the nook to complete the Retro Gaming experience?. For the rest of the year I often enjoyed disappearing in my little gaming area to relive some of my nostalgic memories. At times my kids even joined me. It was great to show my children how "dad" played games when he was a little boy. During the next summer I decided to do a redesign of my retro corner. I wanted to make it a themed corner, as well as incorporate one of the old cabinet TVs that I have. I have always been a fan of playing original hardware on original hardware. So I have multiple CRT TVs that my children and myself use. I do have a few cabinet TVs and I had one in particular I wanted to use for my new "themed" retro corner. Here is a old cabinet TV I have in my bedroom. It's the TV I used most of the time before I designed my retro corner. Anyways, since I wanted to redesign my retro corner I decided to do it themed design. I decided to go with a Q*Bert theme which was one of my favorite Retro Gaming characters. It took a while to gather all the stuff I needed for the redesign. I already had an old 1970 zenith cabinet TV I wanted to use, but to find the right Q*Bert themed decor was a little challenging (more specifically the wall art). Then I found the perfect piece. A Q*Bert latch hook rug became available and I just had to have it. I was also able to acquire a orange wingback chair for $20. Here is the final design...... This Q*Bert themed design I was extremely happy with. I decided to get rid of the table to bring back the good ole days of having to sit on the floor to play. Coincidentally enough, I finished this design right around Halloween. I actually had a old early 80s Q*Bert costume (one of those old vinyl Collegeville costumes). My son decided to humor me and put the costume on so I could do a Halloween photo. I tried to use an aging filter to make the photo look a little less "high def". I'm not professional photographer so I did what I could with my cell phone, lol Here was the end result. MY 2020 DESIGN..... In 2020 I decided to shrink up the design a little. To make something simpler, and to design a area that would mimic a image you would see on a Atari Ad. I used a different TV for this one (1984 Zenith). One of the best parts about having this retro corner is being able to spend time with my kids introducing them too the early gaming experience. Due to Covid-19 and spending a lot of time at home, we were able to spend a lot of time playing games together. All in all, creating a authentic Retro Gaming experience is relatively inexpensive and you only need a very small space. Playing these games takes me back to a simpler time. For some reason I find it more enjoyable playing on my retro setups then I do behind a computer screen or on some other type of emulation. The feel of the carpet, the act of inserting the cartridge, the smell of the TV tubes, the sight of the wood paneling, and being restricted to the limitations of technology all help contribute to the overall Retro Gaming experience. This is what I remember, and I find myself actually enjoying playing these old games more as I disappear in my time machine. COVID-19 The summer of 2020 I came across a old 1979 Sony Trinitron. I decided to do a very quick redesign to include that TV, as well as using my Space Invaders wall art I've been holding onto for a while. After I was done my children's school went to "virtual learning" due to the Coronavirus. My kids decided to turn my Retro Nook into a Virtual Learning Battle Station, (where old technology mixes with new technology..?). My 2021 design In 2021 I wanted to mess around with more themes within my design. I decided to start spring off right and go with a Easter theme. About 2 weeks before Easter, we got word that the Easter Bunny was going to visit our house on Easter morning. I wanted the Easter Bunny to feel welcome and it was a perfect opportunity to use my retro corner for my children to take photos with Easter Bunny. So I quickly put my Retro Corner together preparing for a special visitor. After the visit from the Easter Bunny I want to create a ? Alien ? themed area. This is something I wanted to do for quite some time. I've always been a fan of sci-fi and I wanted this "Alien Abduction" type of feel for my 2021 design. Green accent lights to give the whole corner a eerie glow This alien design for a 2021 is really fun to work with and I'm constantly changing it a little. I recently got rid of the green lights and decided to give it more traditional lighting. The kids and I have a great time playing games in this area and I love the fact that my children enjoy having a little retro gaming time with their dad. Ghostbusters Afterlife 2021 In October of 2021 I decided to change up the decorations in the room one last time in anticipation for the new Ghostbusters movie. Myself being a child of the '80s I have always loved the Ghostbusters franchise so I decided to give my retro Corner a Ghostbusters theme for the final design of 2021 2023 DESIGN This Retro Gaming corner is just a temporary setup in my garage. I pack everything away for the winter time and then in the spring I set it up again. One of the best parts of doing this, is that it gives me the opportunity to constantly change the design. And in 2023 I wanted to utilize this 1976 Zenith TV. I wanted to keep it a little simple this time around. This TV was another free pick-up from someone who didn't want it anymore. I spent another year finding the right TV cart, Zenith rabbit ears, and 1976 Zenith radio. I absolutely loved how this TV set up turned out. Here it is set up in my Retro Corner It's been a blast having this little retro gaming corner. In the past 4 years I have been able to spend a lot of time in my retro corner playing my old Atari with my kids (and creating awesome memories). Hopefully someday I will be able to dedicate a entire room to the simplicity days before the internet. The days before the constant bombardment of social digital stress. Thanks for reading my blog.

You decide!

What is your favorite console generation and how would you rank the generations from favorite to least favorite? Here is how I would rank the console generations, along with a brief reason. 1. 4th Generation - 4 great consoles (TG-16, Neo Geo, SNES, Genesis) and each of them had their own identities and specific game genres that made them stand out. They also went out of their way to attack the competition in print ads or TV. 2. 6th Generation - Quality of 3D games improves. This generation was able to catch up with the arcades in terms of graphical quality. A good chunk of my 6th generation games are arcade ports. 3. 5th Generation - For me the PlayStation was king of the Japanese RPGs. Sega Saturn had some great arcade ports of 2D games. Though I am not a fan of the Nintendo 64, they stepped it up when it came to 3D games. 4. 3rd Generation - The reason why I don't rank this higher is because it was dominated by one system. The NES reigns supreme. I need to say no more. The Master System could have been a lot more, but sadly it didn't get the chance to. 5. 2nd Generation - A ton of systems in this era, though shit hit the fan during this time. Still a lot of memorable systems and games from this era, with the 2600 being my favorite. 6. 1st Generation - Mostly dominated by Pong. I love Pong. I have to give them a pass, since this was the very beginning. 7. 7th Generation - While there were games from this era that I enjoyed, there are too many issues about this generation that turned me off. Notably DLC, constant system updates, and patches, the unreliability of the 360 and the slowness of the PS3. 8. 8th Generation - Mandatory installs for games with the systems having limited hard drives. Why should you have to spend more money to get a bigger hard drive? These are supposed to be video game systems, not PCs. Not too many games that I find appealing. Too much focus on big budget titles. Games that would draw my interest may not get physical releases and thus get relegated to digital downloads.

I'm aware that most of you will know the games better as this cowboy from the swiss alps does. I had the idea to post a couple of experiences i made with the games i recently play often on my Intellivision. So mostly unreleased, unfinished or otherwise "crippled" games, it seems the¥ have a special treat on me. It might be just because i have to explore them and can't simply depend on a instruction/manual. That is - you guessed it right - "Space Shuttle" - (i.e) it has a very special might & magic to me. But there are a couple of others i started to fiddle around with and which i started to like much. Unlike to start with "Space Shuttle" i will start here with Number Jumble there isn't much one couldn't know about how to play this game. But it's surprisingly addictive. It's damned good imho, that's why i like to list it here. It sucks a bit in the controls for the vessels, they are very clumsy but i see that as a special hardness. The "worlds", the background art is simply great (for its time). Already this can make you curious about the game. The real fun starts at level 48. First i thought "what for do i need 48 levels of hardness?" Until i played it. Honestly im very bad in arithmetics, at least compared to my dad why would have spilled out the results faster as you can type it in a calculator. If others had a table calculator on their desk, dad had a slide ruler solve longer calculations. But he grew up in a different "galaxy" (time), in his galaxy they used to beat you with a stick when you answered wrong and it was pure self protection to be as good as possible, even better. Daddy left out a class because of his capablity in arithmetics. We no longer beat children with sticks and have to find better ways to teach them Number Jumble is one way. But it's not only educational, else it would bore me and it's by far no childrens game only, it can be quite hard, the skill of the game itself and the equations you have to solve. Recently no screenshots, because i guess you all know the game, but perhaps i post some nonetheles because the background art is really sweet. The equations in level 48 are such hard that a "idiot" like me can't solve them without a calculator, mostly at least if i see a result rightaway of course i won't need it ( [300 / 0] + 1, a division by zero seems to be a favorite, well i guess a lot of ppl will solve them wrong). Certainly you are adviced to have paper and pencil ready - not only for the children, for yourself as well. Lazy cheater as i am i use like i said a calculator, i'm a member of the first button pusher generation. It's a bit sad that they removed the scratchpad from the release on intellivision lives, it would prevent me (at least for the emulation) from using the calculator but with pretty much the same effect that i won't have to solve them. Using the calc isn't such a bad thing, it's still sportive to get faster or to recognize a easy equation of which you think afterwards why you used the calculator and didn't saw the ease of it. I posted in another thread that a young fellow (around 20) tried it out and i started to get proud of my old inty. He acted clumsy in both, moving the vessels and solving the simple equations, but somehow it fascinated this boy who otherwise stated how one could play such old crap - now he knows why, it's a sport. I didn't think i'm really good in it and at level 48 i didn't managed it to complete one level, they always bite my ass. but that is caused a bit in the very beginning i didn't understood quite proper what is ment with "house" and that it's a little crosshair looking circle i have to lookout for. After playing a level 1 game i knew what i had too look for, and could again step up to level 48, it's far more fun A tip if you like to play it and never played it or have little experience with it. Using this system i got fairly good in quite a short time managing myself through a level 48 level, still i haven't completed one. My schoolbuddy Paul was one who could use both controllers either lefthanded or righthanded the same, natively he's a lefthanded like my father was and usually they have this small advantage, in the case for my father it was very distinctive, in his "universe" it wasn't allowed to write lefthanded and thus he was trained very well using both hands in the same way. Nonetheless the meanies are as mean as they can be. They often will lurk around on the screen and suddenly... a blitz-attack. You will shout, you will argue that it's mean, i grant you! (but don't smash your console against a wall, that won't help, i'm experienced in that) but exactly this makes it so addictive, you won't believe it's true, it can't be, those damned meanies. They can follow you in a short distance but keep the gap so you might think you are safe, but as soon as you flip your vessel to shoot them down your'e past. Overall i'm surprised how a arithmetic trainer can fascinate me, if that is one from the Intellivision or even worse "Arithmetic Primer" from the infamous "Champion2711" or "Addition" from Studio II. It can be already sport to get good in "Addition", The simple and mean thing is the scoring, theoretically you can score 11 points, but it's not to reach because you would have to press the proper button right when the numbers get drawn, more as 10 pts you practically can't reach or you have telepathic skills and know the addition before it's asked, nonetheless for the 20 questions i never scored 200, my top score for "Addition" is 194, sometimes you need a little longer to recon the numbers or you will miss if you try to get faster and reach no top score. Ok, it's about "Number Jumble" i liked to post here. "Number Jumble" leaves you more time to answer and for each time unit (which is about 3 seconds i guess) your score for this equation will be lowered by 20%. (and again a fith of it which means you would theoretically never score 0 if there would be fractures of one, but we have only integers, 0.000000......1 isn't zero and is integer 1 thus i guess 1 is the lowest possible score but for this you will have to wait quite long). Of course the real fun starts with a competition, but it's really good to play as a single player sport, you like to get better and it's not to clear to me why. As much as i like shump games many leak exactly of this goal, this final addictive thing which makes you play it again and again. Number Jumble has it, as simple as it might look at first bite as hard and challenging it is at second. The levels advances quite for the four worlds you can play, each finished level will double your scoring, 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, but in the same manner the skill will grow from a started game at level one to a final skill level of 12, which is honestly quite hard for an "Arithmetic Primer" who has to start at level 1. Of course for a grown up an addition or subtraction like "17 + 54" should be no problem, but if you think of a beginners child who has to start with "1 + 3" it's quite hard. Fairly level 1 starts very easy, but already then 0 is used quite often, "0 plus/minus 0" funny but it has it's reason. To finish a world, respectively to double the score multiplier you have to reach the "House" or better lets say "Transporter" symbol. It will beam you back to the selection screen of the beginning and double the score multiplier. Any once completed world won't double it again, you will have to play all 4 worlds to reach 8x. However you are free to choose from any world, while always only three of the possible 4 are to select from. The typing of the answers on the keypad is also something you have to get used to. Equations which are diplayed as a line, i.e. 12 + 7 you can type in naturally like you are used to from left to right, 1, 9. If the same equation is displayed as column, 12 + 9 ---- you will have to type it in from right to left 9,1, don't ask me why or what was the idea behind. fortunately you can flip the inserted numbers with any action button before you press enter. It's however a source for errors if you lose conciousness. "beep" "argh damned i forgot to flip the numbers" Like i said it's fun to play, i love the style of it and it turned out to be an addictive game. Explore it yourself if i infected you and post screenshots of it here.

Big things come in small packages!

The community support keeps making the Pocket better all the time!

The Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo is going on in Vancouver, BC on June 25th, 2022. Event info at https://www.vancouvergamingexpo.com Who's going?

The first half is what I put in, and the second half is what I got out.

This Altered Beast port shouldn't exist... and yet it does.

Welcome all! I have been sick with retrogaming for a long time and for decades I have accumulated large packs of games from various outdated platforms. Including little-known outside of Japan. I decided to create a YouTube channel on which I want to share video with the gameplay and at the same time streamline my collection. I invite everyone who shares my interest in old games. I sketched a short video with the most interesting games for the Sharp MZ-700 computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OOcaGI8Mco

A $560 game for $37?!

The PC Engine Files No. 98! Chibi Maruko-Chan Quiz De Pihyara.

After 2 long years my Amiga CD32 Digital Encyclopedia (found here https://screenpedia.online/?product=album ) is finally finished! I would like to thank everybody that helped along the way whether it was answering one of my hundreds of questions or simply lending support. As a thankyou to the Amiga community I have added a discount code "amigalove" that can be added at the checkout to save around 28% off the purchase. Lastly for those that purchase the book and find any mistakes or missing facts about any of the games I will fix them and release an updated version at no extra charge for life. I hope you enjoy the Amiga CD32 Digital Encyclopedia!

This time Genesis DOES what a GameBoy can do!

What a way to kick off the latest round of the Retro Swap Box!

For fifty bucks, I don’t regret it!

Heh. He said UNIT.

It's a 2D QBert style game and not too shabby!

A bargain bin USB SNES style controller for Mac and PC! Is it any good though?

Don't let the cuteness fool you!

Or maybe even Part Deux?