12 years running, California Extreme is probably the largest show of its kind in the world.

One weekend a year, arcade machine collectors from around the Bay Area (and anywhere else within a few hours' drive) bring their machines to San Jose, and for one glorious weekend, anyone can walk in off the street, pay their admission fee, and enjoy access to a 1000-machine arcade - no quarters required - until midnight on Saturday, and until dusk on Sunday.

Yeah, that's a shameless plug, but I've attended every show for the past few years, and it really does live up to the hype.  Google it, flickr it, check out the list of speakers and the list of movies shown, and above all, come to play the games that you haven't seen in twenty years.  Some of the games at the show are prototypes that have never seen the light of day outside of Atari's labs, and of ex-Atari employees' basements.

Ah man, I wanna go to this!

Play something for me, ok Foo?

seriously...this would be so awesome to attend!! Why can't they ever have anything fun like this come to the Pittsburgh area? :-\\

seriously...this would be so awesome to attend!! Why can't they ever have anything fun like this come to the Pittsburgh area? :-\\


They do have a pinball convention in Pittsburgh and it's really fun too.  ;)

http://www.papa.org/index.php  I wish I could go to that, but I already promised hubby we'd go to a gaming (role-playing game) convention in Indiana that weekend. 

They do have a pinball convention in Pittsburgh and it's really fun too.   ;)

http://www.papa.org/index.php  I wish I could go to that, but I already promised hubby we'd go to a gaming (role-playing game) convention in Indiana that weekend. 



OMG...totally smashing! :)

OMG...totally smashing! :)


Yeah; pinball's been driven underground due to the lack of attention to proper maintenance by typical bar owners and the complete absence of arcades.  But there are holdouts, and PAPA's been doing a spectacular job in keeping the game alive.  Due to PAPA's efforts, no matter where you live in North America, there's probably a pinball league within a few hours' drive.

Speaking of pinball, every pinball player needs to see TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball.

And if you can't make it to CAX, you can get almost as good a retro vibe out of Chasing Ghosts.

12 years running, California Extreme is probably the largest show of its kind in the world.

One weekend a year, arcade machine collectors from around the Bay Area (and anywhere else within a few hours' drive) bring their machines to San Jose, and for one glorious weekend, anyone can walk in off the street, pay their admission fee, and enjoy access to a 1000-machine arcade - no quarters required - until midnight on Saturday, and until dusk on Sunday.

Yeah, that's a shameless plug, but I've attended every show for the past few years, and it really does live up to the hype.  Google it, flickr it, check out the list of speakers and the list of movies shown, and above all, come to play the games that you haven't seen in twenty years.  Some of the games at the show are prototypes that have never seen the light of day outside of Atari's labs, and of ex-Atari employees' basements.


  This sounds awesome!  I checked out the website a little bit.  Wonder if a Dragon's Lair will make an appearance.  I sucked at it 25 years ago, it would be nice to suck at it again, just for old time's sake...

  You said "the Bay Area", capitalized and all...I'm wondering if you're from around here.  San Jose, perhaps?  You don't have to answer that...

Yeah; pinball's been driven underground due to the lack of attention to proper maintenance by typical bar owners and the complete absence of arcades.  But there are holdouts, and PAPA's been doing a spectacular job in keeping the game alive.  Due to PAPA's efforts, no matter where you live in North America, there's probably a pinball league within a few hours' drive.

Speaking of pinball, every pinball player needs to see TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball.

And if you can't make it to CAX, you can get almost as good a retro vibe out of Chasing Ghosts.


   Remember those monstrosities called Chinese pinball?  They became insanely popular in the seventies.  My friend's older brother had one.  Kept it next to his CB radio and pet rock... 

I wish I could go to this. Would make for an incredible 2 days.

Arcades are dead around here. The local pizza place has a "Ms. Pac-Man" machine, but that's about it. :(

Someday I'll make it out there. I know quite a few of the guys that do the keynotes (Owen Rubin, whose site I run and who created Space Duel, Major Havoc, and other Atari coinops; Al Alcorn, who created Pong; Ed Logg, who created Asteroids and Centipede; a couple others) and I'd really like to meet them in person someday :)

  This sounds awesome!  I checked out the website a little bit.  Wonder if a Dragon's Lair will make an appearance.  I sucked at it 25 years ago, it would be nice to suck at it again, just for old time's sake...


Almost certainly; there's usually a full row of laserdisc games, including all the ones you remember, and a few prototypes of which only 2-20 ever existed in the world.  You name it, it's probably going to be there.

(Yeah, I'm from the general vicinity, but so are a few million other folks.  Part of what makes CAX so good is the number of ex-industry people who have a couple of prototypes in their basements, and the prototypes only make public appearances once a year.  I'm nowhere near so fortunate as to own 'em, but I sure do enjoy playing them.  The sequel to the Star Wars was production version of The Empire Strikes Back, of which only 500 were made.  The custom version of Battlezone that was (almost) made for the Army, the Road Runner game was originally implemented on laserdisc before being downgraded to "normal" raster hardware, one-offs like Akka Arrh, Marble Madness II, and outlandish hardware hacks like Cube Quest?  They've all showed up, at least once, at California Extreme.)

Maybe I'll plan on taking a vacation out that way next year.  I hear Amtrack is a nice way to get around.


So how was the convention?  You've got us all drooling over you going.  ;D  What did you play?  We want a full report!  ;)

Maybe I'll plan on taking a vacation out that way next year.  I hear Amtrack is a nice way to get around.

So how was the convention?  You've got us all drooling over you going.  ;D  What did you play?  We want a full report!  ;)


(voice=ferris-buehler)The question isn't 'what did I play', but 'what didn't I play?'(/voice)

Of course I played all the classics.  There were only a few hundred of 'em.  Got all the X-Y games and laserdisc games, and most of the raster games.  It was great to be able to play stuff like Warlords with four human players (any rumors about dollar bills being laid on the table are strictly hearsay) instead of a computer opponent.  Ditto for competitive/co-operative games like Williams' Joust, Atari's Space Duel, and Rock-Ola's (aka Cinematronics') Armor Attack. 

These aren't my reviews, but this guy and this guy covered the high points.

The prototype of The Act (Avidgeek) was my personal highlight.  Controls are deceptively simple; a simple Tempest-like spinner.  Video was Disney or Don Bluth-quality hand-drawn character animation.  Turn the wheel to the right to be more aggressive/blustery/macho, to the right to be more conciliatory/wussy/laid-back.  You're a hapless window-washer, and your mission, and you have no choice but to fall into a hilarious sequence of events worthy of any Chuck Jones cartoon, is to imagine yourself as the suave guy picking up that hot chick at the bar, cover for your drunken co-worker, while your boss rants and raves at you to get your work done, join a group of doctors and convince them you're a doctor too.  Then rescue your passed-out friend before he gets taken in for brain surgery, flirt with the outrageously hot nurse, take care of a few cantankerous patients as you finally find your co-worker, escape with him through the hospital and explain the whole thing, and when you're finally exposed as a mere window-washer successfullly apologize to that nurse who thought that you were a doctor.

Every frame of your character's animation links into every other frame -- and as you turn the control to manipulate your own emotional state, you see the results instantly in your character's facial expressions and body language, and all the other characters (hot nurses, joking doctors, angry bosses, drunken co-workers, and so on) immediately react in ways that are downright human.  The music is computer-generated in real-time, and is adjusted in real time to match what's going on on-screen.  Sometimes you're twisting the wheel back and forth a quarter-turn every few seconds.  Other times, you're calibrating the wheel; making barely-perceptible movements of one or two degrees in either direction based on the reactions of the other characters; much like real-life flirtation, being as little as 1% too far over the line can result in your embarassing (and hilarious) demise.

The great drawback of the laserdisc classics of the 80s was that you were choosing simple things like "go left/right/up/down, or attack".  You never really controlled the character; you just paged through a "choose your own adventure" book, except that it was in video form.

The Act solved that problem.  It was made in 2006, and the technology had to wait 20 years to catch up to the point that a hand-drawn cartoon character can, at the player's request, do anything from "go to sleep", "flee in terror", "flinch", "lean back and turn away", "avert your eyes and glance back at her", "smile coyly", "stare intently", "make a kissy face", "jump her bones!", and every point in between, and elicit a realistic response from the other characters. 

Eight machines were made.  One was at CAX 2008.  For two days, it had a crowd around it unlike anything I'd seen since the original Dragon's Lair first came out.  I had the privilege to talk to its owner, and it'll almost certainly be back for CAX 2009.

The Act <snip>   

Eight machines were made.  One was at CAX 2008.  For two days, it had a crowd around it unlike anything I'd seen since the original Dragon's Lair first came out.  I had the privilege to talk to its owner, and it'll almost certainly be back for CAX 2009.


One machine (from a kit) is in the hands of a Utah arcade owner who operates it- http://www.arcadeheroes.com

One machine (from a kit) is in the hands of a Utah arcade owner who operates it- http://www.arcadeheroes.com


ROAD TRIP!

(Or, at least, marked down on the list of places to visit when doing my next road trip into the deserts of the Southwest!)

what bay area arcades did you frequent/hang out at in the 80's?  Did you ever visit any in Berkeley?