I found this fan sprite art on Pinterest. Dunno the original designer, so I can’t credit the person. I made a couple of tweaks to it.
Iron bead pixel art of Lt. Lin Kurosawa from Capcom’s Aliens vs. Predator
Out Run Ferrari iron bead sprite complete!
I took a pixel dump of the Ferrari from Out Run on the Megadrive from The Spriter’s Resource website.
I wish I had a darker palette of reds to choose from. I used Perler’s Tomato, Cherry, Red, and Hama’s Dark Red to complete this project.
Here is the final result, after ironing.
Taito Game Station in Lirica Mall, Maebashi
These are pictures I took a few months ago in the Taito Game Station arcade in Lirica Mall. From left to right: the sign in front, a vending machine, and Space Invaders Frenzy.
New buttons I got at the Mikado Game Center
Mikado had these pin badge buttons in their gachapon capsule toy dispensers, so I got three. One big one that says “PUSH START” (I’m not sure why it says “2006” because according to the Japanese Wikipedia, it started in 2009), and a set of buttons for the Mikado location in Ikebukuro (top) and the original in Takadanobaba (bottom). As I mentioned in the previous post, Mikado is a legendary spot for retrogaming.
Screenshots of arcade games at the legendary Mikado in Tokyo
I visited Mikado next to Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo. Here are some more screenshots of game screens.
Pac-Man donuts at Krispy Kreme!
I bought these today in Shinjuku after visiting the Pac-Man 45th anniversary pop-up event in Harajuku.
I’m a SUPER MEGA DORK!
My new Pac-Man pillow from Shimamura!
I went to Shimamura today and found this lovely Pac-Man decorative pillow! It feels so soft! Here are front and back photos of it. There was another Pac-Man pillow there which featured large sprites of the characters, but I like the design of this one better. Interestingly, it features the English names of the ghosts. There were also Pac-Man bath mats there too, but I didn’t get them because I imagine my wife wants to keep the ones we already have.
It’s the ’80s, and you have only one quarter. Which game will you play?
Pac-Man is my all-time favorite game. In fact, I’m wearing Pac-Man boxer shorts underwear as I post this. I’m nuts for anything Pac-Man. That said, Star Wars was my #1 go-to game every time, as I mentioned in my post about the old arcade Bag-A-Tel as a kid.
I didn’t really play Defenders or Space Invaders in the arcade that much. I’d play them on my Atari at home. I preferred Galaxian over Space Invaders and I found the controls of Defender in the arcade to be too complicated with all those buttons.
And Tempest… wow. Star Wars and Tempest are the two I’d most want to play today. Playing games on an emulator and my Sega Saturn Virtua Stick is a great way to go at home, but the flight yoke of Star Wars and the analog knob of Tempest are two experiences that emulators can’t truly capture. For that matter, Centipede’s trackball is worth mentioning too, although while I liked that game, it didn’t come close.
Perhaps my least favorite of all of these games was Donkey Kong. I actually liked Popeye better, and Kangaroo even more so.
I scored a Sega Saturn pillow at Shimamura
The front and back of a neat Saturn pillow I found at Shimamura this week. It was actually put in the men’s section, discounted from 1300 yen down to 300! Swanky.