#internet arcade

[lyramakesgames]

Astro Blaster & The Internet Arcade

When it comes to gaming, I prefer staying at home and playing on console machines or my personal computer. I haven’t played that many classic arcade games in my life, aside from a racing game or two. Maybe a claw machine if I was feeling lucky. I thought I wasn’t missing out on much, considering I played many a minigame adapted from the classics.

Take Astro Blaster for example. A simple goal of shooting the alien space ships before they take you out first. I figured I would take a spin at it after seeing it in the Internet Arcade. I remembered how fun it was to play the minigames of a similar nature and, though I ended things off early in the past with such games out of boredom, I figured it was an easy enough game to play for a bit.

Though I neglected to realize the differences between the original and other adaptations until I lost the game. A very quick and humbling experience, might I add.

The key differences that led to an untimely end were the enemies themselves. While the versions I played focused on many enemies descending at once, Astro Blaster gave me a run for my virtual coins as the enemies moved around the level faster than my favorite rhythm game at maximum speed. Normally I would miss enemies by the skin of their teeth. With Astro Blaster? I couldn’t even hit the broad side of a barn!

5630 points. Not bad, but I could do better.

Another “coin” clinked in the machine. Round two, let’s go!

Then I became aware of another thing I missed: the fuel gauge. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about maneuvering my little ship around. After all, it was the onslaught of enemies I had to worry about and whether I could dodge their attacks before they overtook me.

With Astro Blaster, however, I discovered the fuel gauge and the threat of overheating the lasers. Not only was I now focused on dodging the space ships, but now I had to make sure I didn’t blow up my own ship.

3320 points. New information noted. Round 3!

Did you realize that you could die from being in the wrong area of the map when it’s time to dock the ship?

1880 points. It was a fluke, but now I’m honed in. Round 4, baby!

I figure out that if I stand in a specific area, I can avoid lasers and save up space to shoot back between shots fired. Neat trick!

That I eventually have to put in my back pocket because I tripped up at the asteroids hailing at me.

2320 points. I feel like it’s getting worse, before it gets better.

Feelings aside, I only gave the machine five coins, so I’m on my last turn. Taking in all the information I discovered through error, I maneuver back to the section I originally lost to in the beginning.

And I keep going! The slight nihilistic twinge I felt earlier melted away as I blasted the enemies down one by one. Then, the level moved to the next wave of enemies.

That I almost immediately lose all of my lives to because geez these little guys hit hard!

6340 points. …I can do better.

And yet, that’s the farthest I got before I had to throw in the towel.

Did I have fun? Debatable.

Did I get competitive? Oh, definitely.

Would I keep coming back? Probably not if it was an arcade machine, given I only have so many coins to my name. But given the opportunity to do so again on the Internet Arcade?

First Post || Next Post

[anshudma]

Internet Arcade

As an avid Star Wars fan, I have played most of the modern iterations of Star Wars games. This includes Star Wars: Squadrons, which was released in October 2020. As Star Wars is such an old franchise, when opening up the Internet Arcade, my first instinct was to see if there were older games from when the originals were released. To my luck, I found The Empire Strikes Back by Atari Games, released in 1985. The first thing I noticed was that the game was a first-person rail shooter that simulated space flight. I also noticed the simple vector graphics. As I continued playing, I noticed that gameplay was divided into four sequences, each with different opponents from the Star Wars universe. The game starts over at a higher difficulty when the four sequences are completed. Though incredibly enjoyable, I felt like I was missing out on playing The Empire Strikes Back on an emulator and not on the original Atari hardware. As the game simulates space flight, the original console had a handle similar to a steering wheel. It was much harder to hit the targets on a keyboard. Despite these drawbacks, I still enjoyed playing The Empire Strikes Back in an emulator as it reminded me of the origins of video games such as Star Wars: Squadrons.

[oddlydisturbing]

pinball !!!

(camera: kodak easyshare cx6200 37mm lens [2003])

[youre-dreaming-302]

[arconinternet]

Tilt: The Pinball Book (Book - borrowable, Candace Ford Tolbert & Jim Alan Tolbert, 1978)

You can digitally borrow it here.

[webdiggerxxx]

ೃ༄ੈ✩‧₊˚

[maspers]

Arcade Game Aficionados in the Wreck-It Ralph universe must see King Candy as some kind of bizarre urban legend. Imagine being a fan of, say, Street Fighter, and finding this one specific arcade cabinet where Ryu just... isn't part of the roster. Like, he's still on the box and everything, but when you open the game there's no reference to him anywhere. And instead, there's this suspiciously similar character named, idk, "Prince Streets" who fulfills a similar role in and has tons of voice lines both from himself and all the other characters. Like, what the heck? So naturally you look "Prince Streets" up, but there's nothing about him anywhere, so you record a video of the game featuring "Prince Streets" and see if anyone else knows what's up.

Naturally this baffles everyone, because everyone is like "clearly this must be a mod or something???" but if that were the case then where did all these voice lines come from??? Did they get impressionists to mimic the VAs? And why is Ryu removed from the roster, the game could have handled it just fine.

So then eventually some geek is like "hey I think I know that arcade in the video" and they go to check out the infamous "Prince Streets" Street Fighter cabinet, but then lo and behold he's not there anymore??? Ryu is back on the roster??? All the references to Prince Streets are gone? But nerds will be nerds so they decide to check the cabinet itself, but there's no evidence of any tampering whatsoever. So naturally they come back to you and your video, but you know it wasn't fake, your video isn't fake, and everyone else in town remembers how "Prince Streets" was part of the roster for some reason. And of course Capcom denies such a character ever existed, and there's no evidence of where the voice lines or character design came from. Was it an elaborate prank or hoax???

Obviously Wreck-It Ralph's worldbuilding is far from the best or even consistent, but like. Internet Mystery King Candy.

[100-yardstare]

Yeah, thinking about Wreck-It Ralph Eggman

[astrosoldweb]

Icons from spark city world

[souptastical]

life update: my 8 yr old nephew spent a portion of his personal savings on this book for me & I ALSO GOT A KITTEN that i named "Moony" or rather, "Muni" to try and keep her a little Ukrainian (my childhood cat who just passed actually had a ukrainian name)

No one should have let me name her: "Muni-Gannon" after y'know... Remus Lupin & Arcade Gannon lmao

[uranium235s]

saw oc template and blacked out, woke up with self indulgent pngs

portraits by themselves here :)

[tilbageidanmark]

2003!

[kalied0skull]

MM, NO, YOU KNOW WHAT IS LOST MEDIA FOR MY ART THOUGH?

my sony sketch creations.

I DUNNO IF THIS IS SOME FOREIGN APP CONCEPT because everytime i try to bring it up to any other person, NO ONE understands what the hell I'm on about — but sketch was my LIFE from 2017-2019 until it closed down in september. that was my HOMMEEE. that was where i learned how to do digital art !!!

which, quite honestly, was INSANELY restrictive on what you could use 💀 so the fact i managed to learn on there and then post sketch i ran off to IBIS??? insane upgrades at the time.

that place may have been filled to the brim with degenerates, but I'll NEVER not miss the collaboration tool. it made making shared drawings so incredibly easy, and you could make creations and use bases with credit instead of just taking them off the internet like that shit WORKED

but, y'know, all good things come to an end (even if sketch REALLY wasn't all that good 😭)

[acidstrike]

i think the world isn’t ready for shitposter arcade gannon but he’d be so funny

[yourmoodboards-areonfiirree]

Yellowfirewatch moodboard with Rollerskate and Arcade inspo!

☼︎ Rq'd by @sundewhasaudhd ☼︎

(All images found on pinterest exept for stopwatch)

[arconinternet]

Poly-Play (In-browser, Arcade, VEB Polytechnik, 1985/1989)

Soviet East German arcade multi-game cabinets - each of these versions has some games the other doesn't. You can play them in your browser here.

Controls: arrows, Ctrl & 5 (1's unneeded here).

Tip: you can make the screen less wide by pressing Tab, then using arrows and Enter to select Video Options and then Screen #0, and turning Maintain Aspect Ratio on, then leaving the menu with Tab.