Wonderful Murder Music from a Pixel Bar

Everyone loves video games.  Thats not a low-tier hook for an intro, thats fact.  Every person in the world, and probably more pets than we'll ever admit, partake in a form of electronic stimulation.  

Somehow.  Somewhere.  

But baseless generalizations aside, while the world loves games, we also love to let certain parts of our past fall to the wayside in the busy journey of VR singularity perpetuating technological obsolesce like it was a fucking philosophy.

...anyway, so so many more words later; Arcades. And the 21st century problem of dwindling cabinet stimulation.

Attempting to find an electronic exhibition that doesn't involve the last name Busters is energy better served complaining about it, so when I was invited to an arcade popup right here in Bushwick, ecstatic is a word that ill-serves to convey my, well escatic nature.

Death by Audio is a tech/art collective that has focused onarcade game and cabinet creation for the last several years.  Working together again, the night was a mix of arcade machines from an old rosster along with new ideas ; original games in handcrafted and hand-painted cabinets brought to Elsewhere in Bushwick, NY.

Drinks not included

Some new, some years-old arcade staples of the NYC game scene, all the games were built by small teams of video game junkies wanting something not existing in NY, or most the US anymore.  

That late night pale glow borne from a row of wooden sculptures bashing your ears with crunchy, short sounds all vying for a few of your quarters.  Economically, the death of arcades as a common business was inevitable from the moment portability became an option in game technology but just like the continued existence of Lomography.com, telling nostalgia to go take a hike has never had a high success rate.  The pull of  dimly-lit pixel caves is just as strong now as 30 years ago. 

And people will find a way.  And when there is no impetus to build for profit. the way will get weird.

I was able to watch some close matches of WitchBall; a volleyball-esque 2 player that runs side-by-side on the same screen, Your fighting another player with a mirror self acting on defense while racing down a haunted path at night.  My GOTY choice of the night was PowerBoat Italia '88; 4 boats race a straight speedway of water, avoiding obstacle and gunning for power-ups.  In the spirit of Mario Party, its a constant button masher to maintain speed with no win for certain till the very end.  Its not the most complex game, and I found myself not bothering jumping or voiding hazards in lieu of focusing on button mashing.  But the fun factor was so pure and unanimous between all the players that despite my noodle arms in pain I wanted more.

Proof of happy people

That's a great note to make of the night; fun.  Making art in NY is the same as drinking coffee; everyone is gonna do it even if they hate it and have no idea what they're doing.  And within video games, alot of art ends up being, awkward and boring or sad and a few hours wasted time.  Like the MTA, your left waiting for something to make the time worth while that's never going to come.  And while I'm all for a game to come packaged with some Grade A feels, the aspect of fun is one of the first that gets tossed aside on the path of the great "vision".

But hen your playing a party game packed with funky-ass minigames built around a 8-bit super poppy style that has 8 controls; 4 for players and 4 for soon to be ex-friends who can constantly mess with the size, speed and objectives at will mid-game, there's not even the option of lack of fun.  DOBOTONE is practically a vaccine for future non fun events, building this mental buffer to stave off business meetings and lost subways.

More happy gamers

There were more games than I have the time to talk about and trying to whittle down emotional experiences and off-beat game mechanics into a mostly text form does all of these games injustice.  The arcade will be up until March 1st at Elsewhere in Brooklyn and you can find out more information of the games, the creators and future projects/exhibitions at Death By Audio

Elsewhere, Brooklyn

While I doubt arcades are going to be saved by one studio's efforts, keeping them alive keeps the idea of what an arcade was loved for alive and what experimenting with them creates.