I work half days on Fridays (a perk at Grubhub, where we all technically end the work week at 1PM on Fridays). Today, Liz took a half day to meet me downtown, and had an early birthday celebration for me planned.
I didn’t know what to expect, but hung out in the car as we drove our way to Logan Square. And parked on Milwaukee, alongside the two destinations (which were pretty close to one another).
It’s such a strange thing, to feel this kind of nostalgia for a game. Seeing these maps is like driving down an old street from your home town. Familiar from your memories, but different now in light of the current day.
“The impressions of human desire are often left upon objects of their devotion or on the paths leading to where a sense of peace or pleasure can be found; i.e. the worn frets on a favorite guitar; the finger-smoothed ivory keys on an old piano; the ‘secret path’ in the forest blazed by decades of children that’s been ‘a secret path’ to other children for over 100 years.”
Attended the Nerdery Chicago holiday party tonight, at Headquarters in River North. It was a pretty dark space, so I didn’t get a ton of photos. But we had the whole lower level all to ourselves, which made it a nice oasis from what sounded like quite a busy night upstairs.
Thankfully, the terms of the bet weren’t so complex as to require the use of spitshake.com. The overall wager was very straightforward – at the end of each game, the person with the highest score wins. After all our tokens are done, person with the most wins is the victor. The loser then has to change their Twitter profile to say something about how the other person is the greatest video game player in the world, name-checking the winner using their full name and Twitter handle.
I have to say – these guys definitely know their target audience. The game selection, combined with the music and shows on TV (old episodes of American Gladiators and WWF). The drink menus were kind of spliced into old comic books, and as I ordered… I saw Randy “Macho Man” Savage fighting the Ultimate Warrior on the main TV. The whole place reeked of a certain late 80’s and early 90’s nostalgia, and it was pretty fantastic.
Growing Up in Arcades: 1979-1989 is a fantastic Flickr group, featuring nearly 400 images of old-school video game arcades. A lot of the images are from Flickr user Rad Arcade, with several scans from old magazines. Lots of great stuff to browse through. For those of you who grew up in mall arcades, you’ll get a twinge of nostalgia looking…
Saturday, a few of us headed out to Brookfield to go play video games at Galloping Ghost – an arcade that features over 200 old-school games. Unlike Nickel City, no tokens or coins are needed: you pay your entry fee, and can play to your heart’s content. You can even come and go all day, until the place closes at 2AM.
Over the weekend, Chris sends out an email detailing a recent find: Nickel City, Family Entertainment Center, located a bit north of the city in Northbrook. On Monday, Chris and I were helping Ben move some things at his place. After all the work was done, we decided to spend the afternoon checking out this fabled suburban arcade, where games…