My Famicase Exhibition 2008
If you’re following any of the major video game blogs, then you’ve probably read about My Famicase, an exhibition of NES cartridge art for games that don’t exist. This annual event is organised by METEOR, a Japanese retro game store. The group of illustrators, game designers, writers, etc. create a label for the cart, a company logo and also a concept for the fictional game.
Famicom cartridges come in different (mostly vibrant, mostly pastel) colours and sport an iconic design that makes them prime pop art material. I won’t even bother mentioning the grey, dull, ugly design of NES carts, because that would be sad.
I first found out about My Famicase Exhibition and the related Fami-mode (“a retro game-themed post-New Years party”) event while watching an episode of Points, an amazingly awesome webshow about video game culture that centers around Japan and Tokyo’s many retro game stores. I was mesmerised by the different cart designs and developed a strong interest in chiptunes, particularly those by KPLECRAFT, an outstanding electro-acoustic group with strong chiptune elements. You can watch them perform along with several other chiptune artists if you watch the episode I’ve linked to below.
So here’s a small list of goodness I’ve compiled for your viewing pleasure:
- My Famicase Exhibition 2008 (official site)
- My Famicase Exhibition 2006/2007 (hosted by Mushroom-Kingdom.com)
- Points Episode 01+ (show on video game culture – this particular episode covers My Famicase 2007 and Fami-Mode 2007; includes interviews with the owner of METEOR and various exhibitors)
Tetris!
That’s right, I finally post an entry after more than a month of inactivity and it’s about Tetris. Deal with it.
Item number one on my checklist is Tetris DS. I finally managed to locate a copy and have put quite a few hours into it. It took a while to incorporate the new features into my game, but as I made use of the “hard drop” move (it basically makes a piece drop immediately) and the “ghost piece” option (which allows you to see where the piece will land and position it accordingly), I found the game more and more enjoyable. Also new to me was the ability to rotate and slide a piece infinitely after it’s landed and before it locks into position. Tetris DS is clearly geared towards fast play. I enjoyed the variety of modes and a little bit of multiplayer, but could’ve done without the Nintendo branding. It’s done tastefully, but I could’ve used an option for alternative “skins” or, better yet, music. I still can’t recommend this enough if you like Tetris and have a DS. I’ve read it can be pretty hard to find though- took me a lot of searching myself – so good luck.
While looking around for info on Tetris DS, I came across Tetris: The Grand Master, a series similar to Tetris DS in gameplay. (Although saying two Tetris games are similar to one another is as obvious as observing that Mario is a fat fuck with a mustache who gets high on shrooms.) I even managed to download a fan-made version of Tetris that emulates some of the TGM arcade versions, called Heboris. I use an unstable version for Mac, but plan to get more into it once I have access to a proper keyboard (the one on my laptop wasn’t really made for Tetris).
Here’s a video of someone who’s clearly very good at Tetris: The Grand Master. Things become really crazy 5 minutes into the session when the pieces turn invisible. Oh yes.
After that I can’t really see how my new record at Tetris for the Game Boy will make any sort of impact, but here it is: 307898. I’m improving slowly but steadily. I wanted a score over 300k so that I can focus more on Tetris DS or Heboris from now on. I’ll keep you posted on any new scores, of course.
*Edit* 9/8/08: New personal best: 335806. Yay!
