Space Based Games at SXSW 2011
Posted on March 15, 2011We’re here at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, one of the largest festival/conferences for Film, Interactive trends and Music. No public Asteroids machines in town, but there are enough tacos and free beer to make up for it.
The big buzz at the Interactive conference this year is online gaming; companies are moving beyond traditional brand marketing to engage their audiences in new ways. Facebook is the largest gaming platform today, and games like Farmville have ratings that rival prime-time television. Just as important, they’re reaching demographics that aren’t what you’d stereotype as a typical gamer.
Atari brought in Thom Kozik as executive vice president of online and mobile, with the goal of creating online versions of their classic games. Asteroids Online, still in its beta stage as a Facebook game, is among the first. As a “causal gaming experience,” it’s tailored to draw you in and keep you coming back. Full write-up here soon.
Along the same lines, another talked-about trend is the rise of social networking applications on mobile devices, driving real-world activity. The founder of FourSquare drew a huge crowd. His app (and many others) allows you to check in to your current location, based on GPS coordinates, and gain points and prizes based on number and type of check-ins. It turns daily life into a game. I actually had my first practical success with FourSquare at Beer Camp at Emo’s the other night, when a friend had checked in a few minutes earlier. I recognized his icon, sent him a text, and good times were had.
All of this expands the concept of video gaming. Even traditional game systems are shifting into the real world, starting with the Nintendo Wii’s gyroscopic controller and just recently, expanded with the XBox Kinect. Actual movement is translated into virtual motion. These controllers have also immediately been hacked and adopted for more conceptual and artistic ends. One of the cooler installations here in Austin was at the Frog Design party — a room-sized grid of weight-sensitive platforms acts to control the music’s step-sequencer. People can see a projection of the matrix, and hear what they’re doing in the beats.
I like to watch where things are going, and think about Asteroids, sitting in the corner of an arcade or bar, with five simple buttons driving a series of white lines on a black screen. It was created 32 years ago, before computers saturated our lives. You have to leave your house to play it. It’s basic. It’s pure. For some of us, it holds up.
Dutch Mr. & Mrs. Atari (video)
Posted on August 01, 2010Below is a video where Mr. Atari (Sijmen) from the Netherlands shows off his and his wife’s collection of classic Atari computers and games. Â Says Mrs. Atari: “I think it’s the simplicity. Â You can keep on playing. Â Today’s games just SUCK cock! Â That’s just my opinion.”
Visiting Mr. Atari’s website, it appears that they have a cocktail Asteroids machine. Â It also appears that the site is hosted on an Atari computer, judging by the connection speed.
Asteroids Fashion
Posted on July 26, 2010If you’re dressing up for a gala night at the arcade, you’ll need to look sharp; and nothing says sharp shooter like this season’s Asteroids fashion accessories. Unfortunately, “this season” doesn’t update all that often when it comes to quality Asteroids-wear, but here’s a survey of what’s out there.
Vintage Asteroids merchandise seems mainly focussed around the Atari 2600. 1983 was a big year for collectables, maybe as a last-ditch effort at game sales before the North American video game crash.
The first and unquestionably most excellent outfit is the Asteroids Halloween costume.
For more casual occasions, there’s the colored blocks on blue tee-shirt.
And to add a little splash to any outfit, pick a collectable pin.
These might be tricky to track down, but to take a look at these and more Atari items from this era, visit the collection at Atari Mania.
In more recent years, the hour hand for retro pop has reached 1980 (probably past 1987 by this point), and Atari nostalgia rides the wave. Atari logo shirts are common, but what about Asteroids? Two items stand out.
First is Fossil’s collectable Asteroids watch, produced as a limited edition of 5,000 in 2005 (We have #2518). This is a quality watch, with a hefty metal body and black leather strap. It’s big. The background is an animated LCD with little Asteroids and ship. You can’t play, but a button on the side allows you to freeze the animation or let it play. It’s not that visible unless you view it in the right light (it’s not backlit), but that actually makes it look like a punk-class timepiece at first glance, which will receive compliments at work. The Atari insignia etched on top is also fairly subtle. It was $130 new, and can still be found on the occasional watch or auction site. It also takes 3 batteries: one for the time and two for the display. Of all Asteroids items, this one stands in a class of its own.
The second newly-minted Asteroids item is a woven microfiber necktie available at Ties.com. It’s not the cheapest quality tie we’ve seen, but it’s close. It IS Asteroids, though. When it comes down to it, the Space Invaders tie from Beau Ties of Vermont is probably a better pick. It’s not Asteroids, but it’s very nice. Soft. Woven. Deserves a mention.
Sadly, it seems that there’s no women’s Asteroids formalwear. Seems like earrings would be good, or a silver chain necklace made of asteroids-shaped links, or just a simple pendant. Maybe some jewelry designer can get on that. Otherwise, there’s a slew of t-shirts (and mouse pads, etc.), both commercial and homemade from custom-press sites, featuring Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe
Know of any other good finds? Let us know.
Asteroids wall decals by Blik
Posted on July 14, 2010Removable wall decal design company Blik now features our favorite game. 65-decal set sells for $45.
http://www.whatisblik.com/shop/asteroids
Asteroids is a Donut
Posted on July 04, 2010Article on everything2 describing the topology of the Asteroids universe as a torus (donut shape).
…So the topological part is this: when you fly up off the top edge of the screen, you magically appear at the same position on the bottom of the screen, and vice-versa. The same is true of the left and right edges. So consider this: from the pilot’s perspective, he or she is flying around in a 2-dimensional universe with no edge, ie: where every spot the ship is in looks locally like two-dimensional Euclidean space. Mathematicians call this sort of thing a manifold, specifically a 2-manifold. I’m going to represent it like this, as it is represented on the game screen:
The edges ‘a’ and ‘b’ are labelled to indicate that the top and bottom are the same location in space (a), as are the left and right (b). In fact (when you think about it) the four corners are actually the same point! If you were to try to connect this up as a real physical surface (this is called anembedding), you could think about it as a sheet of paper where you first glued edge a-top to a-bottom (giving you a rolled-up paper tube), and then bent the resulting tube around gluing b-left to b-right. You would end up with…wait for it…a donut! Or, in topological jargon, a torus. So when you are playing Asteroids, you are actually playing it on a torus, mathematically speaking. (The advantage to this explanation is that in a bar, there’s always a napkin around that you can use to demonstrate. Sometimes there are even videogames.)…
Read the full article here: http://www.everything2.org/node/746760
Technical goldmine
Posted on June 09, 2009Wonder what’s inside the Asteroids cabinet? Know what’s inside and need to fix it? Do arcane arcade schematics make you drool? Ionpool.net is a comprehensive site of technical information for arcade consoles.
Their Asteroids offerings include a great technical troubleshooting encyclopedia, some Cocktail Asteroids goodies, a patch to operate in an Asteroids Deluxe cabinet, and photos of Arch Maclean’s cabinet restoration.
And if you want to go nuts with schematics, textfiles.com has pdfs of official service manuals.
