This Saturday me and my Geeky Gals went to Scandinavia’s largest retro gaming convention, Retrospelsmässan in Gothenburg! Like last year we got to host a Tetris competition in Super Tetris 3 for Super Famicom, and this year we also held a tournament in GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 :D You can read more about the competitions on Geeky Gals blog, meanwhile here’s some pics the convention :)
People at Restrospelsmässan 2018
Finals in Golden Eye 007 at RSM 2018
Tetris competition runner up and winner at RSM 2018
You can always bring your own controller to the competitions
People at RSM 2018
RSM 2018 Tetris finals
Winners Golden Eye Competition RSM 2018
Since I left my little girl at home with her dad I couldn’t stay at the convention much longer than the duration of the contests we hosted, but I did get a few minutes to quickly scour the market XD Also I had made a few deals beforehand ^_^ I am really pleased with all the items that came home with me :D First of all I got 4 more Tetris games for the Tetris collection!! One was a gift from Sonefors <3 the other three I bought from my friend Kralleman :) The three I bought are a bit rare to come by here in Sweden, one is a prototype of Tetris Attack for the Super Nintendo. It reads SNS-AYLE on the label and I think it’s either North or South American. The other two are games I already have as well but from different regions, one is the NES classic Tetris but the Asian version, this one has a beautiful light grey cartridge <3 The other is a Brasilian Tetris 2 for Nintendo NES. From Sonefors I got a PC CD-rom big box version of The Next Tetris :D I am happy to have also brought home an old PC that I bought a while back from my friend Nesfrk, he has been fixing it for me so I hope it works now, if it does I have SO MANY PC CD-ROM Tetris games to try out :D :D
Tetris Attack Prototype SNS-AYLE
NES Tetris Asian Version and Tetris 2 Brasilian
NES Tetris Asian Version light grey cartridge
Tetris Asian version for NES light grey cartridge
The Next Tetris PC CD-ROM Atari
Here’s the cool vintage PC that Nesfrk brought to me at the convention, it is clever since the screen is mounted on top of the computer so it doesn’t consume as much space <3
I also found a few Philips Videopac games! (Or Magnavox Odyssey as it was called in North America) They all had some sweet boxart, and Blobbers was apparently quite rare, but the best one is definitely Hot Love! XD It has been my latest focus in my collecting to find Erotic games for various retro video game systems! :D I just find it so fascinating and funny, especially when it’s really shitty graphics! XD Hot Love for Magnavox Odyssey 2 even came with a free condom!! LOL Unfortunately though Turtles had the wrong game inside, Turtles is number 49 in the series, but inside I found cartridge 52 which is a game called Killer Bees, so now I have to start searching for the Killer Bees box and a loose cartridge no. 49…
Philips Videopac – Magnavox Odyssey Hot Love condom
Philips Videopac Blobbers complete
Lastly I also found a Sega Genesis game that I’ve had my eye on many times. Boogerman A Pick and Flick Adventure! Now I came across it at a cheap price and in really minty condition ^_^ Thanks to MSX at Butik Mackapär for always selling such cool games! I also recently acquired a Genesis so I can play it too! :D
I wish I had more time to explore the rest of the convention, but I’ll have to do that next year :) Then my daughter can come with me as well :D I’m still really happy with my findings in such a short amount of time ^_^
It takes time going through, cleaning, testing and taking pictures of 105 games, a few consoles and other things.. that’s how much I came home with after this years Retro Gathering XD Anyway, let’s get to it! I mainly focused on cartridge based games this year, I found a whole bin full of cheap Atari 2600 games to start with ^_^ In the bottom were even some boxed ones :D I tried all these ones out tonight and some that stood out was Planeten Patrouilie and Sub Scan, these were fun and intuitive :) Fatal Run was also interesting, it had the most advanced tunes I’ve heard in an Atari 2600 game so far! Unfortunately it only played the music when you got Game Over XD Superman was probably one of the worst Atari 2600 games I’ve played.. I didn’t even understand what the hell I was supposed to do…
Atari 2600
Human Cannonball, Wüstenschlacht and Sorcerer – Atari 2600
Racquetball and Arilock – Atari 2600
Fatal Run – Atari 2600
Gangster Ruine – Atari 2600
Planeten Patrouilie – Atari 2600
Midnight Magic – Atari 2600
Sub Scan – Atari 2600
Superman – Atari 2600
I found these two little handhelds that were super cute! I love how “Hero and Princess” is such a total rip-off from Donkey Kong Game & Watch, it’s even dual screen! XD And the gorilla looks totally derpy XD
Grandstand handheld
Hero and Princess handheld
Hero and Princess handheld
I finally got myself the Zapper for Famicom! It’s so funny how this one actually looks just like a regular gun, while we had to have the “kids-version” XD
Famicom Zapper Revolver
Famicom Zapper Revolver
Famicom Zapper Revolver
Famicom Zapper Revolver
I managed to extend my Tetris collection a bit, but not with a game.. a music LP and an old ad! My friend Marcus sold it to me and he also had a few other cool EP’s with video game reference :) I also bought a cute Dreamcast game from him called PenPen ^_^
Doctor Spin Tetris LP
Tetris ad
Space Invaders EP
Ms. Pac-Man EP
PenPen – Dreamcast
After getting to know a lot of other retro gamers online I tend to usually have some deals waiting for me once I meet up with these friends at a convention :) Anders was kind enough to sell me a Video Computer VC4000 game which I didn’t previously have. I just got into this system thanks to an old high school teacher that found this system in his attic XD I also met the guy behind arkadbutiken.se on instagram who had a PCB with Hatris for me :D Can’t wait to try this one out, the arcade version must be so much better than the Famicom one ^_^
32 Invaders – Video Computer VC4000
Hatris PCB
One of the things I bought from Zeela was this really cute little Pong clone called Las Vegas Super Color Teve-Spiel :D I tried it out tonight and it was fun, I didn’t see the colors though because apparently the TV was black and white XD I’ll try it with another TV next time… what I really liked about this Pong version is that the joysticks also go horizontally, so it actually resembles Tennis even more :) You can run back and forth and not only up and down XD It has SO MANY BUTTONS on it though! I had to read the instructions just to figure out what they were all for..
Boxed Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips
Complete Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips
Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips
Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips
Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips
Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel Joystick
Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips
I also bought a bunch of games from Zeela, he has such good prices on old cassettes that it’s hard to resist XD So many pretty covers! I also got some extra memory for my VIC-20, which is probably the reason why I haven’t gotten more than half of the games to work on it so far XD He was also kind enough to dig out a few Jeff Minter games! Hell Gate and Gridrunner ^_^ I also picked up some Amiga games.
Rockman, Cosmic Fire Birds and Critters – VIC-20
Alien Blitz, Outworld and The Alien – VIC-20
Hell Gate and Gridrunner by Jeff Minter – C64
Vic Rescue, Anirog Krazy Kong and Galaxions – VIC-20
Vic Scramble, Chopper and Skips Action Biker Clumpsy Colin – VIC-20 and C64
Vixen 16k RAM for VIC-20
Overkill – Amiga 1200
The Killing Game Show – Amiga 500
I also found a bunch of Videopac G7000 games that I was lacking ^_^ Some I bought from my new found retro gaming friend Jack :) Thanks for bringing them for me!
8 Baseball – Videopac
9 Computer Programmer – Videopac
30 Battlefield – Videopac
10 Golf – Videopac
19 Catch the ball – Videopac
14 Gunfighter – Videopac
Some other things I found were a Case Boy that Söders Spel & Skivhandel thought would look great in my Castlevania collection because of the Castlevania screenshot on the box :D I also bought a reproduction of Trip World, mainly so I can play the game.. I’m probably never gonna spend that much money on the original.. I also got some cheap Famicom pirates, I thought they were quite funny since they read “4 in 1”, then “39 in 1” and finally “1000000000 in 1”!!! I’m skeptical to whether it actually contains that many XD Apart from this I picked up a bunch of other games, like Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi for Famicom Disk System, Slider and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Game Gear, Puzzle Figher II on Game Boy Advance, Cobra Command on NES, Puyo Puyo on N-Gage, a hombrew game called Photon for MSX a few other games and I also got two ZX Spectrum games for free ^_^
Game Boy Case Boy
Game Boy Case Boy
Trip World – Game Boy
Photon – MSX
Famicom Pirates
Slider & Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – Game Gear
Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi – Famicom Disk System
Horace goes skiing and Space Resque – ZX Spectrum
Puyo Puyo – Nokia N-Gage
Cobra Command – NES
Puzzle Fighter II – Game Boy Advance
Paper Boy 2 – SNES
Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football – Sega Mega Drive
General Knowledge for Dummies – DS
There’s not a lot of Japanese games at this Swedish convention, but I did manage to find a few. I found some cheap PC Engine games I didn’t already have, and also Super Darius which cost a bit more. I also bought some Japanese Sega Mega Drive games from my friend Karl ^_^ And I found some really nice Super Famicom games! :D Yoshi’s Cookie, Yoshi’s Island and Super Bomberman 3 which completed my Super Bomberman set ^_^
Yoshi’s Island – Super Famicom
Momotarou Densetsu – PC Engine
Quackshot – Sega Mega Drive
Yoshi’s Cookie – Super Famicom
World of Illusion – Sega Mega Drive
Super Darius – PC Engine CD-ROM
Super Bomberman 3 – Super Famicom
Street Smart – Sega Mega Drive
Maniac Pro Wrestling – PC Engine
Pro Tennis World Court – PC Engine
Now this wasn’t the entire loot.. I’m saving some of the best parts ;D I’ll be back soon with part II of the l00t!
Last Friday I drove up to Västerås to attend Retro Gathering on Saturday, my favorite Retro Game convention in Sweden ^_^ Retrospelsmässan is also really nice, but as a retro game buyer there’s just more variation at Retro Gathering :) You can find everything from vintage computers, Atari and Commodore to newer PS2 and 3DS games. There have been more newer games lately compared to the first couple of years that I started attending, I hope they don’t take over though, because I love that there’s a place I can go to find these old obscure computers and consoles! I mainly focus on old cartridges and cassettes when I’m at Retro Gathering. Nintendo and Sega I can find at all the other retro game conventions in Sweden anyway.
So this year I was also asked to host an exhibit of my Castlevania collection, so I was there an hour earlier to set it up. People seemed to like it, but there were also a lot of visitors that asked me where it was. My cabinet had been hidden behind a roll-up behind the scene where they hosted the competitions, which was a shame… but people who looked found it anyway :) For those that missed it, this is what it looked like:
Castlevania Collection
Castlevania Collection
Castlevania Collection
Castlevania Collection
Castlevania Collection
The first thing I spotted was a boxed Colecovision that Japon was selling. I snagged it right away, with a bunch of games and a steering wheel controller ^_^ Pontus and Jan at Japon are really nice and gave me a good deal on it :)
Pontus at Japon
I love visiting Zeela’s table, it’s always filled with obscure and colorful things :) He also had a really fun rarity, Softporn Adventure by On-Line systems! On-Line systems later became Sierra, and on the picture of the “sexy” cover are executives and writers from the company, to the right is Roberta Williams, famous video game designer, writer and co-founder of Sierra On-Line who created for example the King’s Quest series :) This is the game that later became Leisure Suit Larry. Such a cool piece of history! I would have bought it if it wasn’t so expensive XD Also I’m not that into text-based adventures… ;D
Softporn Adventures – On-Line Systems
Softporn Adventures – On-Line Systems
Apart from this he showed me the TRS-80, a computer that I had bought from him a while back that I got delivered here ^_^ I needed one to play my Tandy Tetris game! It’s apparently some kind of Tandy computer.. It was in really nice condition though ^_^ Original box, and I got both a boxed joystick and a big box full of games with it! :D
Ready to hook up!
Tandy TRS-80
Tandy games
Boxed Tandy games
He also had a bunch of other cool stuff ^_^ Like Strip Poker and Centrefold Squares for Atari ST, I bought these for a friend who had been looking all over the place for Atari ST games XD He AND his girlfriend were thrilled and couldn’t wait to play it!! Haha!
Gakken TV-Boy
Zeela’s table
First laptop from Ericsson ///
Bentley Compuvision
Deluxe Strip Poker back
Deluxe Strip Poker
GX4000 – Amstrad home console
Centrefold Squares
Centrefold Squares back
M5 CGL Home computer
There were so many games for sale, and retro game related stuff ^_^ Spel & Sånt had brought some Virtual Boy rarities, they had the three games that I am missing! But they were darn expensive >_< Another seller had setup Zelda on CDi for whoever wanted to try it out XD The creators of Alwa’s Awakening were also there displaying their game which is almost done now, it will be released on Steam :)
Coleco Vision and Vectrex
Retro Game arts
Famicom
Games for sale
Atari 2600
Game Boy
NES
Virtual Boy gems
Sega Master System
Cheap retro games
Games for sale
So much Batman!
Zelda on CDI on display for whoever wants to try it
Cartridges for sale
Games for sale
Games for sale
Alwa’s Awakening
Jumpman Junior
My friends Nathalie and Andreas from up north were also there, and they were selling some of their games. Nathalie tried to sell me a weird DS game, and Andreas wanted me to upgrade my version of Tetris 2 to a mint copy XD I did end up buying Paperboy 2 from them though ^_^ Andreas is a pixel-perfectionist and he had some upscaler connected on display with Super Mario Bro 3, I don’t like when the picture is perfect and the scanlines are too obvious ;P I prefer it the original way with an old CRT and a bit of a glitchy pic XD
Nathalie & Andreas
Good sales pitch by Nathalie ^_^
but no thanks XD
I already have this Tetris game XD
Super Mario Bros 3
Too much scanlines XD
I finally got around to buying the game Photon that has been under development and on display for years at these conventions ^_^ It’s still not finished, but I bought an early version of it :) I also got to talk a bit to the man behind it who told me a bit about the Sord and the community around it :) Apparently there was a club back in the day that released a magazine here in Sweden called “Sordisen”, he had a few issues for sale. He also showed me a few different versions of the system. I almost went and bought one from Zeela, but then again, I don’t have any games for it yet.. so I think it’ll have to wait.
Photon
Photon
Sord computer
Sordisen Magazine
Sord M5 Pro
Sord M5 Pro
Sord M5 Pro
I competed in the yearly Swedish Championships of Pong this year as well :) I won the first take out but lost to my second opponent.. I haven’t been practicing enough, or rather, I haven’t been practicing at all XD I need to get my husband to start playing it with me!! The champion can be seen in the video below, damn that’s an intense Pong game!
Swedish Championships of Pong
Pong championships
As usual they also had a bunch of games and systems set up so people could try them out :) I saw an Intellivision there which reminded me that a seller had promised me from the previous Retro Gathering to bring me one, when I found him though he had already sold it to someone else :((( Hopefully he can set me up with another one.. I have so many Intellivison games and no Intellivisions to play them on XD
Games set up to play
Commodore VIC-20
Commodore C64
Amiga
Coleco Vision
MSX
Texas Instruments
Atari 800
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Videopac Computer G7000
Fairlight on ZX Spectrum
Crew setting up the games before opening
Intellivision
Colour Genie
Atari 1040 ST
Atari 2600 & NES
Vectrex
Amiga CD32
Sega Master System
Sega Mega Drive, SNES & N64
They also had some other exhibitors, one collection of Sonic games and one of Handic for the VIC 20 :)
Sonic Collection
Sonic Collection
Sonic Collection
Sonic Collection
Handic Collection
One of the best things about going to retro game conventions though is all the people! I met so many old and new friends, and people are so friendly :D
Söders Spel & Skivhandel
Matt8bit
Andreas
Spel & Sånt
Vira & friend
Retrospelsfestivalen
Retroplay
Anders and people :)
After the convention we went out and met up with a bunch of retro gamers, and we found Kralleman and PingeAhlin there who had missed the convention, but had been off on more exciting business! They had scored a bunch of old arcades and other rarities from a connection they had. I was lucky enough to get to go check out their loot :D They had gotten rare prototypes for the Videopac, old minty posters with ads for the Luxor computer, boxed Vectrexes, a Taito Space Invaders arcade cab and a Super Bug arcade with super mint manuals, a really old wooden arcade and an original Break Out arcade. The Break Out arcade had only been played on 64 times, which means it’s hardly been used more than factory testing. That’s pretty rad XD
Box of Videopac prototypes
Videopac prototypes 2-sided
Old luxor ad
Old luxor ad
Old luxor ad
Old luxor ad
Old luxor ad
Boxed Vectrexes
Taito Space Invaders arcade
Super Bug Arcade manual
Super old arcade
Old orange Break Out arcade from Atari
As you can probably figure, Retro Gathering has outdone themselves again and it was an awesome convention! I’ll go through my loot in a later post when I’ve gone through it all ;D
This weekend I visited Retro Gathering in Västerås (Sweden), I was there for the first time last year, but this convention has been running yearly since 2006! I came home with quite a lot of loot last year, and this year wasn’t far behind ^_^
Retro Gathering 2015
Retro Gathering 2015
I bought 62 games, and traded another 400+ games with friends! So I came home with lots of games.. most of the traded ones were newer games though so I’ll just cover my retro acquisitions on here ;D First up is the Philips Videopac Computer G7000 with 8 games that I traded with Anton for a bunch of Famicom doubles I brought for him :) I also found one Videopac game at the convention, this one was a newly made homebrew game for the system, the packaging was just splendid though, fits right in with the originals ^_^ Can you spot which one it is? ;D
Philips Videopac Computer G7000 with games
Philips Videopac Computer G7000 games
Philips Videopac Computer G7000 games
Philips Videopac Computer G7000 games
Philips Videopac Computer G7000 keyboard
Philips Videopac Computer G7000
Videopac Computer G7000
Videopac Computer G7000
Philips Videopac Computer G7000 Joystick
Philips Videopac Computer G7000
Another system that I bought at the convention was an Arcadia 2001, or at least one of it’s clones. Never heard of this one before, but it didn’t last very long, it was discontinued after only 18 months. The reason I bought it was that it came with almost all the games released for the system! :D The games come in paper boxes, which were surprisingly well kept! Inside there’s a manual and overlays for the controllers and the game cartridge is latched in a whole in the box. This is extremely frustrating since the cartridge tends to move around underneath the opening so it’s hard to get it out of there without ripping the paper around it >_< This makes me even more surprised though that the previous owners haven’t already torn the boxes apart! XD
BTW I think it’s hilarious when companies back in the day lacked the licenses for certain popular titles and had to come up with “alternative” names for clones ;D Nibblemen!!! Hahaha!
Arcadia 2001 with games
Arcadia 2001 joystick
Arcadia 2001
Arcadia 2001 games
Arcadia 2001 clone Video Computer Game by Soundic
Arcadia 2001 games
Arcadia 2001 game cartridge
Arcadia 2001 games
Nibblemen for Arcadia 2001
Combat for Arcadia 2001
Space Raider for Arcadia 2001
I also got my second Sinclair ZX Spectrum that I had bought previously, but got delivered on the convention ^_^ The 48k model is so cute!!!!!!!! :D
There were more japanese games popping up at this convention than what I have seen before in recent years here in Sweden. I think it’s nice that people are becoming aware of all the amazing things you can find from over there ^_^ Unfortunately when demand rises the prices also go up >_< There were no Famicom games that I didn’t already have though, but I did find 5 Super Famicom games and a Famicom pirate that was just cheap :)
It’s always nice to pick up some C64 games as well, they are usually pretty cheap and the artworks on these old cassettes are just amazing! :D I always buy games that look fun, have a funny title or just incredible or funny artwork ^_^
Commodore 64 games
C64 games – Tetris etc
C64 games – Mutants
C64 games – The Legend of the Amazon Women
I also found some Atari 2600 games, two turned out to be unopened and I’m torn whether to break them open or not >_< I wanna play them!!
Apart from all this I found a few other titles for various systems, like Batman Forever on Sega Mega Drive, Wolfenstein 3D for the Atari Jaguar and two Amiga 500 games, Pinkie and Capone ^_^ These last two looked like fun games when looking at the screenshots on the back :) Unfortunately my Amiga 500 has gotten a green screen so I can’t try them out right now :/ Have to get it fixed or find a new one first…
Batman Forever for Sega Mega Drive
Wolfenstein 3D for Atari Jaguar
Pinkie & Capone for Amiga 500
Capone for Amiga backside
Pinkie for Amiga backside
This year on Retro Gathering there were even more sellers than last year and loads of old systems setup to play ^_^ They held competitions in Super Bomberman 2 for the SNES, Super Skidmarks on the Amiga and Car Race ][ for Commodore PET. This last one in honor of the late CEO of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, who programmed that game back in the day. They also hosted the annual Swedish Championships of Pong, and I participated this year as well! I made it one step further than last year, so just a few more years and I might win! ;D hahaha or not.. I’ve began searching for an Atari Pong console so I can do some serious practicing though ^_^ They’re unfortunately hard to come by :/
Gaming at Retro Gathering
Geeky Gal Eleth playing Pong at Retro Gathering
Kids gaming at Retro Gathering
Lots of games for sale at Retro Gathering
Retro computers for sale at Retro Gathering
Telstar Combat retro console at Retro Gathering
This is one of my favorite retro gaming conventions in Sweden, the atmosphere is just so friendly and you can find so much more than just Nintendo and Sega stuff! ^_^ It’s just a shame it’s so far away from where I live :/ I will still come back next year though ;D
For more pictures from Retro Gathering, check out Geeky Gals :)
Retro Video Gaming 