Retrospelsfestivalen 2014 – and how I got proposed to!!!!!

October 16, 2014 by stopXwhispering

This weekend I went to Retrospelsfestivalen in Malmö. This was the first year they arranged for a retro gaming show in the south of Sweden. I was super excited to go there, and it’s less than an hour from where I live. I had been asking my boyfriend to please join me and keep me company since all of my friends couldn’t make it. He ditched me less than 24 hours before I was going there, made up an excuse that he had to clean his grandmothers attic with his mom… I was pissed and pretty sure he was just dodging it to go fishing instead >_<

I had been speaking to the organizers of Retrospelsfestivalen and they had asked me to help hand out the prizes after the Tetris tournament, I accepted and went up on stage around 3 pm. We handed out the prizes and then they interviewed me about my game collection for a while and after that they asked me to try out a new game. In the below video you can see the game while I’m playing it, and it’s being projected behind me for an audience of around 500 people…

At first I thought the game looked cool, was expecting some kind of action platformer, but after reading the first couple of mushy lines about love I was getting confused and thought the game was kind of lame ;D Until the story-telling stopped and it just said…

…Heidi

Then I certainly thought somebody was just pulling my leg, maybe the organizers had set me up to embarrass me a little bit. Then the question hit the screen:

Do you want to marry me?

Now I thought that some guy in the audience might have some crush on me and decided to try and propose! I never thought my boyfriend would have the imagination to surprise me with something so grand and also fitting to my interests. But indeed, he had a programmer make the game with him and he stepped out from behind the stage with flowers ^_^ I was chocked! …and I said yes :)

It’s not everyday you get proposed to through a video game ^_^ The game only had two options to choose from, play co-op or single player :D Check out the video below to see the whole thing:

After the proposal the organizers gave us a whole bunch of gifts that had been put together by some of the exhibitors and sellers at Retrospelsfestivalen. This was so nice! Thanks to all of the great people that made this day super special ^^ We got the Generation 64 book written by Spelpappan, a Swedish documentary about the NES from Videospelsklubben, a Zelda T-shirt, Tetris mug, Halo mega bloks set and a bunch of other merchandise ^_^

This was of course my highlight of Retrospelsfestivalen 2014 ;D But there were also lots of other great things! I did have time to buy some things before, and talk to people. They had a lot of sellers, but compared to Retrogathering they had a lot more “new” things, like plush toys, T-shirts and other merchandise from games. There were of course a lot of retro games being sold as well, and some people displaying home made retro games they had made. There were also loads of TV’s setup to play various retro consoles and a hallway for Pinball machines and arcade cabinets. On the stage they had competitions in Tetris, Super Mario Kart etc. In the finals of the Tetris competition the competitors had to first make their own controller using the Makey Makey! This was original ^_^ I also met Pappas Pärlor who make amazing bead art! Here’s some pictures from the event!

These last few pictures are from a game called Space Clutter. It’s a homebrew game that only exists in this one homemade little arcade cabinet. The funniest thing is the handwritten note that was displayed next to the game, it reads in Swedish: “Space Clutter, super hard space game! You will NEVER be able to beat it!” so I just had to try it. It was difficult, but fun! :) The plot of the game is written underneath the shoot button and reads “Everybody in space hates you. Use the red button to kill them.”

I will make another post soon with the games I bought at Retrospelsfestivalen :)

All my Famicom pickups from Tokyo game shops

June 15, 2014 by stopXwhispering

Finally updated the Famicom Collection Library, and also the Famicom Collage with the 103 Famicom carts I acquired in Tokyo :)
It was not easy getting it all back home with a weight limit of 23kg for the suitcase and 10kg for the carry on, I had to send home 7 packages (all weighing less than 2kg, because then it will count as a “letter” and be muuuuuch cheaper) ;D

Now I’m up to 868 unique Famicom carts (986 in total counting doubles..). It’s getting hard to find stuff I don’t already have for the system…

Here’s the thumbnails of all the 103 games I got in Tokyo!

Sweet Sega Stuff from the Segadude!!

September 24, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Last week I received an amazingly kind gift from the Segadude! He sent me a few of his doubles that I didn’t previously have for the Sega Master System! They were all so pretty!! ^_^

The games were Missile Defense 3-D, Teddy Boy, Blade Eagle 3-D, Quartet, Golvellius,
Zaxxon 3-D and Wanted!

I was also thrilled to find that they all worked on my PAL Master System even though they came all the way from Canada ^_^ I’m not sure if this means that Canada has PAL region too or if the Master System just doesn’t have a region lock for NTSC… still I’m thrilled!! :D
Here’s some screenshots I took with my iPhone while trying them all out ^_^

Both Blade Eagle, Zaxxon and Missile Defense were 3-D games, before I had none now I have three! :D Now I just need to get myself a pair of Sega 3-D glasses so I can see what’s actually going on!! ;D

Yay boots!!! ^___^ Thanks!

Golvellius seemed like a fun game ^_^ I will give it a longer try ones I have a bit more time :)

Both Quartet and Teddy Boy were fun platformers ^_^

And last but not least Wanted, this game would probably have been much easier if I had plugged in the Lightphaser… heh ^_^

A big thanks to the SegaDude for these great games! If you haven’t checked out his site you totally should!! ^_^ What are you waiting for?? GO CHECK IT OUT >>>

Fami fami famicom games!

July 27, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Added even more games to the Famicom collection now, these are some of the recent additions:

I’ve also just gotten a new batch of Famicom games, I will upload those shortly as well :)

I will also make a review of some of the more noteworthy games here soon, like Magical Kids Doropie and Juju Densetsu :D Really awesome games ^_^

GAME COLLECTION: My Retro Room re-visited

July 9, 2013 by stopXwhispering

2015-08-24
Edit: My room has been updated since this post. Check out my latest collection pics here >>

Recently I got interviewed by Ant Harper from Retro Games Collector :D So for this feature I needed to take some more recent pictures of my Retro Room containing my game collection :) It was quite a while ago since I last shared pictures of my game room, from when I upgraded to a bigger room, so I thought I would share the new ones here as well so you can all see what it looks like today!

So this is more or less what it looks like today! :D

This is the lighting of the room, it’s very cosy and warm with mainly red lights ^_^

Here’s my desk, where I’m sitting right now and blogging ^_^ haha!

A close-up of the shelf over the desk. There’s mainly boxed Super Famicom games (There’s more of them now, it’s basically full so I can’t fit any more in there >_< but there’s still sooo many SFC games I want!!) And there’s boxed Famicom games, in the two middle shelves and the bottom right. I haven’t really collected boxed Famicom games that much, I have over 600 loose carts. On the bottom left are my Atari 2600 games, I have a few more doubles stacked away somewhere and a few boxed ones elsewhere. BTW I loooove my Pacman neon signt ^_^

Behind the desk are 4 shelves, the two to the left are filled with Famicom cartridges, neatly organized by colour and by type! :D The top 5 rows are only platformers arranged by colour, below is one row with the few carts that have end labels (also platformers mainly), and below that is three rows with only shooters and then a row with puzzle games and lastly sports and other playable stuff that I don’t really care for. I have 4 boxes stacked away underneath the desk with all the RPG’s and various other text-heavy games that you can’t really play unless you’re fluent in japanese (also I don’t really care for RPG’s…..). The two right shelves contain all my boxed GB, GBC and GBA games and on the bottom 2 rows with boxed NES games.

Facing my desk is a cool couch I got from my grand parents, it folds into a matress if you put the back on the floors facing it ^^ It’s like a puzzle :D

On the couch is also one of my three Virtual Boys, a Pacman Pinky porcelain piggybank and an official Nintendo wooden box where you can put a Zapper, two controlllers and a bunch of games inside ^_^ I put some of my favorites in there :D

I also have a really cosy gaming chair that holds my Famicom pillow and temporarily also this Amiga 500. I have found a better place for it now underneath one of the TV’s.. ;D

In this corner I have my PAL NES, with some Zappers on the wall ^_^

Above that there’s some PAL SNES games and N64 games, also some of my Virtual Boy games on the bottom shelf (I have a bunch of doubles stacked away in a drawer as well, I’m only displaying the playable ones that are opened). There’s also some video game related board games like Centipede, Pac-man and Donkey Kong and various other games like boxed Atari 2600 games and games for the Intellivision that I can’t play since I don’t have that system yet :(

On this shelf I have my Famicom Disk System games, some boxed Atari’s and in the left corner all my Star Wars related stuff and games ^^

Underneath that shelf I have my favorite painting that my friend Arri made for me ^_^ It has all my favorite game characters! :D

Here’s the mess.. the main TV that has almost all the consoles you see below connected to it! lol I did this using scart splitters (one outtake turning into 4) and also composite cable splitters for some systems that have the red, yellow and white cables. It’s not optimal, I’m gonna work on making it prettier so that you won’t see all the chords as much, but I’m still quite happy that I was able to connect all of these: NTSC NES, PAL SNES, Twin Famicom, PAL Sega Mega Drive, PAL Sega Dreamcast, PAL PS2, PAL Sega Saturn, PAL N64, Super Famicom, and a japanese Sega Master System ^_^

This is the third TV, and here I have my japanese Sega Mega Drive and all the 30-40 something games I have for it, and my PC Engine Duo and the Atari 2600 Junior ^_^

Here’s a small shelf I painted and decorated and it holds all my Famicom Konami games, and two Game Gears and the Wonderswan color ^_^ I also love my Nintendo neon sign :D

On the floor here are some of my PC Engine games.. I’ve re-organized these now onto a smarter CD stand with double sides that stands on my desk, looks much better! :D

On top of this shelf are more PC Engine games.. this collection has been growing really fast since I discovered this awesome system :D

Here’s an overview of this wooden shelf that contains a bunch of stuff. Below you’ll see some close-ups. In the bottom are magazines, like Retro Gamer, Nintendo Power etc. And my Sega Saturn games.

Here are my Castlevania games, this collection is now taking up two full shelves ^_^ You can see all my Castlevania games in my Castlevania Collection post, where I scanned them all :)

Below the Castlevania games are some other random stuff. Like Chrono Trigger, a factory sealed SNES Zelda, Mario Bros for Atari 2600, factory sealed Doom for Atari Jaguar, Darius Twin for SFC, Super Mario RPG, Life Force for NES, Rockman X, Donkey Kong II Game & Watch, Ninja Baseball Batman ;D and much much more..

Here’s the Sega Saturn games, and a few Atari Jaguar games.

Various bead art and my Sega Mega Drive collection ^^ I basically can’t get much more games for this system cause I’m running out of shelf-space! LOL

On the top right are my NTSC NES games, all the way down to the half row with Dreamcast games, below those are PAL NES games. Then PS2 in the bottom. In the left shelf are PS1 games, then some of my favorite Famicom games and all my Sega Master System games (I have finally gotten around to fixing shelves now for those poor games stacked on top of each other) ;D

Here’s a closeup of the Famicom games, mainly puzzle, platformers and shooters ^_^

Last but not least I have my Commodore 64 on a small table with a fourth TV on a bureau next to my desk ^_^ There’s also a boxed PAL SNES, another Super Famicom and a black Atari 2600 underneath it :)

I have a lot more games stacked away in various places.. I have 73 game consoles in total (counting a few doubles, over 50 are different systems though) and just got over 3000 games, and I’m seriously running out of space again and probably need to take over our living room for my retro game collection soon! Just gotta run it past the boyfriend first ;D

More Famicom games ^_^

February 9, 2013 by stopXwhispering

I’ve been continuing to add all my newly acquired Famicom games to the Famicom Library, here’s some of the new additions! Click an image to find it in the Library ^_^