Retrospelsmässan 2018

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 :)

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

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

Compaq Presario 5226 PC

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…

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

Sega Genesis Boogerman A pick and flick adventure

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 ^_^

Retro Gaming Events & Conventions in Sweden

A lot of people have asked me if I know a place where you can find a calendar of all the Retro Gaming related events and conventions in Sweden, I don’t, but I can make one! ^_^ I’ve made a short calendar on the right side of the page, but also this page where I’ll update as soon as I find out about new conventions or events that are retro game related! If you know or hear about any events feel free to drop a comment and I’ll add it to the list :D

Upcoming retro game events & conventions in Sweden:

Retro Game Events Sweden

2018

MAY 26th
Göteborg
RETROSPELSMÄSSAN
Sweden’s largest retro gaming convention. Loads of games for sale, games to be played (both arcade and console), competitions like the Swedish Championships of Super Mario and other events.
See posts from previous Retrospelsmässan >>

SEPTEMBER 1st
Malmö
RETROSPELSFESTIVALEN
A retro gaming festival (convention) in the southern part of Sweden.  Loads of games for sale, games to be played (both arcade and console), and usually some fun competitions and events.
See posts from previous Retrospelsfestivalen >>

SEPTEMBER 29th
Västerås
RETRO GATHERING
Retro gathering is a pure retro game and vintage computer convention, the longest running one in Sweden. Here you can find anything from old C64 and Spectrum to Nintendo and PS2
See posts from previous Retro Gatherings >>

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Events that will most likely come back next year:

RETROSPELSMÄSSAN, Gothenburg
Sweden’s largest retro gaming convention. Loads of games for sale, games to be played (both arcade and console), competitions like the Swedish Championships of Super Mario and other events.
See posts from previous Retrospelsmässan >>

RETROSPELSFESTIVALEN, Malmö
A retro gaming festival (convention) in the southern part of Sweden.  Loads of games for sale, games to be played (both arcade and console), and usually some fun competitions and events.
See posts from previous Retrospelsfestivalen >>

RETRO GAMES, Stockholm
A retro gaming convention in the capital of Sweden with a lot of focus on arcade games. Loads of arcades are displayed there for you to try out. There’s also a market section and competitions, like the Swedish championships of Pac-Man.
See posts from previous Retro Games >>

COMICCON, Stockholm
COMICCON, Malmö
COMICCON, Copenhagen
NORDSKEN, Skellefteå
RETROSPELMARKNAD, Vetlanda

 

Apart from these events there’s of course a lot of permanent retro game inspired places to visit, I will fill up the list below with places that are worth a visit for any retro game enthusiast ^_^

STOCKHOLMS SPELMUSEUM, Stockholm
A video game museum filled with history of video games, and also playable games, both arcades and consoles :) See some pics from it here >>

HEY ARCADE @ Roq bar, Stockholm
An extensive arcade with loads of machines, everything from classic shmups to the great rhythm and music arcades from Japan ^_^ Read about my visit here >>

CAFÉ PÅ BIT, Skellefteå
A really cute café filled with retro games and some arcades that you can pay to play and retro games that you can buy ^_^ Read about my visit here >>

MACKAPÄR, Gothenburg
A vintage retro store containing everything from cool furniture and accessories to obscure retro video games :D

SPEL & SÅNT, Norrtälje
A video game store that also holds loads of retro games

Retrospelsmässan 2014 (Sweden’s retro gaming exhibition)

So I just got back from Tokyo 3 days ago and I’m still a bit jet lagged, and also very sick >.< But I refused to miss out on 2014’s RSM (Retrospelsmässan), Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition in Gothenburg. So I drove there yesterday to see what they had to offer.

The setup was similar to last year, the biggest improvement though was that they had more registers at the entrance (6 instead of 1 or 2 last year) so the massive queues went a lot faster (but they were still there). Last year I waited almost 4 hours before I could get in, this year it took a little more than one hour.
queing
The last 1/5 part of the queuing

There were as usual loads of cosplayers running around. It’s always nice to see ^_^ Here’s a few of the characters I managed to capture on camera:
Mario!
It’s a me! Mario!

street fighter kingdom hearts cosplay
Street Fighter and Kingdom Hearts cosplay

wheatley 2 portal costplay
My personal favorite: Wheatley from Portal ^_^ Brilliant!

zelda and link cosplay
Zelda & Link cosplay

At the fair there were loads of things to do. They had competitions, hundreds of systems, arcades and pinball machines setup to be played, artwork being made and sold, speedruns, street fighter tournaments, traders selling retro games and stuff and lots more.
retrospelsmässan 2014
zelda and megaman art
toys

And Charles Martinet was there (the voice of Mario & friends) and you could get his signature…
charles martinet

…which I did ^_^ He was very friendly and funny :)
charles martinet autograph

I came in quite late since I had to drive for 2 hours to get there, so I didn’t have time to browse around a lot through the games. I also think that most of the good stuff had already been picked out, but I did manage to find a few things :) I found Sunset Riders for Sega Mega Drive, Wolfchild and Prince of Persia for Sega Mega CD. I’ve been curious about the Mega CD version of Wolfchild ever since I made the review for Wolfchild on Master System. I found it disturbing that the game lacked music, then someone told me that the Mega CD version had music, so I had to hear it ^_^ Sunset Riders has also been on my radar for some time but it has always been so pricey on eBay. I got it for approximately 40 GBP (or 69 USD).
sunset riders, prince of persia, wolfchild mega cd

I also found a mysterious Famicom pirate game which had no name, just an image of Tetris and airplanes?! So I had to buy it to see what it would be like ^_^
Famicom hack Tetris?

It turned out to be just Tetris, but I haven’t seen a Tetris that looks exactly like this one before. It had loads of gameplay options like 1 player, 2 player, cooperative, versus etc.

Tetris Famicom pirate
Tetris Famicom pirate game

It also had loads of russian songs to choose from ^_^ Troika is my favorite :D
Tetris Famicom pirate music select

That’s it for now, soon i’ll make a big post about all my pickups in Japan, and also a small guide of Akihabara’s great assortment of retro game shops ^_^ But first I will have to sort out this mess on my desk of over 100 games that I bought during my 2 weeks there… o_O
mess!!

If you wanna know more about Retrospelsmässan check out their webpage, you can also read about my visit to last year’s RSM here >>