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:
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 >>
~~~
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 >>
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 >>
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 ^_^
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
Last weekend I took a roadtrip to Vetlanda with my friend Matt, because we had heard that they were arranging a retro game market! I actually didn’t have too high expectations in sellers and visitors attending, both because of the lesser known town of Vetlanda, but also the amount of retro gaming conventions that had been taking place in the recent couple of weeks. I still needed to check it out though!
I was pleasantly surprised that it first of all was indoors (it said Retro Game Market in the Park, so I was afraid it would be outside in the cold of Swedish November XD) but also what a big number of sellers that were there! We first found a small room with only one seller who had set up 8 tables filled with games from the NES to PS2.. but we later discovered there was a whole other giant room filled with loads more! And there were lots of people that I’ve gotten to know from previous conventions ^_^
Game Boy games
Japanese games
Matt8Bit is browsing
My Little Pony
Bead art
Bead art paintings
NES games
Bead art
Sega Mega Drive games
MSX with his awesome T-shirt ^_^
It was a lot of fun just talking to everybody, but I also ended up finding and buying way more than I had expected XD My biggest find was a boxed Japanese Virtual Boy! I now have 4 Virtual Boys XD But only one is boxed and it’s American. I’ve always liked the Japanese box design, but didn’t think I would find one at a decent price. This time I couldn’t pass it up though :D I also found a cute little arcade thing, the screen is smaller than a Game Boy Advance, but it carries similar graphics and has 108 games in 1! One of them is “Falling Blocks” which I also have on another system, it’s the most frustrating Tetris-like game XD The blocks are ridiulously shaped!
Boxed Japanese Virtual Boy
Game Machine 108 in 1 box
Game Machine 108 in 1
Game Machine 108 in 1
Game Machine 108 in 1
I also found loads of games for various systems. A few 16-bit games for Super Famicom and the Sega Mega Drive. I’m sorry about the upside-down photo of Raiden Densetsu, I just keep wanting to see it the opposite way! Haha! And I couldn’t be bothered re-shooting.. I don’t really like RPGs as many of you know, but I couldn’t resist price-worthy Final Fantasy games, it’s the only RPG series I’ve at least played a few games from.. and the box arts are so pretty ^_^ Super Family Circuit looked kind of like micro machines :) And the two Mega Drive games were in really nice condition and I didn’t have them before, platformers are always fun ^_^
Raiden Densetsu Super Famicom
Final Fantasy IV Super Famicom
Final Fantasy VI Super Famicom
Super Family Circuit Super Famicom
Spot Goes to Hollywood on Sega Mega Drive
The Flintstones on Sega Mega Drive
I also got some Famicom and Famicom Disk System games that I didn’t have :) Fun to run into Tom & Jerry in the wild like this, you don’t see it every day ^_^ I have Baseball, but not he pulseline version. It’s hard not to pick up Famicom games when it’s something I don’t have XD
Tom & Jerry – Famicom
Baseball Pulseline – Famicom
Mukashi Banashi Shin Onigashima Kouhen – Famicom Disk System
Namida no Sokoban Special – Famicom Disk System
Neunzehn 19 – Famicom Disk System
I also got a bunch of Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Advance games, and found an Amiga CD32 game called The Chaos Engine. I vaguely remember somebody telling me about it once.. saying it was good.. I guess we’ll see ^_^ I also bumped into a Tetris game I didn’t have! I didn’t even know Tetris Attack existed on Game Boy! It’s not really a “Tetris” game in my oppinion, but I can’t argue with the name XD
The Chaos Engine – Amiga CD32
Alice in Wonderland – Game Boy Color
Boulder Dash – Game Boy
Tiny Toon Adventures Wacky Stackers – Game Boy Advance
Disney Princess – Game Boy Advance
Ms. Pac-Man Special Color Edition – Game Boy Color
Secret Agent Barbie – Game Boy Advance
Tak 2 The Staff of Dreams – Game Boy Advance
Tetris Attack – Game Boy
Casper – Game Boy Advance
I’m really happy to see that so many Japanese Nintendo games have made it to the Swedish market! But the prices of them are also increasing.. The only negative thing for me with this Swedish market, just like a majority of the Swedish retro game events and conventions, was the giant focus on Nintendo.. I would like to see more varied things, like Atari, PC Engine, Commodore, and other more obscure systems, but I guess the interest in those things is just smaller :/
Other than that it was a pleasant surprise to see such a niched event pop up further south and I hope it will continue! They said they were looking at having another retro market already in spring next year :D
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 drove all the way to Västerås to attend the first Retro Gathering convention of 2016, they’ve started hosting two conventions a year since it’s become so popular with retro games and vintage computers here in Sweden. This Retro Gathering they called VCE, because it was a Vintage Computer Edition, and damn! There were a LOT of vintage computers there ^_^ I think it scared off a few of the Nintendo-fanatics though, since there were a bit less visitors than usually, but still there were loads of people! :D
It’s so much fun going to these conventions, mainly to meet with all the friends you’ve gotten to know through the common interests and also, of course, to buy shitloads of games!! This year was no different for me.. I came home with a massive haul. I will make a separate post once I’ve gone through it all XD Here’s picture of most of it stacked up in a couch! Just so you can get an idea ;D
I also really enjoy seeing all these odd old machines, they always have more things like this at Retro Gathering than any of the other conventions here in Sweden. Most conventions are strongly focused around Nintendo.. so it’s nice to see something different ^_^ Some of the things they had brought in this time I had never even seen before! So many cool machines ^_^ There was an Apple Pippin for sale (or even two, one was boxed and new!), there was also an Iris Crimson that appeared in Jurassic Park, and a bunch of other cool machines. These are just a few of them! Do you recognize them all? ;D I sure didn’t!
Commodore VIC 20 setup at Retro Gathering
Retro computers to play on at Retro Gathering
Vintage computers setup to play at Retro Gathering
Vintage computers to play at Retro Gathering
ZX81, M5 and Laser 200 at Retro Gathering
Commodore VIC 20 setup at Retro Gathering
Commodore and ABC80 at Retro Gathering
Philips Computer at Retro Gathering
Universum at Retro Gathering
Computer from Jurassic Park at Retro Gathering
Japanese Commodore Max Machine at Retro Gathering
Decwriter at Retro Gathering
Teletype at Retro Gathering
Vintage Computer at Retro Gathering
ABC80 at Retro Gathering
Digital PDP-8L at Retro Gathering
Sord at Retro Gathering
T2100 at Retro Gathering
Apple’s PiPPiN for sale at Retro Gathering
Boxed vintage computers for sale at Retro Gathering
Spectravideo at Retro Gathering
VIC 20 at Retro Gathering
Most of the computers there were for sale, I was really close to buying the T2100 with the beautiful monochrome orange screen, but once I returned to buy it it was already gone >_< For only $34! I also glanced at the Japanese Commodore 64 which was quite rare, with a few boxed cartridges! So beautiful ^_^ I did however buy some other systems, like the Atari ST 1040 and a ZX 81 ^_^ Apart from computers there were LOADS of games for sale, both Nintendo, Sega and lots of other stuff! Pappas Pärlor was also there to sell some of his awesome custom bead arts ^_^ Apart from this you could find almost anything at Retro Gathering VCE! I even saw a Vectrex 3D imager! It’s 3D-glasses for the Vectrex, and they were boxed with 2 games! Super rare and also super expensive >_<
Vectrex 3D Imager with games for sale at Retro Gathering
Retro games and systems for sale at Retro Gathering
Amiga games for sale at Retro Gathering
Vintage computer games for sale at Retro Gathering
Star Trek for Commodore for sale at Retro Gathering
Game & Watch and other stuff for sale at Retro Gathering
Retro Games for sale at Retro Gathering
Pippin for sale at Retro Gathering
Game poster for sale at Retro Gathering
Game & Watch for sale at Retro Gathering
Pappas Pärlor selling perler bead art at Retro Gathering
Pappas Pärlor bead art at Retro Gathering
Pappas Pärlor custom BB-8 at Retro Gathering
Twinkle Star Sprites for sale at Retro Gathering
MXS selling japanese retro games at Retro Gathering
Retro Gathering 2016
Retro games at Retro Gathering
Golden Sun for sale at Retro Gathering
NES for sale at Retro Gathering
Bleep Wear and merchandise for sale at Retro Gathering
Game Boy games for sale at Retro Gathering
I’m super happy with my weekend trip to Retro Gathering VCE 2016! I met so many nice people, had lots of fun and I’m looking forward to the next Retro Gathering this fall ^_^ I’m quite exhausted now though, and I will be busy with my haul for a while, testing all the new games! :D :D :D I will update shortly with everything that I bought ^_^
A lot has been happening this year, both outside the game room and inside! I have gotten myself another arcade machine, a Blast City from Sega. It’s fitted with a 4-slot Neo Geo MVS board, so I have yet another way to play all the MVS games I’ve bought instead of using the converter in my AES. I made room for the candy cab in the game room, and this lead to a bit of re-arranging for it to fit. I’ve also increased the amount of gaming stations, with more TV’s! :D So many TV’s!! There’s a total of 20 in the room right now ^_^
I have updated my video game collection page on here, but here’s most of the new pictures as well! :) The collection keeps growing :D
Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room
Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room
Blast City arcade
Blast City Arcade with Neo Geo
Jeff Minter Games
Virtual Boy etc
Sega & Nintendo
PC engine games
Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room setup
Heidi stopXwhispering’s Retro Game Room
Game & Watch Donkey Kong etc
Pacman
Castlevania Collection
Game & Watch, Zelda etc
I’ve been visiting a lot of gaming conventions this year, which also means acquiring a lot of new retro games ;D I will hopefully have some time this christmas to update the various libraries with scans on the site and perhaps add some new ones :) Meanwhile I am always on instagram posting retro game related stuff whenever I’m gaming or whatever ^_^ Feel free to follow me on there > @retro_gaming
Don’t forget to check out my other site www.geekygals.net where me and my gals post all types of nerdy things! The latest post was about a retro gaming competition I hosted for the first Geeky Gals Gathering which was very successful, we had a lot of fun! ^_^
The second video in our Neo Geo series is out! This time we’re playing some Garou Densetsu The Battle of Destiny (also known as Fatal Fury). Both Becki and myself are absolutely horrible at fighting games, and it’s definitely not really our cup of tea, but these types of games sure bring out the fighting spirit in you! Haha! We both tend to get extremely competitive….
Watch the video here:
I will get onto editing the final two games we played, Sengoku and Ghost Pilots soon :)
Retro Video Gaming 