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 ^_^

RSM loot – Gleylancer and other Mega Drive beauties :)

This year at Retrospelsmässan I actually had a table shared with my friend Cleareyes where I spent half the time selling some of my doubles. I also spent time on the Tetris competition that I was hosting, so I didn’t get much time to shop around. There were LOADS of games for sale this year! I wish I had more time to scour through everything! But I did manage to find a few cool things :)

First up are some really nice Japanese Sega Mega Drive games! The Swedish Pong champion, Barkis, was selling off his personal collection. I managed to score Gleylancer, Splatterhouse Part 3 and Awesome Possum! I also got Rastan Saga II and Shijou Saidai no Soukoban which I had no clue what they were but I was hoping they were playable XD

Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer is an awesome shoot-em-up. It’s quite pricey and I didn’t think I would ever find a copy that I’d be willing to pay the price for. But together with these other games I made a good deal :) It’s a pretty good shmup! It has nice graphics, varied stages, power-ups and various settings for your side-guns. It was fairly easy, but once you die you loose your power-ups and side-guns which make it a bit more challenging.

Awesome Possum is a classic platformer, unfortunately not as awesome as I had hoped >_< You could basically just jump around, and Mr. Possum was very difficult to control. It didn’t feel like you could steer him to where you wanted to go. And the story was a bit lame.. you have to run around the rain forest and collect trash to save the environment, and stop robots from cutting down the trees.. in between stages you got a quiz, felt like you were back in elementary school XD A poorly produced game if you ask me..

I have a few games in the Splatterhouse series, the second one for Sega Mega Drive, the one for PC Engine and Wanpaku Grafitti for the Famicom (although that one can hardly be counted as the same XD) and now I also got Splatterhouse Part 3 which I think was better than what I remember from both the 2nd one for Mega Drive and the PC Engine version. The controls were a bit smoother, it was more fluent. It wasn’t just a regular brainless beat ’em up where you can just button mash the attack button and get away with it. Even though Rick only had one attack button you still had to use timing and strategy to outsmart the enemies. You had to be on your toes a bit more than in usual beat ’em ups. I liked that about it :) But some rooms were ridiculous, like the flying hands or the books/objects’ room where stuff just came flying at you constantly, pushing you backwards with no way of you being able to attack them back.. super annoying.. I also ran out of time on the third stage, but nothing happened, I could just continue to look for the boss room until I found it and beat it o_O

Shijou Saidai no Soukoban was a puzzle game where you pushed blocks around to get them to the marked spots to clear a stage. The graphics/colour and overall look of it was kind of boring. I played a couple of stages but eventually got stuck and I don’t have patience for these kind of puzzle games. I prefer Tetris ^_^

The final Japanese Mega Drive game I got was Rastan Saga II. Everybody has told me it’s the shittiest game ever. And sure, the character was a bit stiff, he looked silly and was badly animated, but I liked the colourful graphics, it was definitely not as bad as Sword of Sodan XD But yeah, after reaching the second stage boss I agree, it’s definitely not a good game. I wasn’t able to get a hit on Medusa without her hitting me like three times first >_<

I picked up an original grey Nintendo Game Boy as well, mainly because it came in this funky carry case. I already have this carry case, but it’s my favourite, so now I have two :) I also got two games with it, Tetris and Motocross Maniacs, and it was a good deal.

Apart from that I picked up a few Game Boy titles: Star Saver, Migraine, Booby Boys, Volleyfire and Sanrio Carnival.

Migraine is a typ of puzzle game where you turn levers to steer a laser that pops bubbles. It was extremely boring and frustrating. The controls were slow and the stages had an annoying time limit..

The Adventures of Star Saver on the other hand is a great platforming shooter :) And the music is awesome!! I recommend trying this one out :D

I thought Volleyfire would be a shmup as well, but not really. You’re only on one screen, facing an opponent and you have to shoot down his health by getting your shot in between the moving obstacles in the middle. It’s kind of like the old school Outlaw on Atari 2600, but with space ships.. boring.

Booby Boys is a top down platformer where your objective is to collect all items on a stage, find the key and enter the next stage. Your weapon is that you make traps for the enemies, dig a hole and they fall down, push it again to kill them when they’re stuck. It was so-so..

Sanrio Carnival was just like Columns! Except with the heads of Sanrio characters instead of gems XD You make matches of three horizontally, vertically and even diagonally. It was ok :) There’s a hard mode where the blocks just stick mid-air when you destroy a row, that was different O_o

I also found some PC Engine titles that I had been looking for, and some that I didn’t know I wanted XD I found Winds of Thunder which I have been looking for for quite some time, and PC Genjin 3 which is a great platforming series. Then I also bumped into a game called Lady Sword.. I had no clue what it was but it looked absurd so I had to get it XD

I got convinced to buy a boxed Super Famicom as well XD I already have 3.. but none of them are boxed and two of them are in really shitty condition. One is extremely yellowed, and the other one has been spray painted in silver, a really bad paint job at that.. So it was mainly because of the content that I picked it up. The console is complete and in really minty condition :) And it was a fair price.

The first and last thing I bought at the convention were Atari 2600 carts! I just love these, especially when they’re some weird bootlegs and stuff XD A lot of them are German and have some pretty funny names, like Raumroboter :) Spider Fighter is not in very pretty condition, but I recently bought a bootleg of it and realised it’s an amazing game so I wanted to try the original cartridge :) Phantompanzer I bought together with an Amiga CD32 game called Gloom. It’s been suggested to me before, I think it’s supposed to be an FPS game kind of like Doom…

At the end of the day I picked up some odd things over at Butik Mackapär. Markus always has some weird things and lots of Japanese goodies ^_^ I found a newly produced game for the Sega Dreamcast, it looked cute :) I also got a bunch of odd third party controllers. And some of the Atari 2600 games above were from him as well. He threw in an odd cartridge for the Sega Mega Drive, an Interceptor Specify Card.. I have no clue what it does XD

Well this turned out to be a pretty long post XD There’s even a few more games I forgot to mention that I got at RSM, but this will have to do for now ^_^

Retrospelsmässan 2017

This year we finally got to attend Retrospelsmässan again, Sweden’s largest retro gaming convention! Thanks to Sven666 and Quartex who revived the franchise :) It was a blast as always, and bigger than ever! They used a larger venue, and this year there were finally not a single issue regarding the queues! Good job guys! :D

Retrospelsmässan RSM 2017

I had a table shared with a my friend Cleareyes this year, where I sold off some of my doubles. I was also given the task of arranging a Tetris competition during the afternoon :) I had picked out a Tetris game and a way of competing that wouldn’t be too time consuming. I chose Super Tetris 3 for Super Famicom. In 2-player VS mode we had tryouts of 64 people that competed :) 32 remained, and then 16, then 8, then 4 and eventually just 2 people who battled for the title of RSM’s Tetris champion ^_^ I hardly managed to take any pics during the competition but I got to borrow some from my friend and also avid Tetris collector Daniel Engdahl :) Thanks!

I got to play a versus game with the winner afterwards. First to 3 wins and he beat me by 3-2. I got distracted in the last match XD

The convention was a blast, unfortunately I didn’t have time to explore all the tables and all the exhibitors as much as I would have liked. I spent most of the time talking to friends that I bumped into :) It’s such a great place for all of us nerds to gather and hang out ^_^ I’m already looking forward to Retrospelsmässan 2018!

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 >>

~~~

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 2015

This weekend was awesome!! I left on friday with my Geeky Gals to Gothenburg and met up with a bunch of friends and new acquaintances in the retro gaming community :)

geekygals-roadtrip-to-rsm

On saturday morning we went to Retrospelsmässan! Sweden’s largest yearly retro gaming convention! This year I had a press pass so I could enter beforehand and get some nice pictures of everything they had set up ^_^ They had used a larger portion of the facility this year, more tables with things for sale, a whole corner for indie games, a live podcast being streamed, a bigger area for retro gaming with 60-70 consoles and old computers setup for people to try out and arcades, pinball machines, collections and art on display. There’s just so much going on at RSM! :D

rsm-2015-visitors

First let’s talk about the gaming experience at RSM! There were a couple of indie developers showcasing their new games. I tried out Alwa’s Awakening which was inspired by the NES. Very cute and the graphics were beautifully made, controlling the character was a bit slow though, I prefer faster platforming games such as mario, this one was slower than Megaman.. They had some nice elements in it though, you could spawn a brick or a bubble to make you reach certain places or get past obstacles. It was just a demo though, I got through it without dying, they promised to make it harder by the time it gets released ;D Hopefully we’ll see it released on Wii U soon, I’m also hoping for an Xbox One release, they would look into that ^_^

rsm-2015-alwas-awakening-game  rsm-2015-alwasawakening

I also tried out a game called 1993 Space Machine! This game felt more like a finished product and it was a lot of fun! A horizontal sidescrolling shooter which looked kind of futuristic but still felt old school ^_^ That’s probably because it was actually MADE back in 1993! But isn’t released until now. It was difficult! They also had a keyboardist integrating music live into the game, this was a really cool thing to experience :D I doubt that they’ll ship the game with a dude that plays keyboard with it though ;D haha! They’re looking at releasing the game on Steam and Xbox One! :D So yay!!

rsm-2015-1993-space-machine-gameplay2  rsm-2015-1993-space-machine-music
rsm-2015-1993-space-machine-game-over

There were two other indie games showcasing, I did however not get the chance to try them out. They looked cool though ^_^ They were called The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human (brilliant name ;D) and else.heartbreak.

rsm-2015-the-aquatic-adventures-of-the-last-human  rsm-2015-else-heartbreak

During the whole day they had retro gaming competitions and speedruns going on at Retrospelsmässan. We we’re so occupied with everything that we completely missed the Bomberman tournament, and when we tried to sign up for Super Mario it was too late >_< I did however compete in Asteroids on Arcade and guess what?!? I came in second place!! :D :D

rsm-2015-smb-competition  rsm-2015-playing-asteroids
rsm-2015-asteroids-cabinet
rsm-2015-asteroids-competition

There were so many consoles and systems to be played all over RSM! It’s almost overwhelming :D Just look at all these beauties!

rsm-2015-demoroom

The first one here I’ve never even seen! Adonbolagen AB is apparently a Swedish company and in the bottom it says Aleph, it’s so retro!! :D

rsm-2015-aleph-adonbolaget

I really want an Amiga CD32 myself!! The controllers are just so cool ^__^
rsm-2015-amiga-cd32

This cabinet is just so cute! Comic Game! haha ^_^
rsm-2015-arcade-comic-game

I love how colorful the cartridges are for this Arcadia 2001 console! :D Never heard of this one before either ^_^
rsm-2015-arcadia-2001

This one’s also weird-looking :D It’s called a Bondwell, never even heard of! ^__^
rsm-2015-bondwell

Here’s a display stand for Coleco Vision! So awesomely cool! ^__^
rsm-2015-Coleco-Vision

This one looks so futuristic! :D Love it ^__^ Commodore CBM Model 8032
rsm-2015-commodore-cbm

This Pong Hockey machine is the prettiest pong machine I’ve ever seen! Bright red and beautiful! ^__^ WANT!!!
rsm-2015-hockey-pong

I really want a Mattel Intellivision! I have had games for it almost since I began collecting, but never had the hardware to play it on >_<
rsm-2015-intellivision

I really need an MSX as well, one that can play the only Castlevania game I’m missing, the MSX one ;D 
rsm-2015-msx

And what the hell is a PCFX?! Apparently it’s made by NEC, the people who made the PC Engine!! :D I’m intrigued ^__^
rsm-2015-nec-pc-fx

I don’t know what the hell this one is, but damn it’s cool! I love retro things that are brown, orange or yellow, even better when all the colors are combined ;D haha (edit: I found out that it’s an Atari 400!)
rsm-2015-retro-console

I need this Sega SG-1000 as well! It’s so cute ^__^
rsm-2015-sega-sg1000

I was on the lookout all day for a ZX Spectrum but couldn’t find one, except for this demo one. I really want the black one with a tiny rainbow in the corner, it’s so cuuute ^^ 
rsm-2015-sinclair-zx-spectrum

Here’s a Videopac 7200, looks pretty rad huh? ;D The cartridges have handles! So smart ^___^
rsm-2015-Videopac-7200

And here’s the Videopac G7000 ^__^ Now I’ve showed off the systems I found different and cool, they had all the regular ones as well of course, NES, SNES, SMD, SMS, Famicom, Atari etc…
rsm-2015-videopac-g7000

And here’s some of the arcades and pinball machines you could play ^__^
rsm-2015-pinball-machines
rsm-2015-arcades

Apart from all the gaming there were also shitloads of games, consoles and merchandise for sale! :D I found so many things that I wanted!! I was mainly on the hunt for an Atari Lynx and a ZX Spectrum though, but it’s really hard not to get sucked into buying everything else that shines in pretty bright colours ;D You could find games from the 70’s up to the early 2000’s. There were of course a lot of NES, SNES and N64, but you could also find Sega Master System and Mega Drive, and loads of old vintage stuff like Commodore and Amiga. Below is a system called Alice! So cute ^__^

rsm-2015-alice

Here’s some PC Engine games and Sega Saturn :D Yes, I bought some stuff here ;D
rsm-2015-games-2

Beautiful old game boxes for Luxor ^_^
rsm-2015-games-luxor

So many vintage consoles and still boxed!! :D Spoiler alert!!! I bought two of these ;D Guess which??
rsm-2015-games-retro-stuff

I looked at this old system, the handle on the left is to hold the console while steering with the right one, haha, the console IS the controller! :D awesome ^__^
rsm-2015-games-gakken-tv-boy

Here’s another colorful old Pong clone ^__^ Japan knows how to make things cute! 
rsm-2015-games-console-pong

This is one out five known copies of a boxed Luxor in Sweden! coooool ^^
rsm-2015-luxor-original-box

Bead art jewelry!
rsm-2015-merchandise

There were even Neo Geo games!! And yes, I came home with one ;D Not pictured though ^^
rsm-2015-neo-geo

You could find all kinds of systems boxed and pretty ^__^
rsm-2015-nes-boxed
rsm-2015-snes-boxed
rsm-2015-nes-games-sale

One of the developers behind Pier Solar was there to sell some re-printed copies :D 
rsm-2015-pier-solar

Amazing prints of retro gaming box arts ^^
rsm-2015-prints

So many games!!! *drool*
rsm-2015-retro-games-for-sale

This Samus lamp is puuurdyyy!!! <3 
rsm-2015-samus-lamp

KCL selling off his entire CiB NES collection ;D
rsm-2015-selling2

And more games… I don’t even feel like I had time to thoroughly check through all the tables! I think I even missed a few :(
rsm-2015-super-mario-sign

Pappas Pärlor was also in the house, selling his awesome retro gaming inspired perler bead artworks! :D
rsm-2015-pappasparlor5
rsm-2015-pappasparlor3
rsm-2015-pappasparlor2

All over the place you could spot cosplayers in amazing costumes inspired by games. Here are just a few of the ones I managed to catch on camera ^_^ You can check out more cosplay over at the Geeky Gals blog ^_^

rsm-2015-cosplay-geeky-gals-meet-predator
rsm-2015-cosplay-kirby-2
rsm-2015-cosplay-megaman-airman
rsm-2015-cosplay-predator-vs-game-&-watch-man
rsm-2015-cosplay-skullkid

There were also loads of things to just look at and admire ^__^ Like Love Hultén’s amazing crafts, his R-Kaid-R MAME mini cabinets and a full scale arcade cabinet that you even got to play on ^__^
rsm-2015-love-hulten-r-kaid
rsm-2015-love-hulten-arcade

And also loads of various collections of vintage games ^_^ Like handhelds, Swedish made retro games, Giana Sister, R-Type and lots of other things.
rsm-2015-handhelds
rsm-2015-swedish-games-2
rsm-2015-r-type-colleciton-2
rsm-2015-giana-sisters-retro
rsm-2015-giana

I’ll make a separate post with all my pickups from the convention, however it will take a couple of more days just to go through it all ;D Stay tuned!

rsm-2015-crowd

One week to RSM 2015!!

I’m so excited!! RSM (Retrospelsmässan) is one of Sweden’s largest retro gaming conventions, been running for 6 years now :D I’ve been there every year (except for once when I lived in Japan..). If you wanna see what it’s all about you can check out my posts from RSM 2014 and RSM 2013 here :)

This year I’m having two of my Geeky Gals coming with me :D It’s gonna be so much fun to meet up with people and this year I’m also planning on competing! They’re hosting competitions in Super Mario Bros on NES, Bomberman on Sega Saturn and Asteroids on arcade! I unfortunately only have Asteroids on Atari 2600 o_O Do you think my practice on that will suffice? ;D hahaha

Atari-2600-Asteroids

Super Mario Bros on the NES won’t be an issue, however I bet I will screw up in the competition ;D I can run through it usually on one life, but sometimes I get stuck on that stupid 8-3 stage >_< If those stupid hammer bros are in the wrong spot >_<

SMB-1-NES

Last issue is that I don’t have Bomberman on Sega Saturn… I’ve been meaning to pick those Saturn ones up as well, but I haven’t yet >_< I have loads of other Bomberman games though! Here are a few of them:

Bomberman-games-super-famicom
Bomberman-games-Famicom-and-Super-FamicomBomberman-games-PC-Engine

I also have Bomberman (the first one) on PC Engine as well, just couldn’t find it right now.. Does anyone know which one of these are most similar to the Saturn version in gameplay? ^__^ And please don’t tell me it’s Super Bomberman 3, since that’s the only one I’m lacking in the series ;D hahaha

Anyway wish me luck! I will start practicing now ^_^ And after next weekend you will get to see all my pickups and all the other awesomeness from RSM 2015! :D