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!!

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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!

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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

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I really want an Amiga CD32 myself!! The controllers are just so cool ^__^
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This cabinet is just so cute! Comic Game! haha ^_^
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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! ^__^
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This one looks so futuristic! :D Love it ^__^ Commodore CBM Model 8032
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This Pong Hockey machine is the prettiest pong machine I’ve ever seen! Bright red and beautiful! ^__^ WANT!!!
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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 >_<
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I really need an MSX as well, one that can play the only Castlevania game I’m missing, the MSX one ;D 
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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!)
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I need this Sega SG-1000 as well! It’s so cute ^__^
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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 ^^ 
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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…
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And here’s some of the arcades and pinball machines you could play ^__^
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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 ^__^

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Here’s some PC Engine games and Sega Saturn :D Yes, I bought some stuff here ;D
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Beautiful old game boxes for Luxor ^_^
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So many vintage consoles and still boxed!! :D Spoiler alert!!! I bought two of these ;D Guess which??
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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 ^__^
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Here’s another colorful old Pong clone ^__^ Japan knows how to make things cute! 
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This is one out five known copies of a boxed Luxor in Sweden! coooool ^^
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Bead art jewelry!
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There were even Neo Geo games!! And yes, I came home with one ;D Not pictured though ^^
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You could find all kinds of systems boxed and pretty ^__^
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rsm-2015-snes-boxed
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One of the developers behind Pier Solar was there to sell some re-printed copies :D 
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Amazing prints of retro gaming box arts ^^
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So many games!!! *drool*
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This Samus lamp is puuurdyyy!!! <3 
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KCL selling off his entire CiB NES collection ;D
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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 :(
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Pappas Pärlor was also in the house, selling his awesome retro gaming inspired perler bead artworks! :D
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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 ^__^
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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.
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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!

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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

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 >>