Space Clutter | Retro Video Gaming

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.”