A History of Tetris Randomizers

This article about randomizers in the game Tetris is very cool!

(Tip of the cap to Mike Cook.)

35th Anniversary of the Release of Tetris

Happy 35th anniversary, Tetris!

#Today in 1984, #Tetris was first released https://t.co/GONHKVxEOx #HappyBirthdayTetris pic.twitter.com/wJUQzBVooa

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 7, 2019

Natural Space Invaders

Check our this natural game of Space Invaders!

Who made this?!! 😂 #EntoGIF 🐞🐛🐞🐛💥 pic.twitter.com/UYpLReeW8I

— Ashleigh Whiffin (@AshWhiffin) December 10, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Matthew Holden.)

A Tetris-Themed Glass Window (and Other Nerd Furniture)

Take a look at this sweet nerd furniture!

Update (8/11/17): Initially I described the Tetris window as a "stained-glass window". As Aaron Clements pointed out on my Facebook post, a correct description is actually "colored glass blocks with mortar".

(Tip of the cap to Rachel Simmons Carter.)

The Making of Ms. Pac-Man

This is a really cool article about the making of Ms. Pac-Man.

"Macrae: The fourth monster in Ms. Pac-Man is named Sue, which is my sister. I always get to joke about that with her a little bit. I worked really hard to make sure I could name a monster after my sister. It was a great way to take an inside poke at her."

I was always wondering how the orange ghost went from Clyde in Pac-Man to Sue in Ms. Pac-Man.

Amazingly, it's now been just over twice as long between the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga dual arcade cabinet and now than between the debut of Ms. Pac-Man and that commemorative release.

And as some of you have witnessed, I had mad skillz at that game.

RIP Masaya Nakamura (1925–2017)

Masaya Nakamura, the founder of gaming company Namco and the "father" of Pac-Man, has died.

(Tip of the cap to Greg Hosack.)

National Videogame Museum to Open in April

I want to take a field trip to the new U.S. National Videogame Museum, which will open in Frisco, Texas in April.

Even more than that, I want to go to the classic arcade and American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in New Hampshire.

(Tip of the cap to Paul Carter for news about the new museum.)

Pixels (Long) and Pixels (Short)

I just saw the big-screen movie Pixels (which I previously blogged about). It was fun and nostalgic, though of course very cheesy (no surprise), and it was not the disaster I was worried that it might be. I also just re-watched the short 2010 "film" Pixels (which clocks in at 2 minutes and 34 seconds), which is just as awesome now as it was five years ago. (I also previously blogged about this short film.)

The big-screen Pixels had some very nice bits of nostalgia (and good homages), though its use of a time-capsule of 1982 arcade action has an anachronism with Tetris. It also has some picky points that it got wrong --- for example, a power pellet in Pac-Man lasting way too long for how high a level was being shown. (It is also very conveniently ignored the fact that Donkey Kong has patterns by simply pretending that it doesn't.) The character Q*Bert amused me on a couple of points, such as being there to dodge barrels amidst a level of Donkey Kong. And also the litter at the end.

For some movies that are both awesome and bring out major nostalgia for 1980s video games, I highly recommend The King of Kong and (obviously) Wreck-It Ralph. I previously blogged about The King of Kong, but I couldn't find a blog entry about Wreck-It Ralph, so I assume I didn't do it. (I blog much less often about movies than I used to --- even when they're awesome. Wreck-It Ralph even included a theme song written by Buckner & Garcia! Now that made me feel really nostalgic!)

Play Pac-Man on Google Maps

Yes, really: You can now use maps in Google Maps to play Pac-Man. I approve!

In case you're interested, you can try a map near Somerville College in Oxford (and also necessarily near the Mathematical Institute). Or perhaps catching Pokémon is more aligned with your tastes?

Or, if you prefer, you can play a live-action version with smartphones.

(Tip of the cap to Jimmy Lin.)

Update: Here is the post from Google's product manager about the new feature. (Tip of the cap to Mary Radcliffe for this link. Apparently, her husband is the person at Google who created this particular gem.) Ah, I love it when April 1st comes along. :)

Update (4/01/15): the article on CNN.com shows several example mazes from different parts of the world.

Update (4/08/15): Wired.com now has an article about this, which is affectionately called "Pac-Maps". Also, here are the "top" places (which are isolated to just a few cities) to play Pac-Maps. Harvard Square is insane.

Play Classic Arcade Games in Your Web Browser

OK, this is seriously sweet: now we can play classic arcade games in Web browsers. More than a decade ago, I downloaded a MAME emulator for my Mac and scoured the Web for a bunch ROMs to try to find lots of my old favorites (and some other games that I wanted to try or retry). Now all I need to do is get some proper controllers, and I'll play some of these games again. The main reason I didn't play these games that much after I initially downloaded them is that the proper experience requires the proper controllers. (Also, downloading things from those websites involved a lot of whack-a-mole and presumably downloading additional things that one really didn't want.) I should go and get one. :)

Eye Orientation of Ghosts in Pac-Man Games

Another of those things that perhaps says a lot about me: I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt with the ghost Shadow/Blinky from the Pac-Man series. And besides thinking that the shirt is awesome, do you know what else I noticed? That the ghost's eyes were oriented in the way that allows you to go through it without dying (which, by the way, is a skill ones needs to get really good at these games).

One of these years, I hope that I will get to the kill screen in Ms. Pac-Man...

Pac-Man turns the big 3-0 (technically, that happens tomorrow)

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man (it was first released in Japan on May 22, 2010), and Google celebrated it in proper fashion by putting a mini Pac-Man game on its home page. I approve! (This, by the way, is Google's first interactive 'doodle'.)

And while Pac-Man might not turn 30 until tomorrow, be advised (especially if you're a frosh) that Tomorrow is TODAY! (I'll blog about this a bit later. In the meantime, you can celebrate by watching this.)

(Tip of the cap to Lemming for the Pac-Man stuff and GFreak for the video. I first heard about Ditch Day from Andy Sudol's Facebook post.)

Update (5/22/10): That it truly is Pac-Man's 30th birthday, here is the story behind Google's Pac-Man doodle. (Tip of the hat to Jimmy Lin.)

The King of Kong

Tonight I saw the movie The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters with Lemming and James Yoon.

This movie is right up there with Stardust, The Namesake, and The Transformers as my favorite films of the year. The movie was fantastic, and I encourage all of you to see it.

The basic premise involves a battle between two middle-aged men to obtain the world record in the arcade game Donkey Kong. (I spent a decent number of quarters on it, and it's pretty damned hard in my opinion. I found many of the older arcade games to be much easier than this one.) One of them, Billy Mitchell, is one of the hotshots from the "Golden Era" of arcade games. (The story of what they've done with their lives is told in the upcoming film, Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade, which is currently making the rounds in the film festivals and which I also really want to see. One of Mitchell's contemporaries was Steve Harris, the founder of a little magazine I like to call EGM.) He was depicted in the movie as a total asshole, which is also how I've read various articles depicting him over the years. The other is a newcomer to competitive gaming, Steve Wiebe, who (to put it mildly) was depicted in a much better light.

The film was amazing. The topic was really interesting, and the humor was rampant. (Wiebe's little girl had the funniest --- and wisest --- line of the film about people ruining their lives to get themselves into the Guinness Book of World Records. The background music included several songs that were both appropriate and awesome --- including Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" and Animotion's "Obsession". There were some other recognizable tunes as well, such as the one that plays during the closing credits for which I wasn't properly braced (Techers: you've been warned).

We also saw some awesome trailers before the movie, so I now have a few more films that I am eagerly anticipating.

Anyway, The King of Kong gets my highest endorsement. Go see it!