Each Friday we will be featuring a game from our collection with some interesting facts. Today we kick it off with Missile Command! Developed in 1980 by Atari this game features trackball play while firing missiles from 3 different base stations. pic.twitter.com/vvkxfszrVu
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) November 8, 2019
Every Friday for the last month and a half Tim (who is currently collecting a couple of pinball machines somewhere in Maryland) has been featuring one game from the Reclaim Arcade collection. He’s been sharing these short videos on the arcade’s various social media accounts, which include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s a quick and fun way to keep the various accounts fresh while the space gets built out in order to give people a sense of some of the games they can play once we open. I also love Tim’s format: some fun facts and trivia about the game, some music and/or sound effects from the game, and usually an original commercial, movie clip, or some other marketing incarnation of these pop culture phenomena.
It's Friday! And that means time for another featured game from our collection and this week it's Donkey Kong. A classic from Nintendo that came out in 1981 it boasted fairly unique platform-style gameplay and a heroic carpenter who would later gain notoriety as "Mario". pic.twitter.com/koNT0c18jy
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) November 15, 2019
It’s good stuff, and I look forward to them every Friday given I’m never sure which game Tim will be featuring. You can see the other four videos he created below, highlighting some true classics like Joust, Mortal Kombat, Star Castle, Gauntlet, and Outrun—and that’s just a small taste. In fact, he won’t even be able to feature all of our 50+ games by the time we open Reclaim Arcade, so you just might have to come out and see the rest. We’re quickly approaching 1000 followers on Facebook (which has been crucial for getting the word out locally) and early next week we’ll be talking with a reporter from the Free-Lance Star (Fredericksburg’s local newspaper) about Reclaim Arcade and Reclaim Hosting. I’m guessing we got the call from the Free-Lance Star after we got a quick shout-out on FredericskburgVA.com, thank you Bill Freehling! One of the things that has been fun and interesting about Reclaim Arcade is thinking through how we build momentum before we open our doors in May. Facebook has been the main strategy for connecting locally, and Tim as been making excellent use of this platform with his Friday feature campaign.* The next thing will be planning some a series of pop-ups in and around town to let people know there will soon be a bitchin’ arcade in Fred Vegas. It’s getting realer every day!
Happy Friday! It's time for another feature game reveal and this week is Joust! Developed by Williams in 1982 the unique gameplay and concept proved to be a major hit. Joust joins a huge lineup of classic arcade games we will have at opening in Spring 2020. See you there! pic.twitter.com/9uve2bi0x0
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) November 22, 2019
Happy Friday! We're back with not 1 but 2 game reveals today. Mortal Kombat I and 2! These games not only popularized the fighting game genre, but their extreme violence led to congressional hearings that would result in the ESRB rating system still in use today. Finish Him! pic.twitter.com/AajllypGnj
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) November 29, 2019
This Friday featured game is one for our vector fans, Star Castle! Going all the way back to 1980, this classic developed by Cinematronics featured some of the earliest elements of artificial intelligence in arcade games. pic.twitter.com/rDiMeJX9Om
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) December 6, 2019
Your featured game for this week is Gauntlet! That's right, this 1985 classic from Atari features 4 player gameplay with a dungeons and dragons look and feel and had some amazing technical feats like voice synthesizer chip built into it. pic.twitter.com/gF6F1PpGPd
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) December 13, 2019
Today's Friday Featured Game is non other than Out Run! The game that was succesful not only as one of the most popular arcade games Sega would produce during the 80s, but also one to launch an entire aesthetic of sunshine, palm trees, and corvettes. pic.twitter.com/ydnKyxyMIT
— Reclaim Arcade (@ReclaimArcade) December 20, 2019
*And this is coming from someone who has talked smack on Facebook for a very long time. I still despise the platform, but more and more I find myself using it for scouring Facebook Groups to find arcade cabinets to purchase and, more recently, tracking interest in Reclaim Arcade. So, sometimes when you want to build a local business one has to eat a little bit of crow.
