> The Arcade Signal

You know, when I started this journey in my life, I can remember playing those old cartridges for the Atari. Games that really made you think. Even back then, I found myself more and more enthralled by how these weren’t regular types of games.

Take 3D Tic-Tac-Toe for the 2600. That game blew my mind. Seriously. As a kid, I was fascinated by the brilliant programmer who managed to squeeze something like that into such a tightly programmed little machine. What they pulled off on the 2600 was legendary.

Even Chess on those systems amazed me. You could play against another player, or against the computer. Someone actually wrote a functional computer opponent that could play an entire game with you. Think about that for a moment. It’s amazing. Truly amazing.

But there was also a beauty to the games from back then. The old eighties style arcade cabinets. You know the kind. Cigarette burns on the control panel, a strange funky smell hanging in the air. Somehow that atmosphere was part of the magic. I guess it’s things like that that bring you back to a fun time. A time before gaming went to shit.

Maybe we can bring some of that fun back.

I grew up playing those amazing arcade games. My sister and I even beat The Simpsons Arcade Game once. I remember saving up my allowance until I had twenty bucks, which felt like a fortune back then. Of course, we were camping at the time. We camped a lot in the summer. The campgrounds we stayed at always seemed to have arcades tucked away somewhere. Whether that was planned or just fate, I don’t know.

I also remember playing Hat Trick with my now wife at an antique mall. I fell in love with that game immediately. To this day I still hope that someday I’ll make one of my own.

There are moments when I wish I had my own arcade machine running one of my games. Especially this one. The one where I spent many sleepless nights playing old classics and thinking about how they were made.

Now that I’m older, I’ve started playing those classics again. I always dreamed of making my own arcade-style game. Maybe someday I’ll make that dream a reality.

With this game, I wanted to create something special. Something that maybe, just maybe, people will enjoy playing.