EAG 2011: Dream Arcade
How would you like to spend a day playing all kinds of amusement machines, all on free play? I was a bit surprised to find I could do this as I walked into the EAG Expo 2011 (European and Amusement Gaming Expo) in London's ExCeL centre. I wore a huge grin for most of the time I was there.
All this had me thinking: If I had all the money in the world, what would I have picked from the show for a dream accessible arcade...?
The first thing that grabbed me was Super Monkey Ball on the SEGA stand, with a beautiful giant 7" glitter filled track-ball, and single large push-button (see a short SMB:TB YouTube clip here at 4:40). Would love one of those for PC use for all kinds of games and activities.
Also on the SEGA stand was Tetris Giant - Huge joysticks with pretty wild force feedback and jumbo push buttons to start. And I thought the Quasicon was big! These would also be fantastic fun for some with the huge array of basic joystick and keyboard compatible games.
There were quite a lot of one-button redemption games around the exhibition (win tickets for prizes machines), that would be so easy to adapt (as AbleGames 2009 proved). These included a one-press to play version of Frogger, a Pig launching game and the rather fun Knock Out Punch. There was also a one-switch space shoot-em-up for up to six players called GalacTix.
There were all manner of interesting air-hockey and pool tables. SEGA had a fantastic four player square air-hockey machine. Wik from Poland were showing off curved and outdoors air-hockey machines filled with water. SAM Leisure were showing off a range of cute mini air-hockey machines that had different shaped pucks that could slow the game down as well as being less painful if they fly off the table and whack you. They also had a range of lovely Pool tables. The sales man told me that most of their tables could be purchased with different height legs to better suit wheelchair users. I also very much liked the idea of the outdoors pool table (and decent weather to play it in).
Pinball would be a must for any dream accessible arcade of mine. Stern had an Avatar themed machine on free-play, and a couple of Rolling Stones machines. The Mick Jagger cut out that prances about the play-field made me smile. I also liked Bifuca's Pinball Tronic machines that are video pinball machines. They played really well, reacted to nudging and looked like candidates for easy adaptation. For geeky types, the flippers use Optical switches, but the designer told me (through an interpreter) that it would not be a problem getting these tables working with accessibility switches as U Can Do do with real pinball machines.
This version won't see cars flying off (something of an accessibility feature in itself) as they are rooted in place. It has fantastic sound effects, rowdy commentary and cameras that put you on screen. I asked if the game could be played freely as with traditional Scalextric, which they demonstrated to me that it can, when in the test mode. Playing like this is a good feature for those struggling with the shear noise and frenetic pace of the main game (if you can get someone to allow you to play like that).
It was nice to finally meet Jessica Fuller of Quasimoto who build the fantastic Quasicon adaptive controllers amongst other things. She was at the show demonstrating Game Gate VU which is in effect a coin-op Xbox 360 with Kinect. Such a great idea, where you can play without needing to rearrange your own furniture, nor make such a large outlay. I'd definitely have one of those!
I'm starting to realise that there was just too much to mention. Loved playing Taito's Elevator Action (complete with real sliding-lift doors). Slightly disturbed by Vulcan-M. Made to feel queasy playing too much of Codemaster/SEGA's ace driving game Grid with booming sub-woofer. Special mention goes to Chelsea-Kuo and his co-workers at Youal-Jifh Enterprise Co. who seemed the most interested in accessibility and finding solutions. They also gave me a bag to put all my stuff in. I liked them.
So, thudding back to reality for the majority of us... If you'd like to build a virtual dream arcade, great places to start are the ATE Arcade (under development), the one-switch Arcade and of course the Accessible GameBase.
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