Bad News for Home Arcade Enthusiasts. . .

GAMEROOM MAGAZINE IS DEAD!!

    Since 1988, GameRoom Magazine has been a wonderful resource and inspiration for home arcade collectors and builders. Starting with a focus in jukeboxes, GR expanded into the realm of pinball machines, video games and eventually had articles featuring home game rooms. Because of a continued poor economy, GR has had a difficult time getting enough advertisers to maintain its operations, and closed its doors in November of 2010.

    I was fortunate enough to have had an article published in GameRoom's "Coin-op Confessions" section, back in May / June of 2010. It was a wonderful magazine and it will be dearly missed. More details about the demise of GR can be found here.

LED Light-art experiment #1

    After seeing the latest TRON movie, and then learning that the illuminated suits that the characters wore were real and not CG'd, I got curious. I was able to find Glowhut.com - a place where you can buy various illuminated wires, tapes and panels.
    I bought a couple of wires from them that included a voltage regulator and power adapter. The wires are actually quite flexible and easy to work with.
    I am planning to possibly utilize the LED tape in different colors on the West wall of the arcade to illuminate the vertical slat decor that's already there. Then the plan will be to paint / apply geometric designs between the slats that will glow under black light. The goal is to give the wall a 1980s TRON-ish feel.

More artistic endeavors in the arcade

    Well, despite working full-time, maintaining a household and being in school (almost full-time), I'm still squeezing in a little late-night work on the first art piece for the arcade. This mural, called MOONSCAPE, will depict a large space-scene. The large sphere is the moon, with planet Earth and Saturn off to the left. The Moonlight Mini-Arcade logo will be placed in the center of the mural, surrounded by various video game characters floating and flying through space. There will also be a couple astronauts on the moon surface, playing the arcade game "Lunar Lander" - fitting, eh?
    Most of the detail artwork will be done with black-light friendly acrylic paints. There will eventually be black lights mounted to the ceiling, and covered by a long bezel, to illuminate the mural.
    As you can see, the work is still at the very beginning stages, with only the planets roughed in.