Here's a selection of some of the stranger items you could have purchased. There would've been more, but... well... we gave up after just a handful of them.
It's strange how Pac-Man remains one of the most recognisable video game characters, despite not really being in a major game in decades. Admittedly, he's not quite the pocket industry he once was - back in the 80s, Pac-Man merchandise was everywhere.
Here's a selection of some of the stranger items you could have purchased. There would've been more, but... well... we gave up after just a handful of them.
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I started on the Digifest ads video back in the summer. Along the way, I got punched in the face, which held me up a little - and I had a teletext festival to co-organise, and other work to deliver - but there was rarely a day where I wasn't tinkering with it.
The final section - Goujon John's Celebrity Ghostel - was the last one to be completed, just a few days before Block Party. Oddly, it was the toughest one to nail. Tim "Mr Hairs" Moore and I had filmed some footage for it - fannying around in various graveyards - but it took three attempts to get it right. Bringing back Goujon John at the last moment seemed to pull it all together (believe it or not - the first two cuts didn't feature him at all). So here's the "thing": the video seems to have received almost unanimous positive feedback, in spite of its unerring strangeness. Lots of people have asked me to do more. And I really want to do more. So I'm hatching a plan. Ever wanted to watch a large man in a gold jacket sweat to death on a stage, while two teams of contestants go head-to-head in a series of ridiculous gaming challenges? You have? Then it's time for Quiz-Me-Do! - live from the Centre For Computing History, Cambridge, October 1st, 2016. Starring - Biffo! Hairs! Berlin! Ashens! Coltrane! Mentski! C-Dog! Do you know what's a bit sad? That is, other than war, and starvation, and watching a small dog getting bitten on the bot-bot by a bittern?
This: I can't think of a first-person shooter since Half-Life 2 which has really tried to do something original with the genre. By that I mean something which feels entirely new, and offers new experiences that you've never had before. Imagine unwrapping a loaf of bread, and slicing into it, and there's a can of Tuborg baked inside. This was Half-Life 2. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Battlefront, even the well-received Doom reboot - they're pie-and-mash shooters wearing different hats, seemingly locked into an endless arms race to offer the biggest pyrotechnics, or the most boring and cliched story. The once-revolutionary Halo has become a shadow of its former self. Destiny is loved, but there's something about it which lacks the accessibility of a true video game great. Bioshock was great, but then Bioshock Infinite somehow flailed like an old octopus tumbling over a waterfall. We've got all these first-person narrative games now, and games such as The Talos Principle and Portal - a sort of semi-spin-off of Half-Life - but they're not really shooters. Half-Life 2 was a pure shoot 'em up - eschewing cut-scenes to embed its story in the gameplay - and remains potentially the most startlingly original of all time. Now get this, if you want to feel old: it was released 12 years ago. There are many things which make Half-Life 2 an enduring classic, but the greatest of those things is this thing: the Gravity Gun. Of all the video game-related phenomena which have the initials GG, the Gravity Gun is undoubtedly the most phenomenal. So you didn't make it to the Block Party/Digifest last weekend. But that's okay - because here's some more of the intro video we played at the event... More to follow! Yes - MORE! After all the stress of the last couple of weeks, I woke up on the morning of Block Party - admittedly, at 4.30am - entirely stress-free. Everything we needed to happen had fallen into place - though much of it coming down to the wire.
The week before Block Party was a series of potential disasters, averted by last-minute interventions. Come Saturday, I knew that we'd done all we could, and if things went wrong on the day we'd deal with it somehow. Indeed, things did go wrong: the food van we'd booked didn't show up. It was completely unavoidable: there had been a death in the family, so I suspect the last thing they wanted to do was serve burgers to us nerds while grieving. As predicted, we dealt with it. Or rather, my daughter Hayley, and our compere supreme Chris Coltrane, dealt with it - coming up with a plan to order a job-lot of pizzas, and sell them for a couple of quid a pop, on an honesty box system. Any profit went straight towards our charity raffle fund. This did mean a rejigging of the evening section - the Digitiser panel had to be cut short (we were very conscious that a lot of the audience needed to catch trains) before we even got to the part of the story where Tim got fired. Still so many stories left untold. But that's getting ahead of myself. Right. Well. I just got home, so I'm still processing Block Party 2016, and the evening's Digifest. I'll do a proper debrief and thank you to everyone - not least of all the attendees - in the week. But it's fair to say that it went better than we ever could've fever-dreamed. Here's hoping it felt that way for all of you too. Apologies that we overran somewhat; I know some of you had to leave early because of trains and whatnot, but it was slightly unavoidable when we discovered at the last minute that the food truck guy had a serious family emergency. We had to improvise when it came to feeding you all, but you can thank my daughter and the legend that is Chris Coltrane for the pizza idea. I was a rather pulled from pillar to pontoon all day, so I'm sorry if I only got to chat to you for 0.3 seconds (or not at all). But thank you all for coming. I'm blown away. Anyway. I'm off to die for a while. While that's happening... for those of you who were there and have asked to see it again, or for those of you who missed it, here's a hurriedly thrown together compilation of the absurd adverts we showed (at some point I'll put them up separately, along with The Man's Daddy, Mr T and the Queen). We also filmed the entire event - or rather, Louise and Alex, who I completely forgot to thank on Saturday night - did. I'll have those videos up soon, so that the lunacy of Quiz-Me-Do can be experienced by all. For now, you may enjoy... this: |
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