Kotaku: arcade flyers

The Arcade Flyer Archive Liquidating Collection

fdemarco — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:00:00 MST

A few months back I mentioned that The Arcade Flyer Archive, an amazing collection of vintage and new arcade flyers, would be liquidating their collection. They've already been through one portion of the sale which we unfortunately missed out on. But never fear, there's still plenty more to be had. The flyers cover Arcade Video Games, Pinball machines and other types of arcade amusement machines. Everything you need to know about the sale including the list of available flyers, prices and shipping can be found at coinopvideogames.com. These guys have put a ton of hard work into cataloging this amazing collection so help support them by buying a few flyers. They're going cheap!

TAFA October Update

fdemarco — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 10:00:00 MDT

It's the beginning of the month so it must be time for another Arcade Flyer Archive update! As usual TAFA graces us with another hundred flyers in each of their three categories: video games, pinball games and arcade amusement games. This month in video games we get Dead or Alive, Burger Time, House of the Dead 4 Special and Metal Slug X just to name a few. Pinball and Arcade Amusement also get their fair share with some new SMB Pinballs and Ashcraft's favorite Love and Berry Dress Up Dance. So, head on over to TAFA and see what all the hub-bub is about.

TAFA September Update

fdemarco — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:00:00 MDT

The Arcade Flyer Archive update for September is in with tons of new flyers in all three archives. The video game section is especially exciting this time around because Dan went to a lot of trouble to get his hands on some amazing flyers from Japan including Out Run, Art of Fighting 2, Fatal Fury Special and Ikari Warriors. The Arcade & Amusement section is featuring some nice olde tyme shuffle and bowling type game flyers and the Pinball Archive has got some great new pieces with the likes of Buck Rogers, Judge Dredd and Q-Bert's Quest.

Whether you're a long time fan of TAFA or a newcomer, there's plenty of stuff here to keep you occupied. Dig deep and you're sure to find some gems.

The Arcade Flyer Archive September Update [TAFA]

TAFA June Update Hits

fdemarco — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:00:00 MDT

I've written about The Arcade Flyer Archive before in past posts and I am making it my personal mission to get as much info about this great site out as possible. I previously reported that site owners Dan and Eric had expanded the archive to include pinball and arcade game (non video) flyers by adding hundreds of new pieces in each category. Now their June update has just arrived bringing with it 50 new flyers in each of the three sections and taking the totals of the two new sections up to 500 flyers each! If you're into any kind of arcade history at all, I encourage you once again to check out this great archive and see what all the fuss is about for yourself. Flynn De Marco

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Gotcha!

fdemarco — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:30:49 MST

Welcome to Arcade Flyer Saturday! Each week we'll take a different arcade flyer from days gone by and look into the rich history of the games and the images used to advertise them.

GOTCHA!
Gotcha! was the third arcade game produced by the Atari company. It debuted in 1973 and was the first of the "labyrinth/maze" genre that would eventually achieve great popularity with games like Pac-Man. The gameplay was less than exciting: The "Pursuer" (a square) chased the "Pursued" (a plus sign) through a constantly changing maze. The chase was accompanied by an annoying beeping sound that got louder and faster as the chaser got closer to the chased. Once the chased player was caught, points would be scored and the whole thing would start over again. Very dull indeed, although the game's flyer described it as having "plenty of psychological twists and turns and free flowing adrenaline" ... uh, yeah.

Probably the most notable thing about this game was it's control system: two large pink rubber mounds that looked very much like breasts. Not surprisingly, it became widely known as "the boob game."

A ruckus was raised over the cheeky controls and a "less suggestive" control system using two joysticks was implemented. I'm not too sure that a joystick is any LESS suggestive than a pair of round pink globes, but then again, it was the seventies.

This has got to be one of my favorites of all the flyer images I have run across. It's so evocative of it's time period with the pink, orange and red color scheme, stylized font and ubiquitous star pattern. I'm a little disturbed about the weird superimposing of the happy couple with the game machine. I suppose it was meant to imply that the fun was coming right out of the game in the form of two carefree people who are just like you. I can't help thinking that the image would have been improved and more appropriate to the game if the guy had just moved his hands up about 8 inches. Flynn De Marco

[Big thanks goes out to Greg for all his help with this series]