Arcade Game Typography [Amazon] is a forthcoming book by Toshi Omagari that "definitively surveys" the pixelated fonts of arcade games from the 1970s to the 1990s. It's full of gorgeous-looking full-color spreads, with grids, offering both a beautiful item and a formal tour of a distinctive artform.
Arcade Game Typography presents readers with a fascinating new world of typography: the pixel typeface. Video game designers of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s faced color and resolution limitations that stimulated incredible creativity. With each letter having to exist in a small pixel grid, artists began to use clever techniques to create elegant character sets within a tiny canvas. This book presents typefaces on a dynamic and decorative grid, taking reference from high-end type specimens while adding a suitably playful twist. Arcade Game Typography recreates that visual aesthetic, fizzing with life and color.
Featuring pixel typefaces carefully selected from the first decades of arcade video games, Arcade Game Typography presents a completist survey of a previously undocumented outsider typography movement, accompanied by insightful commentary from author Toshi Omagari, a Monotype typeface designer himself. Gathering an eclectic range of typography, from hit games such as Super Sprint, Marble Madness, and Space Harrier to countless lesser-known gems, Arcade Game Typography is a vivid nostalgia trip for gamers, designers, and illustrators alike.
300 color illustrations
Enjoy this compilation of 1990s-era sprite games extruded into lowpoly 2½D extravaganzas. These are works of static art, but I’m sure I’ve seen this done “live” in-game recently, in an automated, playable way. (Note that there are a number of 2½D Super Marios already–these replicas are hand-made, like this video).
Storyscape is a freemium mobile app that offers several choose your own adventure-style stories. The vast majority of choices are free, and the choices made don’t seem to have a meaningful impact on the story. So far, I’ve experimented with stories based on the X-Files, James Cameron’s Titanic, and a snowbound post-apocalyptic scenario. In the […]
"Fight the Traitors Together" (motto: "Hong Kong is part of China and this can't be meddled with by outside power") is a web-game that has attained new popularity in mainland China; it invites players to locate with caricatures of real Hong Kong protest leaders and slap them or pelt them with rotten eggs.
With all the revolutionary tech that’s out there, it’s pretty sad that finding a simple stud in your wall can feel like dowsing for water. This can be equally true whether you’re using a magnetic finder and it’s reliance on “feel,” or an electronic unit that can give fuzzy readings (especially when the batteries are […]
Do you have any Star Wars fans on your list? Given the reach and output of its new corporate masters these days, it might be easier to ask if there’s anyone out there who isn’t a Star Wars fan. So let’s narrow it down further: Do you know a Star Wars fan who likes to […]
There’s much ado about coffee brewing methods these days, but most of us – at least on the busy weekdays – just want our morning joe to be consistent, easy, and most of all, fast. If that sounds like anyone on your Christmas list, they’re going to get a lot of mileage out of the […]
