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I also met the incredible Bob Wakelin, designer of so many covers to the videogames I played endlessly on my ZX Spectrum in the 80s, including Head Over Heels, Batman and Frankie Goes To Hollywood! He was working both days, signing posters at The Attic Bug store in Revival 2014.
I bought two A3 posters, which you can see below.
More pictures from the event are as follows – from left-to-right, and top-to-bottom – a mint-condition original ZX Spectrum for £400; a couple more machines whose names escape me; a giant Pacman game projected onto a wall, where three players who were the ghosts would face the wall, while a player being Pacman would face away from the wall and only be able to see it from the screen in front of them. I didn’t get to play on this as I got so caught up in everything else.
Then there’s a PC game based on the ‘Game & Watch’ favourites, except this is ‘James & Watch‘; then there’s the controller for it; and separately, a Sega Master System from Retro Lords.
Surface Tension were also present with their cool sit-down coffee table cabinets, showing Crystal Castles on the middle picture, plus a stand-up cabinet on the left showing Kung Fu Master. The right-hand pic is the controls on the sit-down cabinet, including a glowing blue trackball, which is the mouse.
A company called Old School have ported new and current games onto old consoles and computers – this one showing Flappy Bird on a Commodore Amiga A600HD; then there’s the Bubble Bobble T-shirt I bought from RetroGT.com, one of the traders at Revival 2014; and I got the last go of the day on Sega Touring Car. I would’ve taken a picture of it in action, but closing time was imminent, and it was switched off shortly after I vacated the seat.
And late in the afternoon, there was musical accompaniment from Octave Sounds and Sid Man, performing some Commodore 64 aural ecstacy, mixing a number of game tracks together. Although I wasn’t too familiar with a lot of these pieces (as I’m a ZX Spectrum man), I still thoroughly enjoyed it. And thanks to Anna Bäckström from The Attic Bug, who also have many items available in their Ebay Store.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.