New York's homegrown e-sport

November 8, 2013 1:07 PM

Inspired by a field game with foam swords, Killer Queen Arcade, a giant 10-player dual-sided arcade cabinet that premiered at NYU's No Quarter 2013 has been described as Half Joust, half StarCraft and one giant snail.
posted by guywithnoear (13 comments total)

It seems like an interesting idea. BTW, these kinds of large multi-player games are not unique. Back in the nearly forgotten pre-Space-Invaders days, Atari and subsidiary Kee Games released cabinets that could support up to 8 players.
posted by JHarris at 1:59 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Having played, I can say: lives up to the hype.

Run, do not walk, past building security and try it out for yourself!
posted by GameDesignerBen at 2:19 PM on November 8, 2013

Atari Tank 8!
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:21 PM on November 8, 2013

On further viewing, seeing this kind of stuff makes me a little sad that old-school game arcades didn't make it into this century. The brewpub-with-a-donkey-kong doesn't really count. I'm talking Flynn's Arcade kind of stuff.

All these kids would have had a blast. Or maybe not. Sometimes it seems like it's hard to impress them... but give them Joust and they're having a lot of fun.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:32 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was thinking that a 10-player game would require fancier input handling than I've used on my MAME projects but it looks like they keep it manageable by limiting the number of buttons per player. A 10-player game with one button and one joystick per player is only 50 inputs, which you can fit on a standard arcade keyboard input encoder. In theory you could build one of these things with just some arcade controls (which are cheap), an encoder, two big LCDs, a single desktop PC, and a big wooden box to put it all in.
posted by burnmp3s at 2:39 PM on November 8, 2013

Dynamite with a laser beam better be one of the weapons you can use in the game. Cos this looks absolutely awesome.
posted by Spatch at 2:41 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

That video of Tank 8 is great. The guy posted it says the controls are bad, despite the fact that each player had two joysticks, Battlezone/Vindicators style!
posted by JHarris at 5:01 PM on November 8, 2013

Played this at indiecade recently and it's a blast! The game was definitely a hit, nothing like crowding around a big cabinet with arcade controls. I agree with you JoeZydeco about old school arcades.
posted by meta87 at 7:34 PM on November 8, 2013

Missing from the pretty cabinet:

"Powered by Moet et Chandon"
posted by ShutterBun at 10:19 PM on November 8, 2013

That's awesome that people out there are bringing back the social arcade game. Looks like a fun game -- hope they bring it out to AZ sometime.
posted by ph00dz at 3:23 AM on November 9, 2013

Fun!
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:13 AM on November 9, 2013

Yay, Killer Queen! I played this at Indiecade this year, and liked it so much I bought the shirt. :)

I had a great time playing, except when I was playing with an asshole who kept insulting everyone on his team (which I was on). Now I have a face to put on the people who scream at their teammates in online games (and, sadly, he was an "adult". The one small child who was playing was nothing but smiles and cheers).
posted by luvcraft at 8:49 PM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

@burnmp3s: it's less than that. The drones can only move left and right, and the queen can move left right and down (no up), so it's only 16 bits per side.
posted by luvcraft at 8:52 PM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]