Video Game Graphic
THE OTHER IDEA. THE GREAT JAPANESE GRAPHIC DESIGN MAGAZINE. AND THIS ISSUE - NO. 352 - A TRUE AMAZINE. ONE OF THOSE VERY RARE OCCASIONS WHEN A SINGLE ISSUE OF A MAGAZINE
BEATS ALL BOOKS HANDS DOWN. THERE ISN'T
ANYTHING IN ANY BOOK STORE OR LIBRARY THAT GETS EVEN CLOSE TO THIS.
This has it all. The VIDEO GAME GRAPHIC section of this one magazine is 150 pages!!! The game design, packaging, arcade consoles, advertising, typefaces, characters, EVERYTHING. 34 years of popular digital culture. 1978 to 2012 when one issue of idea was published.
There's a soundtrack for this newsletter too - Gyusyabu (retro AC Game Radio)!
Roger Dean inspired Galaxian arcade advert from Namco. Played this A LOT on a two player table coin-op in 1979. You can still zap aliens on this link. You never forget how. Like riding a bike (although there is also BMX Racers
for that).
The arcade machine section is a mega memory museum. Enduro Racer, Gang On, Space Harrier, Turbo Out Run, Thunder Blade, Galaxy Force, Virtua Cop and, of course, 1997's The House of The Dead. You can shoot zombies on this link but you'll need Flash (another retro technology).
Oh wow. Feel the electric energy of genuine excitement emanating from the studios of your graphic designer friends already. There are maybe fifty or more pages of game logo designs. You could drink liquid metal and still not get as powered up as you can off the pages of this amazine.
Late 80s CAPCOM logos. Getting expansive.
Univers of 8x8 Bitmap. There are 111 full font sets including these 1996 characters for Ninja Masters. They really are fire.
Some game titles are just too intriguing. The Outfoxies! What do they do? Outfox people? Yep! Featuring the character John Smith (NB English translation of Japanese) "The man who would do anything to get money from babysitting to starting a revolution!"
And by the same developer as The Outfoxies, this Japan only arcade game is a little weird. The player controls a miniature monkey called Urusu-San who must complete each level by destroying all of the tiles off the grid of a 3D object. That 3D object is typically a young woman's clothing. Once down to her underwear she does a dance. You can watch a little of it in play here.
Incredibly. The idea amazine doesn't only have the 150 pages of graphic game design. There is also another 40 pages of late 1970s and early 1980s postmodern print projects; Picture Newspaper (above and below in superbooks for both these issues), WET The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, Japan's own Heaven, FILE, TRA, Façade, Interview... almost all of it!