Newsbytes: Cosmotrons; Knights In Armor; KOF XIV

It’s a wonderful day in June, at least where I am at, so make the most of it and drop by an arcade for a gaming break. Until then, here are some news items from the wonderful world of arcades to pass the time.

SNK Arcade Bundle Giveaway

Just a reminder that thanks to GOG.com, we are running a giveaway for the next four days for 3 SNK Neo Geo MVS games that are now available on PC. Make sure you’ve signed up!

Working Knights In Armor Discovered

As I have studied arcade history, I have come across a company called Project Support Engineering. It’s not a name that sounds at all like an arcade or entertainment company and they only made six games. Out of those, Maneater would be their best known work thanks to the awesome fiberglass shark cabinet.

They also made a title called Knights in Armor but as is the case with many games from the 1970s, finding one is often a real challenge. Sometimes it is questionable whether or not the game actually was produced since all anyone has seen of it is an old magazine photo or a flyer. Knights In Armor seemed to be one of those cases…until now. For a game from 1976 (same year as Breakout), it was fairly advanced as a knight jousting game and the bezel artwork is pretty good too.

If you’ve been interested in the history of 1v1 fighting games, this also is a nice milestone…perhaps it could be considered the very first as it shows characters and they do battle. That would make it precede Warrior.

Cinemassacre Makes A Visit To TNT Amusements

Here are two names you’ve probably heard of, arcade refurbishing, rental and distribution company TNT Amusements and the popular game+movie review site Cinemassacre. The Cinemassacre guys make a visit to TNT for a tour – note that this may be NSFW due to language:

King Of Fighters XIV Coming To Japanese Arcades on June 29th

I thought that it was such a shame for the KOF series to not show up in arcades when KOF XIV was released but that will be rectified at the end of this month. This adds some more characters to the overall roster…as an operator, it would be nice if those characters remain exclusive to arcades but generally they seem to bring such content over to consoles eventually. If this does show up in a Western arcade it will be rare since it is being distributed digitally through the NESiCAxLIVE 2 network. That might make it harder to find than a Knights In Armor 😛

The King of Fighters XIV Arcade Ver. will be released on June 29: https://t.co/F17T5niXUk #arcade #KOF14 #KOFXIV #nesica #SNK pic.twitter.com/7aZmoQnAzZ

— Arcade Belgium (@arcadebelgium) June 3, 2017

The Act: An Interactive Comedy Repaired

I finally managed to fix my prototype arcade machine of The Act: An Interactive Comedy. Turns out it involved some tiny wiring that came undone <insert shame gif here>. It is quite nice to have this fixed as I was worried about it ending up in the dustbin. Now to figure out a good solution for the spinner:

Cosmotrons Developers Interview Jeffery Lee, Creator Of Q*Bert

You might recall that a new independent game developer appeared at the Midwest Gaming Classic, showing off their new 4-player game concept Cosmotrons. They just posted this interview with Q*Bert creator Jeffery Lee where they get into game design as well as their upcoming arcade title, Cosmotrons. We’ll have more news on this game next week!

And last but not least

The new Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire by Sega has been released to mobile and has some parodies of their classic arcade games during the loading screens. Good stuff:

https://twitter.com/MikeMcWhertor/status/870810022422487041