Nerding out more than Your Motherboard jokes – eg. Your motherboards so slow, tortoises’ want to shag it.
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Tetris is to me, what Minecraft is to kids now – one of the first games I became REALLY obsessed with as a child. There was a healthy sense of competition and rivalry amongst my litter-mates; as all us Raptors wanted the high score in either Pacman or Tetris – a large contributing factor for this was due to Daddy-Raptor, who really struggled to maintain his gaming superiority over his spawnlings. He did try, but would power-on the Commodore 64 to find “ASS” “POO” “BUT” “TIT” and “FUK” as the highest rated players… we really were Monsters. Key is… no witnesses and he can’t catch us all. We will remember our fallen Spawnlings.
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Fun Facts about Tetris: Developed in 1984 by a Russian artificial intelligence researcher, Alexey Pajitnov – who interestingly enough worked for a *cough* Government chartered organisation *cough.* You know that old saying, Darling? “In Soviet Russia, game plays you!” Tetris’ name is derived from Tetromino; a geometric shape with 4 squares and are the fundamental component of the game… also who knew there was a term for them?; and Tennis = Tetris. I always assumed it was named after its creator, John/Robert/Stephen/Anglo-Name Tetris; who I also assumed died a virgin. I’m surprised any oldschool Tetris player leaves the house, Ha!
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Back to it – Pajitnov would test hardware by loading really basic games onto the systems and see how they would function- early on the tests with the Tetrominos wouldn’t last very long as the screen would fill-up quickly – so he added coding into the programming, that when a line was filled, it would delete. All of his colleagues really liked his game and the initial version was circulated all throughout the scientific community in Moscow. This is before it blow up and become an international sensation known to be “deceptively simple and insidiously addictive” by one observer.
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Tetris was the first product intended for entertainment purposes to be marketed internationally from Russia – which is a MASSIVE accomplishment from such humble beginnings and became MEGA popular overnight. With so many platforms, featuring so many adaptations it is really hard to keep a track of them all, but the fundamental components used in those old clunky computers in Moscow remain – and it is still insidiously addictive! I love it and will always try to leave one narrow gap in jy games; for that sweet “I” block/1×4 tetrimino – dat feeling of watching 4 lines disappear!
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
To confirm, first and foremost; Tetris is responsible for creating a generation of obsessive compulsive freaks and I proudly stand amongst them. It makes you le cray-cray , the soundtrack is quite recognisable and is an audible trigger for us sufferers to start rearranging, stacking and packing EVERYTHING and ANYTHING in sight/reach. Legitimately why I wasn’t able to restock the store I used to work in as a teenager, was that I could pack and stack like a pro! Conversely, customers really struggled to un-wedge my handy work and my precariously intricate stacking was a death trap.
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Ok – how to get this look: Black base for all talons but your feature – white that one out. This is where it gets tricky; you can use coloured studs (like I did), cut-outs, scrap-booking stamps, plastic squares – anything square that’s the right colour! Choose the Tetrimino shapes you want and glue pop-on the little blighters or brighters – they’re quite loud and neon. Make sure you live a tiny gap between each square, so you can tell they’re squares making up the shapes – not just shapes. It’s going to take time and patience – and Darling, don’t haphazardly glue things onto your talons or anything… it happens.
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Feature nail is DOS typography “08 GAME OVER” – just like the end of the game, when the 10 second Game Over prompt appears. I used black and was careful to keep the script really geometric and blockie – I block so hard, the Police will need a bigger Prism to keep me down!
Fabulous Von Raptor – Tetris Manicure
Love the Tetris and I nerd covet this look, so much that I can’t even – no maths, just geometry! There’s a ridiculous amount of meticulous effort, of nudging and sliding, then swearing and un-attaching myself from things and then trying to fix my mistakes after I’d glued myself to them. All in all very thrilling and the results; really speak for themselves and it’s in English and not Russian… you’re welcome! One a side note – nothing makes you feel older than explaining what Tetris is and why people would want to play a game with 8-bit, over the cacophony of super realistic games… the stress. I mean really.
INCOMING OLD PERSON RANT: Back in my day – multiplayer games were: Player 1 mouse, Player 2 ADSW, Player 3 T arrows and Player 4 4-6-8-2 buttons. When we lost, we lost as a team and then we saved our highscores as naughty words!
Fabulous, x
So what you think, Darling?
Share your experiences with 8-bit gaming, was it retro when you were playing it – or were you ahead of the curb? Any weird experiences with old school games?.. I had one; I thought it was an innocuous card playing game – nope. It was, however, a really early Japanese erotic 32-bit game (I would know what it was if I paid attention in Japanese class – surely the text should of given it away). Then I had to explain to Daddy-Raptor what I was doing after the rukus; when I won the first round. I would say a Parental-Unit walking in on you doing anything other than mid-scene in a mortifying confusing Japanese erotic card playing game, would be an improvement. Stay in school kids, and listen to your language teacher especially when you say “when am I ever going to need to speak Japanese?!“
Fabulous Von Raptor 