Three Belfast tech sector workers have set their hearts on bring an old-school arcade experience to the city and have said the demand for it has led to them announcing a second set of dates for their pop-up venture.
Base Arcade is running two days of sessions on May 13 and 14 in The Oh Yeah Centre in the heart of Belfast's Cathedral Quarter,
Classic titles like Donkey Kong, House of the Dead, Time Crisis and Star Wars have already seen those two dates sell out.
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David Hughes is one of the co-founders and said they have been blown away by the support and interest they have received,
"Anything retro, anything 80s and 90s is very popular at the moment, with things like Stranger Things popularising it again," he said.
"The TV show The Last of Us recently had a Mortal Kombat game in it, so we were delighted when we saw that as we have it too."
That interest and popularity has meant the lads have been able to add a second set of dates to their plans and the longterm aim would be to find a suitable space to permanently host an arcade.
"We're running our second event, July 1 and 2, and the best way to get tickets is to join our mailing list, so if people join the mailing list, they'll have a higher chance of getting in for that," he told Belfast Live.
"We're not packing in our day jobs any time soon, but we'd love to work towards a permanent premises, because we've been tortured for corporate and stag interests and we'd love to accommodate that where possible.
"We don't own a venue but we're getting lots of interest so we'd love to get there eventually, watch this space and hopefully we'll get there."
They have run a tester event already to see how the machines performed and said the bright lights of the machines et against the darkened exterior of the arcade made for a great atmosphere.
David's own interest in the arcade arena was sparked during the pandemic restrictions when he had a bit more time on his hands.
"There's three of us running this, myself, Marty Neill and Stephen Currie, we all work in the tech sector in some shape or form and we all have an interest in retro gaming, arcades and consoles," he added.
"I kind of got the bug over lockdown, where I built my own one and learned about the hardware and software side of it.
"Stephen's been an avid collector of consoles and retro memorabilia for years and Marty is an old-school gamer who's created board game companies and a few other things in that sphere over the last decade or so.
"Since November of last year, we've been finding, sourcing, fixing and repairing these machines, some of which are older than us - it's been great craic, but a steep learning curve."
They are bringing the machines to The Oh Yeah Centre, and have tinkered with them to ensure that people aren't having to pour an ocean of coins into them, even if that was some people's original experience.
"These games were designed to chew coins up and charge you a fortune back in the day and what we didn't want was to create an experience where someone would put a pound in, die and then not want to play again," said David.
"We decided to charge people for tickets in and then set the machines to free play so you can come in and play as many times as you want, obviously within reason.
"We're hoping it'll be largely self-policing that way, if you've someone standing over your shoulder, you're not going to stand playing Time Crisis all night."
They are running a 12-hour session on Saturday 13 May, split into three four-hour sessions, and then two four-hour sessions on Sunday 14 May.
"The first session of both days will be family-friendly, we understand that dads and mums want to bring the kids to experience some of these things that they would have played when they were younger," David added.
Pinball machines will also be in play to really amp up that 80s/90s experience, with the machines sourced from the Irish Pinball League.
More information on ticketing and the events is available at the Base Arcade website
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