This week I just decided that I will be attending the International Video Game Hall of Fame “Big Bang” event next month. The IVGHOF is a new organization based in Ottumwa, Iowa. The goal of the IVGHOF is to house a museum of every arcade game ever made, and a Hall of Fame of gamers of all eras. Why Ottumwa? Ottumwa was once the home of Twin Galaxies arcade, the famous arcade run by Walter Day. Walter had the idea of holding the “Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard” of arcade high scores back in the peak of classic arcade gaming. The Twin Galaxies arcade is no longer around, a victim of the arcade video game crash in the mid ’80s, but Twin Galaxies is still going strong as an online record book. The history of Twin Galaxies and Walter Day is very interesting and I recommend watching “Chasing Ghosts” or “The King of Kong” to learn more about it. Because of Ottumwa’s unique role in Video Game history, they have been proclaimed as the “Video Game Capital of the World”.

The famous Life Magazine photo of the top arcade game players taken in Ottumwa, 1982

The IVGHOF kicked off last summer with a large event featuring several gaming celebrities, tournaments, and presentations. This year they are again holding a big event that should bring video game personalities and fans from around the country to Ottumwa for a four day celebration. I didn’t have a chance to go last year, but this year I am excited to have the chance to go.

I’ve been working with Walter Day, who is helping organize the event, to bring my Joust machine to the celebration. It will be used for various events, and hopefully there will be some world-class players getting some time on playing it. I’d love to see Steve Sanders take back his World Record on my machine, but we’ll see if he’s up to the challenge!

I’m really excited to experience this piece of classic arcade gaming history and to get a chance to meet some of the arcade greats like Sanders, Billy Mitchell, and maybe Steve Wiebe. Wiebe is scheduled to be inducted in the HOF, so I hope he’s there.

You can read more about the Big Bang event, and the IVGHOF at the official site: IVGHOF.com. There is a list of all of this year’s inductees on the site as well.

For a great documentary of the history of Twin Galaxies, try to see the movie Chasing Ghosts. It never made it to DVD, but it has been shown on Showtime and may again be broadcast.

Check out Twin Galaxies Website to see records of almost all arcade games. There are several scores for MAME emulated arcade games, and consoles both old and new.

Thought I’d have a quick game of Joust tonight before I had to go buy paint at Lowes to start my basement painting project. Didn’t think I’d actually have a great game! I ended up beating my high score again. This time I hit 418,000. Pretty good considering I sat on 339,850 for 10 years before finally hitting 364,150 this past January at the Game Night!

I have my machine set on the default, “marathon” settings so I really don’t compare with these Twin Galaxies experts like Steve Sanders. Got to start somewhere. Thanks to Steve for giving me some tips to build on! On to a million!

Description of game:

My all-time favorite game! I always thought that I was a bit different to like this game so much. I didn’t know anyone back in the ’80s that was a big fan. Now I see that it is one of the most common collector games, and that there are hundreds of them still around. Didn’t know it was that big. It’s a tough game. Definitely made for the “hard-core” gamers of the time (like most Williams games). You control a guy on an ostrich by moving a two-way joystick left or right and pressing a button to flap the wings of the bird. Gravity is constantly pulling you down. Joust is perhaps best known for the screeching halt the bird will do when trying to stop while running on one of the platforms on the screen. Basically the object of the game it to dismount the enemies that are riding on buzzards by colliding with them. Whichever bird is the highest wins in the collision. Dismounted enemies then turn into eggs that will hatch into new more powerful enemies if you do not collect the egg within a certain amount of time. Oh, if that isn’t hard enough, if you take to long to dismount all the enemies in a level, an “indestructible” pterodactyl will come out. The only way to survive a collision with it is to hit it directly in the mouth with your lance. The hit must be perfect or you’re toast!

How I got it:

This was my second full size game. It was the first game for me to start my collection. Not a bad game for $125 huh? I bought it from a guy locally that usually spends more time with pinball machines. When I bought this, it was not working but came with an extra boardset. After plugging it in and hearing loud popping noises, I discovered a burned out power supply. I replaced it with a normal switching supply, swapped a ROM out, and pulled the coin lockouts and it works great. Probably the hardest thing to do on this cabinet was cleaning it. It took two days to get all the dirt out! I finally wired an external battery harness to the PCB so I don’t have to reset the machine every time I play it. You don’t want to have batteries stored in the original battery area on game board itself, since corrosion is a PCB’s worst enemy!

Recent repairs:

Upgraded my external battery to an onboard lithium battery kit from Bob Roberts. Not sure if I did it right because my scores still are not saving correctly. Need to check my soldering!

What it still needs:

I still need to touch up the paint, recap and degauss the monitor, and replace the T-molding. I also would like to get a new CPO because the existing one is a little worn. I also want an original Flyer for this game. If you have one for a decent price, let me know. Also should change out the RAM since I get occasional RAM errors.

Final Thoughts:

Still my favorite game of all time. This game will NEVER leave my collection!

Personal High Score:

339,850 (2-22-2000) – I actually died one pixel above collecting an egg that would have given me an extra man. Oh well. Back in high school I did score over 1 million points using the Pterodactyl trick. My current ROM set does not suffer from that bug, so I can’t try it. I’m too ethical to do that anyway 8^}

Joust Links:

KLOV Joust Page

Screen Shots: