The arcade is a place that has long since been forgotten, since the launch of consoles arcades have substancially decreased in business. However, the arcade that we will be following in this story, hasn't, if anything, the whole place had actually increased in business since the rise of consoles. This arcade speciallised in the more rarer and odd games, they still had your classics, like Space Invaders and Pacman, but they also had games like Major Havoc and Quantum. As you can imagine, this arcade was a big deal, so when they managed to get arguably one of the rarest games in existance, everyone knew about it.
Everyone except Lewis.
Lewis had been frequenting the arcade every day since he knew about it, pockets loaded full of change. Lewis had recely gotten back from a holiday, so when he went to his favourite arcade and saw a queue heading out the door he was quite surprised. He tapped a rather portly man on the shoulder "Um, excuse me, could you tell me what's going on?" The man turned around, his slightly greying beard glinting in the morning sun. "You mean you don't know!" The man boomed at him, continuing before Lewis could get a word in. "Only the biggest thing to happen in retro gaming since the dawn of arcade gaming! In ther, they apparently have a real life refurbished Computer Life!" Lewis was sure that meant something to someone who was really into that kind of thing, Lewis was not one of those people. He pushed through the crowd of similar looking people to the front desk. "Lawrence!" He yelled out,scilencing all the chatter for a second or two. A head popped up from below the desk, "Lewis!" He yelled over the crowd "How was your trip!" "It was good, what the hell is going on here?"
"New game, pretty rare too" Lawrence stopped for two seconds, sticking a pen behind his ear and obscuring it behind his curly black hair, before gesturing for Lewis to come into the back room.After elbowing his way through at least 15 neckbeards he found himself in te safe conefines of the arcade storeroom. It smelt nice, like new rubber joysticks and wet paint.he looked over at Lawrence, "I feel sorry for you having to work today," he gestured back to the door. "Must be hell."
It's not to bad "Laurence shrugged, "Besides, it's good exposure"
There was an audible gasp form outside, Lawrence decided it would be best to get back "Just stay here and don't touch anything, i'll be back in a bit" Lawrence left the room, Lewis was now left in a room full of arcade machines. This was a bad idea on at least two levels. The first level being that Lewis was a bit of a klutz, if he was in any room with anything priceless, precious or otherwise valuable, you can be sure as hell that he would, at the very least, bump in to it. The second reason was that he was in a room filled with half refurbished arcade machines, he would have to play at least one. A small smirk spread across Lewis' face as he walked over to a newly painted black cockpit arcade machine. Lewis grasped the handle and lifted it upwards, pulling the door open in an arc over the cabinet. He lowered himself into the seat of the fake cockpit, hitting his head on the door frame as he did so. Once he sat in the seat the cockpit door started to lower and all of the hidden LEDs suddenly revealed themselves in all their glory. Lewis had to admit, he was impressed, very impressed actually, there was little point in admitting otherwise, while Lewis was busy admiring the interior the screen suddenly lit itself up. The words "The Spaceship" flashed up across the screen in big, chunky, 8-bity letters before revealing the start screen. It was rather anticlimactic, actually, it was just like a regular start screen, one player, two player and exit were the only options. Lewis took a hold of the joystick and selected one player. The screen went black for a few seconds before revealing a disclaimer.
DISCLAIMER
Intent-Corp are not responsible for any personal injury caused while playing this video arcade game. If you or anyone in your family have a history of photosensitive epilepsy, you should consult a doctor before playing this game.
Press Any Button To Continue.
Lewis, didn't see this odd, lots of games form this kind of era had flashing lights and such. Lewis quickly tapped a button on the keypad and all the lights in the cabinet went out. For a moment lewis thought he had short circuited the cabinet, that was the moment before all the lights in the cabinet suddenly turned on and quickly started flashing between blue and white. Lewis quickly gripped the joystick, out of instinct, as a small space ship appeared on the screen, it was mostly white with trims of blue around it. Lewis started to feel light headed as enemies headed on to the screen. The cabinet started to warp and twist around him. He still played however, his muscle memory from playing Galaga for almost an hour straight started to kick in as all the world started to drip from it's canvas, he blacked out just in time to see his ship get shot down by another enemy ship, his last thought being "Huh, no game over" before he slipped into unconsciousness.
