GCC, Quantum, Food Fight, Ms. Pac Man, Nightmare and more

Gary Vincent

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GCC, Quantum, Food Fight, Ms. Pac Man, Nightmare and more

Gaming's "Mecca" Hosts Classic Videogame Design Legends

On Sunday, November 14th 2010, The American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) held a reunion of former staffers from General Computer Corporation (GCC.) GCC was the company responsible for such classic arcade games such as Ms. Pac-Man & Junior Pac-Man for Midway, and Super Missile Attack, Quantum & Food Fight for Atari. GCC was also the organization that designed the hardware in the Atari 7800 home console, and programmed countless arcade game translations for home gaming systems.

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Betty Tylko – Quantum designer

The reunion came about after several former GCC staffers participated with ACAM at the PAX-East Gaming Expo last March. It was impossible for them to reconnect with all of the commotion at the show, so ACAM offered to hold a "GCC Day" inside the ACAM facility. While the GCC staffers spent most of the day at ACAM playing games and catching up with each other, they spent time talking with the ACAM staff about the development of arcade games like Quantum and Ms. Pac-Man. We also saw some information for another GCC creation -- Nightmare; an unreleased coin-op arcade game that has been shrouded in mystery.

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Jonathan Hurd, creator of Food Fight

The event was attended by former GCC employees & classic game design legends such as Wat Hughes, Nancy Kackley, Betty & John Tylko, Glenn Parker, Tom Flaherty, Lucy Gilbert, Mike Feinstein, Tom Westberg, Doug Macrae, Steve Golson, Roland Janbergs, Bradford Hauser, Jonathan Hurd, Mike Horowitz, Brad Parker & Kevin Osborne. Bradford Hauser travelled all the way from Israel to reconnect with his former co-workers inside of the World's Largest Arcade. ACAM Board Member Mike Stulir was very pleased with the way it all came together. "It was an honor to have another group of classic gaming royalty spend a day in our facility. As the first and largest Museum dedicated to preserving classic arcade game history, we feel it is our duty to pay homage to the people behind these games which are an important piece of Americana. With our ties to the people that founded the videogame industry and our large established facility, I see no reason why we can't do more of these events in the future. 2010 has been a huge year for The American Classic Arcade Museum, and 2011 is shaping up to be even better."

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Steve Golson – co-creator of Ms. Pac Man

The event was also covered by local media outlets including the Laconia Citizen newspaper. http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101115/GJNEWS02/711159912/-1/CITIZEN

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Doug Macrae and Roland Janbergs looking at Nightmare screen shots

ACAM could not exist without the help from people like you. As a 501c3 non-profit organization, we are completely dependant on tax-deductible donations of cash, parts, and all types of coin operated games & amusements. All donations go directly to maintaining our immense collection of games so they are constantly available for the public to enjoy. Donations also support our efforts to take the Museum "on the road" and appear at gaming events such as the annual PAX-East Expo in Boston. For more information about making a tax-deductible contribution to maintaining our games and our facility, please visit http://www.classicarcademuseum.org and see our "Donations" and "eBay Giving Works" pages.


Repeatedly hailed as the "Mecca" of classic gaming by such organizations as MSNBC, Geek Out New York, The Thrillist, Joystiq, Yahoo!, and Edge Magazine, The American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot is the first 501c3 non-profit Museum dedicated to preserving and displaying vintage coin-operated amusements. In 2010, ESPN: The Magazine named The American Classic Arcade Museum as "One of the shrines every sports fan should visit" and Mashable Tech named The American Classic Arcade Museum as one of it's "Top Ten Great Geek Destinations."

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GCC group photo

Founded in 1998 and incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit Museum facility in 2002, ACAM is located on the third floor of the immense Funspot Family Entertainment Super Center in Weirs Beach, NH. The museum celebrates the origins of the arcade industry with popular games from the past. Asteroids, Pac-Man, Centipede and Gorgar are just a few of the nearly 300 games in the classic arcade museum. The museum also contains static displays of game history and the walls feature artwork of vintage arcade games. In June 2008, Guinness World Records named Funspot/ACAM the largest arcade in the world. Roughly 350,000 people pass through our facility each year, which is open every day of the year except Christmas. Visit www.ClassicArcadeMuseum.org for more information and directions.
 
Great to see pics of the event. It would be good to see more of what Betty Tylko had to say about designing Quantum.
 
glad to see the Quantum up and running... when i was there a year and a half ago it was tucked into a back corner turned around and obviously not available for play. it looked very sad, and i think i heard it crying quietly to itself.
 
Great to see pics of the event. It would be good to see more of what Betty Tylko had to say about designing Quantum.

The GCC people participated with us at PAX-East last year and put on an awesome panel. The recording of it can be found at http://www.classicarcademuseum.org.

Sadly, Betty was unable to attend PAX-East last year. However, I hope to have her join us at PAX-East in 2011, and we are planning on making a similar audio recording for everyone to hear.
 
Would have been a more useful post before the event.
Suprised Seth didn't make the trip -- didn't anyone contact him? Had a nice long conversation with him about Nightmare a few years ago...
 
Very cool. What was the gameplay Nightmare about?

Nightmare was supposed to be the third & final coin-op game GCC made for Atari from their lawsuit settlement. It used a vertical monitor and had a control scheme very similar to Tron with a spinner on the left and a stick on the right. It used a modified version of the Food Fight hardware.

In the game, you play the character of Dr. John Roldarr. Your character is supposed to be a telekinetic scientist. There are some screen captures on this page: http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_atari.html

Supposedly, your character has been "trespassing in the world of nightmares." On the screen, your character is nothing more than a face with a big shield surrounding it. Basically, you just run around blasting everything in sight to break free from your imprisonment.

Ideally, we will get them to speak at length about this game at PAX-East 2011. As I mentioned in a previous posting, the GCC people participated with us at PAX-East last year and put on an awesome panel. The recording of it can be found at http://www.classicarcademuseum.org.
 
Would have been a more useful post before the event.
Suprised Seth didn't make the trip -- didn't anyone contact him? Had a nice long conversation with him about Nightmare a few years ago...

Hi Mark,
This was a semi-private reunion of the GCC staff and not a public fan day which is why we made the posting after the event. When they were at PAX the crowds and people asking questions prevented them from having time to reconnect so that is why Mike put together this reunion in the museum.

Thanks,
Gary :)
 
glad to see the Quantum up and running... when i was there a year and a half ago it was tucked into a back corner turned around and obviously not available for play. it looked very sad, and i think i heard it crying quietly to itself.

I was there in October and Quantum was not on. It was on my list of games to play when I visited so I was kind of annoyed. I did play Food Fight, however. Cool game. I might pick it up if I find one locally.
 
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