Super Street Arcade
Meet the world’s first giant, outdoor arcade game system. Get active as you move the giant joystick and jump on the over-sized buttons to play one of the unique classic-style retro games. With an oversized joystick situated at the intersection of Tuam and High Streets in the central city of Christchurch and a 5m-wide screen mounted on the Vodafone Building, Super Street Arcade takes gaming to a whole new level. You’ll need two or three people to work the controller, so make a new friend and have a go!
Why?
Gap Filler is interested in how we can make the city more playful and social. Gaming was highly social in the ‘80s with the popularity of arcades; now it has become more private, usually undertaken in homes alone, in small groups, or in virtual space with others around the world. Super Street Arcade is in public, a great spectator game, and requires two or more people to collaborate to play, making it social and fun. It also requires the players to get active; you will break a sweat in this game! And it is our hope that strangers will lend a hand to other strangers in order to play the game. In this way, the game is collaborative and participatory. Super Street Arcade is a double-spectacle: the video game is fun to watch and the people playing become a spectacle themselves.
This high quality Gap Filler project uses prime real estate in the central city on the side of a new building so is a bit of a shift for Gap Filler, signalling one way the organisation wishes to play a part in the longer term development of the city. We’re exploring all sorts of ways to embed fun and creative community-mindedness into the permanent city.
Games
The mainstay games have been Attack of the Cones by Cerebral Fix, and Space Raiders by Def Logic – both local Christchurch developers.
In Attack of the Cones you guide the hero of the game, Captain Jimmy Wheeler, on his fast bike and salvaged alien blaster on a mission through Christchurch to save us from the invasion of alien road cones. Featuring colourful Christchurch characters and well-known landmarks that are bound to make you smile. In the six months Attack of the Cones was active, it was played over 100,000 times!
Space Raiders is an homage to Space Invaders from the 1980s, with a distinctive Christchurch twist.
In between these mainstay games, we have run a Co[de] Create programme with local high school students who developed games for the Super Street Arcade system as part of their curriculum, with mentoring provided by developers Cerebral Fix. They gained real-world experience AND got to see their creation played by members of the public. How cool is that?
A Super Street Arcade for your city?
Super Street Arcade is available to buy! Amazing! We are able to fabricate the game controllers and ship them to you. You will need to provide your own large screen/projection system.
Super Street Arcade is a fun, welcoming amenity that will bring life, fun and play to a part of your city. It also provides ample opportunity for game design and collaboration with local developers and schools.
Get your Super Street Arcade
Contact us about a Super Street Arcade for your City
Who, what, where, when
Date: December 2016 – Current
Location: Cnr Tuam & Hight Streets, Christchurch city
Client/Funder: Christchurch City Council
Key people: Pippin Wright-Stow (F3 Design), Richard Harcourt (SplitN2), Cerebral Fix, Dave Cooper
Values: Experimentation, Collaboration
Support/Sponsors: F3 Design, Monstavision, Split’N2, Cerebral Fix, VertigoTech, Aotea Electric, Vodafone, Aurecon, SolarBright, Kirk Roberts, SignTech, Composite Group, CDC, Chapman Engineering, Science Alive, Krinner New Zealand.
With: Christchurch City Council Urban Regeneration and Transport teams, Patrick at Studio D4, Calder Stewart, Maori Hill Property Ltd., Dawsons Springs, Simon Bartholomew at Plain and Simple, Cebelio Plastics, Jasmax, Gavin Harriss at topomap.co.nz, Shaune Wylie, Molten Media, Jeff Berry, Robbie Baigent, Butler Automart, PSP Plastics, Fabriko, JD Smit Productions, Jamie at C. Lund & Son, Men at Work
Volunteers: Megan Wilson, Eisssa Shaw, Mike Field and more
