“We don’t need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They’re always with us.” -Lloyd Alexander

My single mother didn’t always know what to do with her two boys, especially during the hottest days of the never ending Hawaiian summertime. Because of the downright awful nature of education in that state in the 90’s, we were periodically homeschooled, charter schooled, private schooled, online schooled, self-taught, and public schooled, and we often sought the air conditioned respite of the glittering local arcades for shelter from the sweltering heat. Don’t worry, I turned out pretty smart in the end. Although, in retrospect, I almost could wish I’d spent more time at the beach rather than at the arcade…

One of the neon sanctuaries we (my younger brother and I) frequented was Fun Factory, a gilded place of Edison lightbulbs, circus sideshow lettering, the smell of buttered popcorn, and tons and tons of arcade cabinets. I can attest to the veracity of its tagline.

It’s where I first noticed girls. It’s where I was caught by a truant officer. It’s where I got kicked out for spending hours looking for loose coins under the machines. It’s where I got a Halloween-themed soundtrack with tickets I’d saved up only to discover the whole CD was just a bunch of atmospheric noises. It’s where I graduated from Chuck E. Cheese pizza to competitive bouts in Marvel vs. Capcom, Tekken, Primal Rage, and Samurai Showdown, where I honed my shooting skills with House of the Dead and Time Crisis, where I must’ve spent enough money over the years to fund someone’s college tuition

Fun Factory was notable because it was on the second floor above a comic shop and a McDonald’s, a paradise for children and teens. It was also the only arcade in the world where I’ve ever been able to play one of my favorite arcade games of all time: an obscure little title named Tumblepop.

Data East’s two-player platformer was a quirky, cartoonish game about twin ghostbusters traveling the world to suck up monsters. Ghostbusters was a movie I really liked as a kid, followed by the animated series, so I think that basically attracted me to Tumblepop. Maybe I even thought it was an adaptation of the movie. Hey, look, I used to run around my grandma’s backyard shooting the hose into the air pretending I was trapping ghosts. I also used to think it was hilarious to say “This game sucks” because the heroes were armed with vacuum cleaners.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.wordpress.com/2017/03/29/tumblepop/