Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2024: A Celebration of the Past

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Retro Galore!

This past September I attended my first ever Portland Retro Gaming Expo! I attended all three days of the convention and got the chance to meet up with some amazing people from SUPERJUMP, the gaming publication that I've had the pleasure of contributing to for the past year. The convention itself was amazing! A giant hall full of retro consoles, a whole Atari booth the second you walk into the hall, a massive artist alley that expanded further on Saturday and Sunday, pinball machines, a Tetris tournament, fighting game tournaments, and a cute lounge area made to replicate a living room from the past. My personal favorite part of attending big gatherings like this is that I get to bring my 3DS with me and get Streetpasses like it's 2016 all over again.

I spent most of my Friday exploring the first part of the hall, playing different arcade machines that I'd never heard of, watching the Tetris tournament, and getting sucked into the claw and pinball machines. While the landscapes of gaming and socialization have changed, there's a strong part of me that wishes that we held onto these relics more tightly. Maybe it's the same rose-tinted glasses that make us all think about the good old days (even though I wasn't around for the bulk of these days), but seeing people physically get together to celebrate something like this is cathartic.

Saturday's expansion brought forth the meat and potatoes of the event. Panels ran every day featuring people popular in the retro gaming community, as well as voice actors from highly celebrated games like the Mario series and the Resident Evil remake on the GameCube. I attended both of these panels and I've got to say, it never ceases to amaze me that the work these people do have such different impacts on everyone. The Resident Evil panel in particular struck me. There on the stage were the voices for one of the most infamous and classic horror games to grace the screen, and their feelings about the project, while positive, leave no yearning for something else in the voice acting field. Being in a room full of people who admire their work has got to feel special, especially for a job they did 20 years ago.

My biggest takeaway from this was that there's a much larger community at play when it comes to retro game preservation and taking care of the past than I initially thought. With every new year bringing out the biggest and baddest open-world adventure game, sometimes playing retro games feels like filling a niche rather than experiencing a game like we do now. For the past few months, I've tried to focus on experiencing games instead of just playing them, and while the cinematic efforts of the past twenty or so years lend a strong hand with that, sometimes games are just games. They're always supposed to be fun and get you to play again, and that's what the early era of games was always about. Getting to experience games like Space Encounters, Dragon's Lair, and Sonic Blast Heroes showed me how unique gaming has always been as a form of art and entertainment, and I love that they have a space where they can be celebrated like this.

Indie Developer Spotlight

One of the major highlights for me on this trip was the amount of Indie Developers that showed up to the convention. Oftentimes I feel like I only hear about these kinds of lofi games through big productions like Nintendo's Indie World or a State of Play, but conventions and meet ups seem like the perfect way to really sit down and see what an indie game is about, so I was excited to get my hands on the sticks and give it a go.

8 Bit Legit's Project Blue was a platformer that I spent a short bit of time on while I wandered the convention hall. The game harkens back to the NES era of screen-to-screen gameplay. While the easy out is to compare it to games like Mega Man or Mighty Gunvolt, Project Blue stands on its own as a 2D platformer. While I didn't get to experience everything the game has to offer, the trailer shows off the main character floating with a parachute, and a water level that adds another layer to combat. Project Blue is a celebration of the NES platforming era. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how there were real NES cartridges to play the game on! I didn't even know this kind of technology still existed, but if I had an NES, I would've bought this brand-new game for my 41-year-old console in a heartbeat. I implore you to go check out Project Blue if you're craving something old school, but still fresh.

PIGSqaud!

Something I wasn't expecting was an entire table full of indie developers showing off their games as a community, but hey! It was cool!

Portland Indie Game Squad is a community of developers all located in the PNW with the goal of highlighting the work their community does. I want to highlight how every developer I spoke to was very helpful when I didn't understand how to do something or what to do, and that they all seemed to take the player feedback very seriously.

My time on Saturday and Sunday with them consisted of:

Haunted Attractions: A "numbers go up" style game where you build a theme park for ghosts. The demo gave me an in-game week to build a certain number of attractions for the theme park. It was cute and easy to get a grip on

Initial Daydream: A game for the Playdate, one of the most interesting consoles I've seen. It's a turn-based RPG inspired by the original Dragon Quest, with a lot of humor and wonderful readability and art design.

Rebel Wing: An early Metal Gear inspired stealth game about picking up disguises instead of combatting the enemies. I thought this was a really interesting way to do stealth and it's clear that there's a lot of depth that the developers can get into.

Red Thread: A "Mario Party meets Disco Elysium" narrative adventure board game with a cast of colorful chaarcters to talk to and build relationships with. You can play the demo on Steam.

Retromine: Out of all the games I played this is the one that hooked me the most. Retromine is a deckbuilding roguelike where you have to score enough points to get to the tenth and final expedition. You can use the currency you mine to buy more cards for your deck too!

Super Dungeon Designer: A 2D Zelda-inspired dungeon builder that's available on Steam in Early Access now! I played a level made by the developer while a random kid behind me helped me out when I got stuck (shoutouts to this kid!). I've been wishing for a game like this for a few years now, and while I don't tend to buy games while they're in Early Access, I look forward to the full release.

The Wyndfinder: Inspired by Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, The Wyndfinder is a CRPG that takes you through a fantasy adventure. What I enjoyed about this was the portraits that were employed for the NPCs. They looked very medieval renaissance, and I think this is such a fun trait for a fantasy CRPG.

I also got to interview the developers for Red Thread, Retromine, Initial Daydream, and the lead programmer for Super Dungeon Designer. Keep an eye out for when those all drop on SUPERJUMP!

Something that stood out to me about this experience was seeing how different communities can be. Portland already is a massively different place than Atlanta, but it feels like down here we have a much larger emphasis on the fighting game community. I'll consider my own biases and history with my local FGC, but it's cool seeing the parallels in how we all get together to share experiences and celebrate things like this.

Exploring Portland...sort of

I'll be honest in saying that I didn't do a ton of exploring around the city as I initially planned. The convention was huge and after walking around all day I was too tired to go see what was out there. I do want to shout out a couple of places that left an impact on the trip outside of the convention though, and those were Scotch Lodge and J & M Cafe!

I had dinner at Scotch Lodge with the SUPERJUMP team, and it was phenomenal. Getting to meet such a wonderful group of talented writers all in the same room was incredible and doing it for SUPERJUMP made it even more special. I've been writing for the publication for a little over a year now, so this was basically getting to see everything come full circle. I started reading the magazine while I was still in college and started writing about games, and now I get to travel and connect with people I never would've met if I didn't feel like reviewing Dragon Quest. I want to give a special thank you to James Burns (Editor in Chief) for extending the invitation and letting us enjoy a lovely chef's tasting. The drinks and food were to die for, and absolutely worth a revisit if I ever find myself in the PNW again.

J & M Cafe was my last stop for local food in Portland before I flew home the next day, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't some of the best breakfast I'd ever had. Cozy atmosphere, French Toast on a baguette (which I didn't even know was a thing???), and the best bacon I've ever had, not to mention a hot chocolate that I don't think will ever be topped. This place is a MUST SEE for breakfast, and I'll definitely be going back if I see myself in Portland again in the future.

Glorious meals aside, Portland is a lovely place. Similarly to my trip to Washington D.C., it made me realize how cramped Atlanta is comparatively. Portland is walkable and has bike lanes that don't feel like an afterthought, and it maintains this eerie yet comfortable feeling that's hard to truly describe. Perhaps I need to play Alan Wake to really understand the feelings that the region conveys.

Final Thoughts

While the goal of the convention is celebrating retro video games, there were plenty of attractions that were more geared towards just being celebrated relics. An entire Blockbuster section and a Blockbuster experience to boot, cosplay contest, fighting game tournaments, a massive artists alley, and a handful of indie devs coming to show off their games. Portland was a hell of an experience, and I'm excited to potentially go back soon!

Interviews with PIGSquad posted on SUPERJUMP:

Initial Daydream: [TBD]

Red Thread: [TBD]

Retromine: [TBD]

Super Dungeon Designer: [TBD]