Arcade Life: Life versus Video Games

by J.W. Tapper

From Space Invaders in a village pub to the final chapter of this book, this is a true story of life and death, winning and losing, extreme heroism and tragic failure. There are also a heck of a lot of video games. John Tapper was born in 1963, sixteen years before he first played Space Invaders, forty-seven years before he started the mobile gaming blog Arcadelife. Now he describes that life, from the dawn of the golden age of video game arcades to the current era of disposable mobile games; from art college days of ZX Spectrums and a hand-cranked Lada, through Y2K, to motocross hospitalisation and a Vegas wedding, and almost every popular gaming gadget ever made. There's video game addiction, and then there's 'Arcade Life versus Video Games'. Relentlessly honest, often laugh-out-loud stupid, occasionally heartbreakingly tragic, Arcade Life is a personal account of left-right-fire, a constant quest for high scores, text adventuring through Middle Earth, the perils of hardcore mode, and the countless unexpected ways video games can take inextricable control of your life.

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2020