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Arcades aren't dying, I've learned in recent weeks, but they're certainly evolving into some strange forms in their struggle for survival. Simon Parkin reported on Heart of Gaming over a week back, a fascinating compendium of the machines thought lost to the closure of Casino and the Trocadero and kept alive by the commendable dedication of the fighting game community and the hard work of one man, Mark Starkey. Gaming needs informed and passionate people like Starkey if it's going to hold on to its lustrous past, and as I stumbled upon another strange arcade earlier this week I realised there's another breed that's also vital to the future of the form. You may, if you're of a certain age, remember Tim Hunkin from his late 80s TV show The Secret Life of Machines, in which Hunkin would charismatically break down the innards and history of an everyday device, and Rex Garrod would occasionally crash a car. Hunkin's an engineer at heart, though he's also something of an artist, writer and cartoonist. It turns out he's a heck of a game designer too.
Nestled on Southwold Pier is a little monument to the charming peculiarities of Hunkin's mind, a collection of homemade arcade machines that are quite unlike anything you've likely ever played before. A fair few of them are throwaway pranks, little postcard jokes told with servos and screens that communicate a very English sense of humour.
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