For those of you who grew up in the 80s, you'll no doubt remember heading down to the local arcade with your friends and family, saving up your quarters and queueing up to play on the latest titles, hoping to nab the high score spot. For those of you, like me, who didn't have arcades near them in England while they were growing up in the 90s, stepping into an Arcade bar like NQ64 and grabbing a bunch of tokens allows us to experience that feeling as adults, experiencing all of the sounds and sights (and flashing lights) of the arcade era.
This new LEGO set 'Retro Arcade Center' has only been on the LEGO Ideas page for less than a day at the time of writing and already has over 650 votes, with another 424 days left to get to the first milestone of 1,000 votes. I don't think that's going to be a problem, do you?
From the huge Arcade sign complete with joystick and accessories on the top to the vending machines and ride-on toys outside, this set oozes retro from every brick. But you haven't seen anything yet, because the real magic is on the inside.
There's no roof on this set, so you can peer right in on the arcade action inside. You'll find classic arcade cabinets in different colours for LEGO figures to compete on, pinball machines, a prize counter, air hockey, LEGO food, and even a dance machine. Even without the noise of the machines, you can imagine the cacophony of sounds that would come from this set if it were real, and I really wouldn't be surprised to some LEGO versions of the Stranger Things kids hanging around in here.
The set's creator PovedaBricks says that this works as a standalone LEGO set or as part of a larger custom built city. It's certainly a nostalgic blast from the past (though a different kind of blockbuster to the Red Bull Tetris collab I wrote about earlier today), but you'll need to back the project to help it become a reality. LEGO Ideas projects need to reach a milestone of 10,000 votes before they can be put in front of a panel of judges, though judging by how this set has almost hit its first milestone in 24 hours, I think there's a strong possibility that we'll be seeing this set in the Retro Dodo office before long!
