Awesome Retro

Aescraft’s shop is filled with fun home accessories with an emphasis on mid-century modern style. Among their many wares are these billiard balls inspired by orb ashtrays from the ’60s and ’70s. They’re made from iron coated with glossy paint and come in five colors. If you don’t smoke, its spin-disc action is fun for fidgeters, too.

Go back to the 8-bit era with this Atari 2600 smartwatch. In addition to its sweet retro style, it has four classic games you can play on its touchscreen: Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Super Breakout. It includes three interchangeable bands and also works as a fitness tracker with heart rate, steps, and calorie burn tracking. Ships starting 7.10.25.

Pixeljam’s vector art game Utopia Must Fall combines elements of arcade shooters, roguelites, and tower defense games. We love its frenetic pace and retro vibes that pay homage to classic arcade games ranging including Tempest, Missile Command, and Galaga. Available for Mac and PC on Steam Early Access.

Inspired by local newscasts from the 1990s, Andrew Ball created his own amusing version of the hyperbolic news programs. Ball portrays all the characters, embellishing the newscast with retro graphics and old-school commercial breaks. If you don’t pay attention to the ridiculous stories (and wigs), you might mistake it for an actual broadcast.

This music video came out in late 2023 but is too good to ignore. Directed and animated by Everfresh and accompanied by Caravan Palace’s neo-swing track MAD, the hilariously weird clip drops us into a 1930s-style cartoon world where musical cockroaches live in a secret world inside our bodies.

RoseColoredGaming sells these precision-cut wood veneers to give game consoles a fresh and living room-friendly look. They’re made from real wood including mahogany, walnut, and padauk and stick on with an adhesive backing. Available for classic consoles like the NES and current-gen systems like the Xbox Series X and PS4. (Consoles not included.)

Severance fans will love this mini replica of the computer the Macrodata Refinement team uses. Matthew Lim created a 3D-printed shell for the terminal and loaded it with a Raspberry Pi 5 and a small touchscreen to display Lumon’s mysterious number grouping game. You can grab the STL files and bill of materials to make your own on Patreon.

Xeric’s latest watch features a custom-built retrograde complication that displays the time along a semi-circular dial. At the top of each hour, the minute hand flies back to the top, as does the hour hand every 12 hours. Each watch features a brushed and polished stainless steel case and band, plus a visible rotor on its caseback. Limited to 999 pieces per color.

New Wave Toys is known for its amazing miniature replicas of arcade machines. They teamed up with author Robert David Swan to create a special hardcover edition of Insert Coin: A Visual Guide to the Golden Age of Arcade Videogames. The book is packed with detailed images, promo art, and screenshots of classic arcade games from 1978 to 1986.

Modern digital music is recorded using 16-, 24-, or 32-bit depths. Makary Brauner recorded this chiptune version of Massive Attack’s Teardrop using 1-bit audio on the hardware from a Atari 130 XE computer. It’s interesting to note that he used the computer’s GTIA graphic chip rather than its audio-focused POKEY chip. The visualization was created with Corrscope.

In one of the stranger product tie-ins, Atari teamed up with Sauce Shed to create a series of hot sauces inspired by classic video games. Atari Sauces feature box art, labels, and flavor combos based on Atari 2600 games including Adventure, Breakout, Crystal Castles, Yars’ Revenge, and more. We like their tagline: “Use it with joy, stick it on everything.”

Remember when things had to pass both the House and Senate before they would be acted upon? Overlord’s official Schoolhouse Rock! hat features a machine-embroidered patch of (I’m Just a) Bill saluting the nation from a red, white, and blue snapback cap. And… they also make a Conjunction Junction cap.

None of the computers you’re about to see are real, but they do capture the essence of computer design over the decades. This animated short from evolution.hub0 uses AI tech to illustrate the evolution of personal computers from the 1970s through the 2020s and beyond. It’s far from accurate, but still a neat watch.

Kinetic art studio Breakfast created this series exploring the origins of video gaming and the multi-billion-dollar industry it has evolved into. Billion Dollar Arcade uses an array of mechanical dots to play Pong, Breakout, and Space Invaders, along with real-time stock market data tracking the industry’s valuation. For sale in a limited edition of eight each.

Before the Will Smith movie of the same name, I, Robot was an Isaac Asimov book and a 1984 Atari arcade game. Created by Jeff Minter, the original game offered an early example of 3D graphics. Minter and Atari have reteamed to create a new version of the game, packed with waves of enemies cruising on grids and loads of trippy graphics. Wish list it here.

This tabletop clock makes a great gift for arcade game fans. The 3D-printed clock features a case inspired by classic arcade cabinets, complete with a tiny joystick and buttons. In place of the old CRT screen is a battery-powered clock with numerals in a retro 8-bit font. 3DPRoSkillsCreations also makes arcade-themed desktop caddies.