The arcade – the place where video games were first introduced to the world and creates a sense of nostalgia as the video game industry continues to innovate from its humble beginnings. Now, a new project will reintroduce the arcade at Bemidji State through a specially designed gaming booth that will provide a great retro pastime for both students and visitors alike.
The New Attraction
Last year, project management students started crafting up a new project – an arcade booth. This booth was sketched, built, and then assembled with a design overtop imbued with the highly saturated primary colors of the TAD logo. This project was then brought out to the 2017 TAD Talks event purely as a display to show it off. Months later, fall semester kicked in and the students made the next upgrade. The buttons and joystick that previously acted as a decoration was then programmed so that the players could be in control, and from there, the games officially begun.
Chilling in the Cort Room
After its reveal at the TAD Talks and then an appearance at the Community Appreciation Day, the gaming booth was moved to a lounge dedicated to the TAD students known as the Cort Room. Here, students get the chance to fiddle around with it and play a quick game between classes. It’s a great way to destress and offers the perfect opportunity to duke it out with your roommate to decide who will do the chores for the week or watch over the cute little bundle of claws for the night.
Taking it to a New Level
While the project is already together, having resulted in a fun and functional booth all set up for students to interact with, it is far from over. The students are coming together to spread it across campus with multiple booths for all of the students, visitors, and even professors, to play with. These new stations will provide a new experience, allowing the campus to compete against each other for the highest rank while promoting the Department of Technology, Art, and, Design. With these new booths comes a new design, enhancing the original’s structure and creating a new, “Bemidji” look for the booth. While the bright, quirky colors from the logo are quite eye-catching, they fit a lot better in the Cort Room where their personality really shines.