Standing in the middle of the Pavilion at the Louisville Arcade Expo, surrounded by dozens of classic arcade games and pinball machines, your senses are overwhelmed with the urge to play a game. The lights from the machines cast a flickering glow across the room, and as you walk around the pavilion you occasionally pick up on a tune from a game you loved from your childhood, bringing with it a flood of warm memories of the dawning of the video game era.  Although this was only their third year, the Louisville Arcade Expo keeps getting bigger and better. For the low price of $15 for one day, and $35 for the weekend, all games were set on free to play, offering gamers of all flavors unlimited entertainment.

Super Soul was the only Lexington developer in attendance, demoing their latest and greatest multiplayer update for Compromised. It was a great opportunity to gain exposure for their Indie game and they were encouraged to see numerous players bringing their friends back to play the game with them.

John “Tony Stark” Meister (left)was busy explaining the controls for Compromised to the many gamers who came to play despite having a small malfunction with his new arc reactor implant. However, a disappointment to many attending was when Super Soul brainchild and playboy Richie Hoagland (right) locked himself in the hotel room with a coffee pot to crank out more code for the game–despite many female attendees requesting to have their picture taken with him.

The coolest exhibit at the expo by far, and honestly worth the price of admission alone, was the Console Room. Walking through that door was akin to being paid a visit by the ghost of video game consoles past. They had practically every console you could possibly imagine from your childhood (as well as many you most certainly didn’t even know about), with working games you could play, all in chronological order starting with the year 1977.

My heart skipped a beat when I noticed the Radio Shack TRS-80 (affectionately coined the trash 80) computer. This was my first ever personal computer and where I learned my first programming language, Basic. Well, I really just skipped to the back of the Basic books that came with the computer and copied the programs written there to see what they would do. I can remember going to the last program in the book as it was the longest, spent 5 hours typing it in, only to see 3 geometric shapes appear on the screen. I was so disappointed.

Super Soul received a great response from gamers of all ages, many of whom wanted to know where they could buy the game (available here for PC, and on the Xbox Live Indie). Click here for the image gallery from the event. Next up on the Compromised Multiplayer tour is the Lexington Comic Con at the Lexington Civic Center this weekend.  Are you going?  Of course you are.