- [Brian] Portland, the bridge city.
Home to not one, not two, but 12 bridges.
Portland's motto is "Keep Portland weird",
but for gamers, weird is perfect.
(upbeat music)
Hello, and welcome to Fast Travel,
the show where we go to cool nerdy cities
and do cool nerdy things with cool nerdy people.
I'm very excited to be joined by Miranda Sanchez,
she's a senior editor at IGN,
and our resident anime mega-geek.
(upbeat music)
When it comes to books, Portland is known for Powell Books,
one of the most iconic bookstores in the country.
But if it's comic books you're after,
there's something just perfect about buying comics
in a dedicated comic book store.
For that, Floating World comics has you covered.
Comics were kind of integral to my entire upbringing
of kind of being a nerd,
like they were always sort of there,
and even when I wasn't actively buying them all the time,
they kind of played a role in my life in some way.
- So for me, it was more about,
like manga and graphic novels growing up,
and only as I got into high school and I guess college,
that I started looking to comics
to kind of continue my favorite shows,
like Samurai Jack and Batman Beyond.
Like, I loved those so much and then I was like
wait, there's comics?
- [Brian] Yeah.
- [Miranda] And then so that's how I really got into them.
- When you come into a shop like this, like you find
that it's a celebration of independent artists.
It's a celebration of local artists, of zines,
of like small, one-off, limited run stuff,
that you kind of have to dig around for.
- That's really important too, just to find local artists
and see like what they're talking about
and the stories they want to tell.
- Yeah, and I think you lose that,
when you just go online and buy stuff,
because you kind of have to curate
your own playlist in that regard.
You sit down and you go this is what I want,
you type it in and you search it,
you lose this sort of
haphazard discoverability aspect of it all,
of walking into the store and picking something up
and being like, oh my god, I didn't know they made,
like a Bart Simpson/Akira crossover.
Like this is awesome, and then you walk out with it
and you probably don't even think to look that up on Amazon,
but here you can just pick it up, look through it
and fall in love with it immediately.
- Yep
(upbeat music)
Quarterworld is a massive arcade,
with over a hundred games, a full bar, lots of food
and a giant Tesla coil
that shoots out lightning bolts to music.
Wait, what?
(applause)
Steve Gaynor, Nina Freeman,
thank you so much for joining us.
We just got our ears blown out,
by the rockingly loud Tesla coil,
which I think is sort of indicative
of what Portland represents in general.
It's weird and it's funky, and it's kind of loud.
So what sort of brought you here,
what keeps you here, why make games here?
- So after I had spent a lot of time
in the games industry, working on like,
the Bioshock series and stuff, there was a point
where we both just wanted to move back
to kind of where we came from,
so we kind of had to do our own thing.
But that's very Portland, right?
Like there's so much like, I want to make a weird food cart.
Guess I'll just do that, you know?
And so like, we rented a house,
and made Gone Home in our basement
and just kind of like did it, you know on our own.
And there's a lot of support for that, I think in the arts
and in all sorts of creativity in Portland.
- Someone like you, you just sort of will it into existence
and then more people, do you have to build up something?
- You couldn't have known that you just need a house
full of cats and game developers
to ship a video game in Portland.
- Is that like the secret?
Like, just get a bunch of cats?
- I've never done it without cats, so yeah.
- So Portland also has just like,
awesome arcade culture, right?
- I mean, I think as like an indy game developer,
there's this aspect of seeing these games
I had to work with in really tight constraints.
And seeing how they were really created,
with just like a couple of core mechanics,
or not all this graphical processing power
and kind of being inspired by that.
- Yeah, and now whenever I go to a real arcade,
it's like, it is like a real design constraint
to be like, there's gonna be a person,
physically at a machine playing it,
and how does that affect the design?
It's kind of fun to like be here and see how,
like, other designers did it.
- Yeah, it's not just about standing at the cabinet.
It's about the carpet, and the bar,
and the weird laser lighting and the art on the walls,
and all of that stuff kind of comes together
for one experience.
And I think Portland is really kicking ass at that.
Now let's go play some video games, then.
- No.
(laid back music)
Toys, action figures and collectibles
are my favorite way to celebrate nerd culture.
Billy Galaxy is a wonderful toy store
that totally shares that love.
I think it's my favorite toy store in the country.
Mostly because it feels like a really gigantic version
of my desk at work.
- I think it's nice to just have
that kind of curio thing it's like,
"This is part of my identity"
because this is what I love
and I'm showing that in full force.
- Yeah. Your collection is kind of like,
it's like having a dog, it sort of like,
resembles its owner after a while.
And I have, like, weird, ugly looking,
alien monster men and you have, like,
adorable plushies.
We pay our taxes, we go to work,
we do what we gotta do.
- Yeah.
- Let's go buy some toys.
(upbeat music)
- [Brian] There's a good reason why Apizza Scholls
is the most popular pizza place in Portland.
And if giant, perfect slices
of foldable pizza aren't enough,
it's also got a fantastic collection
of impeccably maintained arcade cabinets.
- Since the dawn of video games,
pizza has been there to help
and I think that's something
that Apizza Scholls does so well
because they have old school arcade cabinets,
they've got a Donkey Kong
and they've got great pizza.
(game sounds)
And then this flame dude comes down
and it just gets oh wow.
- [Miranda] Oh, you're so good.
- [Brian] Okay, this is where it gets,
watch this, you basically just have to...
- [Miranda] Time it.
Oh my gosh, wow. That's great.
- [Brian] It's hard. It's like,
you actually count the pixels on his nose.
- Yeah, and the arcade cabinets themselves
are so beautiful, too.
Like, they're obviously worn.
Like, they've been used but lovingly so
and they're just like beautiful designs.
- [Brian] This is when it starts getting insane.
- [Miranda] Right. Oh my gosh, this is hard.
- [Brian] Yeah, really difficult to control.
You're basically drunk driving an ostrich.
- Yeah.
(laughter)
- [Miranda] Oh, I win.
- [Brian] Wow.
- [Miranda] Nice.
- [Brian] I just beat BeeBee.
- [Miranda] Mm Hmm
- [Brian] Very high stress.
- [Miranda] Nice. Yeah.
(game sounds)
- [Brian] Ooh, that's bad.
- [Miranda] Scary, scary.
- [Game] Oh my God
- [Miranda] Wow. Don't some people through this
to be like the best?
- [Brian] Yeah, they do.
- [Miranda] Why?
- [Brian] Uh, I don't know. I think they have like...
- [Miranda] Isn't it the same thing?
- [Brian] They didn't really have, like,
a lot going on at the time.
- [Miranda] (chuckles)
- Okay. I think it's time that we eat this pizza.
- Yes, please.
(upbeat music)
- Oh man, this sausage is so good.
- The sausage is really good.
We need a shot of me just asleep on the street.
(street sounds)
- [Brian] The last stop of the night
is Ground Control, another great arcade bar.
It's got pinball and an eccentric array
of arcade cabinets and drinks and snacks
to bring it all together.
It's like an arcade birthday party but for grownups.
Do you feel like there's a pressure
to be an expert on classic games
even if you didn't grow up with them
or you missed them on your way to becoming a gamer?
- Yeah, I mean there's that,
'Oh, you don't know that game?'
- Sure.
- But the nice thing about these kind of bar arcades
is that they offer those games, right?
Like, at least, in the arcade forms.
- Yeah. I totally agree.
It's a great opportunity to catch up on stuff.
- The thing here too, is like they have things
like Panic Park which is a Namco game that's
supposed to be more like a party game
than any game oriented.
(laughing)
- I love this game.
There's a game here called Bubble Bobble,
which I'm almost sure you've never played.
- [Miranda] Nope.
- [Brian] Because it's weird.
- [Miranda] Yeah.
- [Brian] It's about two dinosaurs that have
to save their girlfriends, I think.
It's an old game, so it's hard to tell the story.
Alright, so you've gotta put them on.
You have a jump and a bubble.
You wanna hit these guys with your bubbles.
- [Miranda] Okay.
- And then all these treats and candies fall out.
- Aww, that's cute.
- Then you go to the next level.
And every level is different.
There's like 100 levels.
- [Miranda] Holy crap.
- [Brian] Yeah.
(game sounds)
- [Brian] There ya go.
(upbeat music)
- And that's it for Portland.
Where should we Fast Travel to next?
List your favorite nerdy city in the comments
and keep an eye out for it on the show.
Until next time.
(car horn)
- Oh hey. Thanks for watching our new show.
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We wanted to take a moment to thank Braun
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Seriously, I've been wanting to make this show
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Enter the sweepstakes, win some games,
and stay tuned for our next adventure.
(upbeat music)