Excitebike Credit: Campbell Whyte

Those of us who claim membership in the “Nintendo generation” don’t just get comforting feelings from reminiscing about all the good times we had with Bionic Commando and Contra. No, it seemingly goes much deeper than that. It’s as if nostalgia is the true social currency of our people. You just aren’t cool unless memories of that damn underwater bomb defusal stage from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nearly gives you angina.

Seriously, fuck that level.

Excitebike
  • Campbell Whyte
  • Excitebike

Extending the metaphor, if nostalgia is our social currency, then stumbling on a project like 8-bit Dreams from artist Campbell Whyte is like robbing an old man, only to discover that he’s Rupert Murdoch.

In a nutshell, 8-bit Dreams is an ongoing blog piece in which Whyte posts a drawing of a new NES title every day. With 799 official games available for the console, the end result — assuming Whyte maintains his until-now-impressive dedication — should be a hot, sticky blast of happy childhood memories for many of us.

In addition to the piece above, I’m including two of my favorites beyond the jump, but I highly recommend visiting Whyte’s site and poring over the archives yourself. Whyte’s a talented artist, and his adorable style perfectly captures the whimsy and innocence embodied by these classic games.

Ice Climbers
Duck Hunt

[Propers to Adam “Attract Mode” Robezzoli]

Addendum: Because cat & beard asked about it (and I apparently got rid of the link I had originally included in this post), those of you interested in purchasing Whyte’s work should read this blog entry. He explains that “the illustrations are available for $50 and measure 14cm x 14cm (5.5 inches) and are rendered with black ink and water colours on thick archival paper.”

Additionally, Whyte mentions that he is open to doing custom commissions from games he has yet to cover in the 8-bit Dreams series. Requests can be sent to him via his site and the pricing scheme would be identical to the pieces he’s already completed.

13 replies on “Today’s Nostalgia Blast: Campbell Whyte’s 8-bit Dreams”

  1. Aww, I like that Duck Hunt one! Has he done one for Rygar? Crystalis? Solomon’s Key? Life Force? Can I buy prints? I’ll find out tomorrow, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  2. Actually yeah cat, you can buy prints. I believe one of the HTML links I put up there was directly to the post he made about his stuff being on Etsy.

    Oh, no, I guess it got removed in one of my revisions. I’ll edit and re-add the Etsy link.

  3. Er, excuse me — 4AM is catching up with me — I meant I would re-include the link to the blog post in which Whyte explains how you can buy his work. Not prints of his work, but the actual pieces themselves.

    See the addendum I just added.

  4. Wha….? The underwater bomb level in TMNT was totally kickass. It’s the rest of the game that has needed to go fuck itself for the last 20 or so years. Those final levels are nigh-on impossible.

  5. TMNT was awesome. I think I remember playing it in 2 player mode. And I think that game supported 4 player mode, if connected to the hardware peripheral that allowed that (Am pretty sure it worked with the original NES).
    Just yesterday I remembered another high addictiveness game that I wanna go after, which consisted of high speed, radical jumps, 0 gravity turns, of remote control racing cars and trucks. Damn it was fast.
    The drawing of Excitibe it`s pretty cool, for a pretty cool game which I couldn`t stop playing.

  7. Or possibly the licensed Micro Machines racing game. I believe that was one of the few titles that supported the 4 player adapter and actually turned out pretty nicely for a licensed work, as far as I can remember.

  9. Nex, that was one of those funky Codemasters games which was unlicensed by Nintendo and didn’t see wide distribution. It was actually a popular British title ported over here and just renamed, IIRC. I can’t remember the original, probably something like “Sensible Driving”.

  10. Right. That’d be the one. Though calling it “unlicensed” is sort of a disservice as it has the most bullshit reason for being unlicensed [essentially Codies built a single cart that could work on US and Euro machines (not to mention the Aladdin enhancer) and that was against Nintendo’s draconian rules].

    Since it had the Micro Machines license here in the States it still sold relatively well and is sure a hell of a lot easier to find — and much better quality-wise — compared to TRULY unlicensed shit like the Bible-based games from Wisdom Tree or those crap Chinese 50-in-1 compilations.

  12. Hey, Thanks Cat & Beard! That`s the one. I picked up the name, recognized it, right after I read it. You saved me a lot of searching in the net.

    What I don`t like about the 50 in one Cd compilations (licensed or not), is having to play those games with other type of controllers: (Ex. PsP ones). You just can`t! It`s not the same!

  13. Cat and Beard –
    I’m working on the games based on chronological release, so I haven’t gotten to them yet. You’re welcome to place an order for one of those games though, if you want to fast track it.
    Prints will be available next week, I’ll let you guys know when they drop.

    Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

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