Ode to the 8-bit

Plumbers, monkeys, yellow dots with mouths
Frogs who brave the highways and rivers
Elves who throw swords and collect pieces of triangles
Invaders from space and the madness of marbles

Oh, all the time and quarters spent
Kids huddled around machines for hours
With a 2 liter of Mountain Dew
A pocket full of quarters
And a single dream

Time spent trying to get the high score
Trying to put your initials at the top
Right above the top holders:
A-S-S and S-U-X

Saturday nights, months worth of allowance in your sock
Down to your last quarter, last life
One more barrel to clear
One more ghost to avoid
One more ship to destroy
One more chance....

I like this, but no offence I fail to see your point in the matter, what's the emotion? What's the story behind it? How did it happen? Why should I care? Questions like that.

Firstly, I think you capture the essence of the 8-bit games pretty well here. If I'm right, did you include Mario, Donkey Kong, Pacman, Frogger, Zelda and Space Invaders? I couldn't think what the marble on was about...was that a reference to Pinball?

I particularly liked the bit about the high score names being A-S-S and S-U-X. I felt this added humour to the poem, which is a bonus in my books.

I feel you particularly captured the atmosphere of those Saturday nights. I don't have any personal experiences, seeing as I have lived in the UK all my life and not in the USA, but I felt the buzz. I like how you achieved that without going into too much detail.

I just wish it could have been a little longer!

Makes me feel nostalgic. They don't make games like they used to, that's for sure. They're too easy nowadays. Nice, lightweight poem. Brings back some good memories.

October Girl wrote:I like this, but no offence I fail to see your point in the matter, what's the emotion? What's the story behind it? How did it happen? Why should I care? Questions like that.

I wrote this for a creative writing class and decided to just post it on here.