Video Game Scratchies

  • March 8, 2026

I’ve got a lot of strange collections, and here’s one I don’t think I’ve shared before: video game themed scratch off tickets!

Both of the above are from 2017. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never been to Michigan so I imagine I purchased that in an airport. I think both are nicely designed and represent the game well.

This one (from 2018) surprised me when I found it in my collection, since I would have said NY has never had one of these ‘maze’ scratch off games. I like these sorts of cards and I think they themed this one well.

Isn’t it disappointing how today scratch-off tickets have become so mindless? The reason is that the various issuers found players had difficulty with more complex games and as a result everything is simplified now.

From 2014, the above is probably the highlight of my collection! This one is Australian and has two games on it oriented so it can be simultaneously played by two people! I wonder if I played this one with Bernard or Adam back in the day?

There’s been a lot of Pac-Man tickets over the years, and the above are from NY (2018), Australia (Unknown date, and two from 2025). Bernard sent me the two on the right for my birthday and I don’t think he believed me when I said I had a collection of others. Now he knows 🙂

Incidentally you’ll note how the NY and first Australian tickets are very similar in design. I speculate this is because there’s a few large lottery companies worldwide that make tickets for different countries and they may have been designed by the same firm.

And lastly, this Ms. Pac Man from Washington (State) that was also released in 2018. This one is a mystery since I’ve never been to Washington and don’t even remember flying through the airport! As you see it’s a clone of the first Australian Pac Man ticket which supports my theory they were all designed by the same group.

A quick search online reveals many more Pac Man and Frogger tickets, as well as a Galaga (!) one released by Texas some years ago. Tetris and Ms Pac Man seem much rarer though, and I had no success looking for any game-themed tickets outside of the USA or Australia.

Have you seen any others?

Happy Birthday To Me

  • March 3, 2026

For a time now I’d been wanting to reduce my collection of gamebooks. This was partially for space, and partially so I could concentrate on the series that mean the most to me. I found potential buyers online but the (very fair) offers received for the books I had decided to sell hardly covered the cost of shipping them. I had no regrets when I decided to toss about 200 books into a recycling bin a few weekends ago.

The silver lining of this process was that in the process of searching for potential buyers I found a store that had some items for sale I was very interested in. I hastily made a purchase, and a box arrived in time for my birthday (today). These were inside:

The core of my collection is the Fighting Fantasy series, which I have loved since childhood. I’ve got hundreds of volumes, which means many copies of each since there are only about 70 unique books. It’s been many years since I’ve found an imprint I didn’t have, so I was surprised to see the above for sale. Of course I already own each book – in fact I already had 8 different copies alone of City Of Thieves – but I didn’t own the ‘Green stripe’ edition. Now I do 🙂

As happy as I was with these, I also bought this:

I was absolutely amazed to see they had this. It’s issue #2 of the Fighting Fantasy magazine from 1985. This was a ‘holy grail’ item to me, and given the scarcity of these I had essentially given up ever owning one.

It’s a fairly slim publication, sparse on editorial content. It reprints (half of) Warlock Of Firetop Mountain with beautiful large reproductions of the art, and also contained an original new solo adventure called Caverns Of The Snow Witch:

It’s short at only 190 entries, but would eventually be expanded and become the 9th FF book. I recall when I learned this as a child being amazed a magazine existed with gamebook adventures in it!

Indeed Warlock magazine was almost unobtainable in Australia. I somehow knew of it and looked for it in newsagents but only ever owned one copy, specifically #11 (which Adam inherited from me and graciously returned to me decades later). Much later I learned the magazine was poorly distributed even in the UK, so it’s a miracle any ever made their way to Australia at all.

So you can imagine how fast I clicked that ‘submit order’ button when the store I bought the above at didn’t just have one Warlock, but had eight:

These are all from 40+ years ago, and represent about two-thirds of the entire run of the magazine (which ended at issue #13). I was so happy to open the box when they arrived, and learn they were all in great condition. Whoever owned these took care of them!

These magazines are a delightful window into the early years of gamebooks. Full of news, reviews, artwork and advertisements, they also contain many original adventures – almost none of which were ever republished.

These magazines were never distributed to the USA so I remain amazed I found them for sale at an American hobby store. I wonder if they came from the same collection, and why the owner sold them?

And if you’re wondering, yes they were expensive 🙂

The above is a photo of my current Japanese Warlock magazine collection. I’ve got almost all of them, and you can see the magazine survived much longer in Japan than the 13-issues it ran for in the UK. Here’s a photo of the first dozen issues in two different languages:

Just holding and flipping through these brings a big smile to my face. Happy Birthday to me 🙂

Fading Memories

  • February 26, 2026

Our memories are fluid, and our brains change them as we age. Days and months and years get grouped together, and specific are lost as events become generalizations. We also tend to remember happy events with more clarity than sad ones. As a result nostalgia – the reminiscence of past events – becomes increasingly positive, and we typically remember our youth as better days.

Our brain sometimes fabricates memories as well, and since they are ‘stored’ in the same parts of the brain as real memories we have no way of determining which are real and which are fake except by comparing with others. This process can happen surprisingly quickly, and some specific details in the memories of what you did yesterday may even be incorrect!

I have a childhood memory of visiting a mall far from home. It was with Bernard and dad, but I can’t recall if mum was with us. We did take one or two vacations during school holidays with dad only, so perhaps this was during one of them. I recall the mall as being much bigger than the ones I was used to in Newcastle, which at the time was probably just Kotara Fair since I don’t think Charlestown Square had been built.

While walking around the mall we spied – from an upper level – a cluster of arcade games in the gallery below. We went down and played some, including one I had never seen before (or since), which involved shooting spiders on webs. Doing some research now the game was probably Spiders or Frog & Spider, both of which were released in 1981.

Perhaps one reason I remember (parts of) this visit so vividly is because we were each allowed to purchase an action figure from a toy store, and both of us chose a Star Wars figure. I picked ‘R2D2 with Sensorscope’ and (I believe) Bernard picked an Ugnaught. Both figures were initially released in 1981, but remained available for several years afterwards. We opened them both in the car afterwards, and I’m sure we were both very excited.

And that’s it! Only fragments of this memory exist, and to me it’s notable they are related to video games and action figures. If this was 1981 then I hadn’t started buying books yet (this began with Warlock of Firetop Mountain in 1982), and my world would have revolved around games and toys which is why they’re so strong in my memories.

But as for where we were, and exactly when this occurred, I don’t know. Are these real memories or fabricated? I don’t know either. But since I can close my eyes and picture the view from the gallery to the games below, if this didn’t ever actually occur then my brain has done a wonderful job making it up 🙂