Cheerful Ghost was at this years Portland Retro Game Expo and it was the best expo yet! I guess I say that every year but this is my favorite convention and this year everything came together really well. Everyone that came out to the booth to hang out with Adam, Wick and I were really great to talk to and I want to send a special shout out to the people that took part in our Tournaments and specifically:

Super Mario Brothers Speedrun to the end of World 1-4

1. Kevin - 2:06:00


2. Andres - 2:07:20


3. Aaron - 2:14:27

Bubble Bobble Score Tournament

1. Justin - 125,490


2. Eddy - 118,190


3. Kevin - 111,890

Marble Madness Highest Roller Score

1. Kevin - 75,070


2. Timothy - 26,820


3. Fritz - 20,420

Snake Rattle & Roll Highest Score at the End of World 2

1. Drevsen - 139,850


2. Jonathan - 98,350


3. Colby - 94,450

Retro Game Pickups

This year I decided to come prepared with a list of a bunch of retro games I wanted to get and I wasn't disappointed as apparently lots of vendors came prepared to sell some of the things I wanted! One item I didn't find was King Arthurs World on Super Nintendo (well I did but the copy wasn't working so I returned it) but beyond nearly everything I really wanted I found.

The highlights:

• Mario Paint SNES Cart+Mouse+Mouse Pad+Manual. This has been a set i've wanted for a long time and when I got it my collection felt nearly complete. I'm not a huge collector by any means, but Mario Paint has been something i've wanted for a while. It's not hard to find, I just had other stuff higher on my list. The game and mouse work great too and are in amazing condition. Initially I picked up a loose Mario Paint cart thinking finding the mouse would be easy but no vendor would sell me the mouse singly so I had to buy another set to get it. So I have two Mario Paint carts now, which I don't seem to mind and the loose cart was only $4.


• Metroid Fusion on Game Boy Advance. I am collecting all the old Metroids up to but not including Prime as I didn't really love that direction for the franchise. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but I prefer the old side-scrolling Metroid.


• Earthbound 1+2 on Game Boy Advance. Yeah, yeah this a fan repro cart of a fan translation of the Gameboy Advance release of those two games in Japan and it's not technically "legit" but it's damn cool and works amazingly on my GBA. Trying to decide if I should play through Earthbound on the SNES Classic or GBA now. Hard choice. What do you think?


• 2 three buttons Genesis controllers + Sonic. I have a small but growing Genesis library and wanted some original controllers. These things are way too big and might not work very well(broken?) but it's nice to finally have some.


• Cowlitz Gamers 2 Adventure is a rare NES homebrew released a bit before PRGE by Cowlitz Gamers that benefits Ark of Cowlitz a charity that helps kids with disabilities. So they had me at homebrew and charity but beyond that it's a really kick ass Nintendo game too.
  It's a big advancement from the first Cowlitz Gamers Adventure and if you want to hear more, the Immortal John Hancock has a video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH2Fco5eEhY. They also released a demo of it in ROM form you can play download here:
  http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=173401 The game sold out in 90 minutes and since I was a vendor I found the booth before the show opened and bought my copy before the rush happened. Which is really cool because I think this is going to be a very hard NES Cart to add to your collection. Good luck completionists!


• The Super Scope 6 in Box. Yeah ok so this was a pretty on the fly buy in the last few minutes of the expo but truth be told it was a great deal and it's FREAKING IN THE BOX! I have yet to test it so my fingers are crossed but I hope this works because we have some plans for it at next years PRGE that might be fun to see.


• A fold out official map of Final Fantasy II/IV dungeons that came with the game.


• The Super Gameboy because HOLY SHIT the Super Gameboy.

There were a few things I had to pass on because I couldn't buy everything. One thing was Spiritual Warfare in box in great condition. I might be one of the only people that loves these old Wisdom Tree games and Spiritual Warfare is the best of the bunch and it was... in box. I told myself i'd get the new Wisdom Tree NES repro collection cart instead but that didn't mean it still hurt to pass it up. There was also a copy of Nintendo Power issue #1 in mint condition with the original Nintendo letter attached to it. I passed it up on the price, it was a fair price but i'd rather buy a few things with my PRGE budget instead of just one thing.

I collected some of the best pictures I took of this years expo and our Cheerful Ghost booth so check that out below. I've also tried to caption each picture that made sense to in the Imgur album to bring a bit more context to the moment. If you are wonder who that cute kid is in the pictures, it's my son. This was his first Portland Retro Game Expo and I was so happy he came by for an hour or so. Taking him through the event and explaining to him what everything he was excitedly pointing to was one of my coolest moments of 2017.

https://imgur.com/a/vv3EP