In fact, we are talking about a city that is very linked to technology and the development of online practices, so the value attributed to video games is also automatic.
So if you are gamers as a passion, for work or for simple leisure, London and the United Kingdom will be the place.
Even for those looking for low-priced video games or gaming peculiarities, such as collectors and limited editions experts can be satisfied.
The culture of video games here is expressed at the London Games Festival held every year in the city. A festival where every type of gamer can be satisfied thanks to the hundreds of types of different games offered to try and thanks to the many locations.
The most important thing for a gamer is certainly purchasing the games.
Forbidden Planet is the most popular shop in London for those who love video games, comics, films and TV series and I go there quite often but, the other day, I needed to stretch my legs and clear my mind, so, after work, I decided to walk for a while.
Partly out of distraction, partly out of boredom, I extended the route and got slightly lost
(and I love ‘getting lost’ in London, I feel like Alice in Wonderland!).
I took a side street, to reach the parallel one and get back on a main road.
While I was walking and looking around, my gaze was attracted by an unusual sign, from which a mechanical arrow, full of lights, emerged.
The sign was placed in a small street in Bloomsbury, right in front of a shop with an old-fashioned facade, in the last remaining Tudor house (a 17th century tavern, in which, perhaps, even Shakespeare drank a pint).
Intrigued, I decided to go in and see better what it was.
Novelty Automation, which I had already heard of, is a hilarious and surreal arcade, oozing British humor from all its machines.
The devices, both mechanical and computerized, were built by the cartoonist and engineer Tim Hunkin, with the aim of reinventing the arcades of the past, before technology and home video games decreed their decline.
The so-called arcades, a real must in British seaside resorts, are reinterpreted here with the help of unique machines, with irreverent themes.
For example, in Hollywood, you can fly a drone on a special paparazzo mission to spy on celebrities and find out what happens behind the doors or windows of their hotel.
In the Money Laundering game the magnetic crane allows you to successfully lift real money, before the eyes of the City's bankers and financial agents.
You can sit in a vintage armchair for a virtual holiday in another vintage game they have there.
Tim began creating his weird and wonderful creations in the 1980s, transforming various industrial pieces and other objects.
The most recent machines make use of technology and are controlled by computers, however, all of them, both old and new, are entirely handmade, and this is what gives them their charm.
Like any arcade, there is a price to pay to play, although some machines can be shared.
It is estimated that it takes an hour to try all the machines.
Tokens range from one to two pounds and I have found out that the game room can also be rented out entirely for private parties.
Surely, this is one of the strangest and most fascinating attractions that London has to offer.
I advise you to get lost in it too if you happen to visit.
Novelty Automation, quirky and fun
