Ideas for T-shirts?

April 12, 2005 12:23 PM

Some friends and I are going to a classic arcade themed party (8-bit) and need ideas for custom T-shirt sayings...

A bunch of us are getting T-shirts made up based on the classic arcade theme; Pong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc. and need ideas on what to get, "1-Up", "Free Credit", "Insert Coin", etc. Any and all ideas welcome!

posted by Cosine to sports, hobbies, & recreation (37 answers total)

GAME OVER

HIGH SCORE

CONTINUE?

ENTER YOUR INITIALS:
             _ _ _
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:30 PM on April 12, 2005

Well if you don't mind copying ones already being sold, you can use 'Wizard needs food', 'A winner is you!' and 'Our princess is in another castle'.
posted by Vaska at 12:30 PM on April 12, 2005

NICE 2P!

(picture of Calvin peeing on a bubble bobble dinosaur)
posted by shepd at 12:32 PM on April 12, 2005

[front] Another visitor. Stay awhile.
[back]  Stay forever!
posted by Wolfdog at 12:35 PM on April 12, 2005

up, up, down, down, left, righ, left, right, b, a, select, start
posted by slapshot57 at 12:42 PM on April 12, 2005

Black shirt.

Front is a big WHITE square.

Back has nothing.

You're a NES emulator -- stand still, turn quickly, stand still, turn quickly...
posted by effugas at 12:42 PM on April 12, 2005

Great ideas! Keem 'em coming!

Up, Up, Down, Down, is already taken, by me! Not sure how many will get it though.

effugas - I maybe dense here but huh?

"Our princess..." is great!
posted by Cosine at 12:45 PM on April 12, 2005

Run, coward!
Prepare to qualify.
posted by plinth at 12:53 PM on April 12, 2005

"Created by Warren Robinett"
"Avoid missing ball for high score."
posted by Otis at 12:57 PM on April 12, 2005

EXTENDED PLAY
posted by ldenneau at 1:04 PM on April 12, 2005

Whoa, this is local to me at the moment?! Rad.

I was going to suggest "You Spoony Bard" but I guess that's sort of SNES era.

Megaman looking up for new toys in Megaman2 might be a cool image.

Skate Or Die could work.

To go technical -- 6502 CPU (or the pin view). Or Superchip!

If you don't get how a black and white flashing square is evocative of a NES, you didn't own one.
posted by effugas at 1:07 PM on April 12, 2005

AH! AH! I DO get it now, very nice. Really funny actually.

Wasn't 2600 a 6507? Yeah, i thought of that too.

These are really great.

Also "High Scorer"
posted by Cosine at 1:09 PM on April 12, 2005

Pow Pow Power Pad.

Now you're dancing for real.
posted by effugas at 1:09 PM on April 12, 2005

"How high can you get?"

"Ohhhh noooooo!"

A big picture of Evil Otto would be good.

How many friends? If there are four of you you could name yourselved Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde.
posted by bondcliff at 1:11 PM on April 12, 2005

@!#?@!

Even better in a speech bubble.
posted by dodgygeezer at 1:16 PM on April 12, 2005

bond, that owns. Especially if you hand out Ms. Pac Man stickers.
posted by effugas at 1:25 PM on April 12, 2005

Yeah, the Ghost idea was already a front runner, don't forget Sue and Tim too!
posted by Cosine at 1:27 PM on April 12, 2005

Today's Tom Sawyer
posted by forforf at 1:32 PM on April 12, 2005

front: BLOW ME

back: picture of a NES cartridge
posted by elisabeth r at 1:45 PM on April 12, 2005

I saw a dude the other day wearing a T-shirt with a picture of an NES on the front and the phrase "Classically Trained" written on it. I thought that was pretty awesome.
posted by ludwig_van at 1:45 PM on April 12, 2005

Coin detected in pocket

For real ghost cred, go with Shadow, Speedy, Bashful, and Pokey.
Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde were just their nicknames.
posted by Aknaton at 2:07 PM on April 12, 2005

Micky, Mucky, Macky, Mocky... or whatever their alternate japanese names were! HA!
posted by Cosine at 2:09 PM on April 12, 2005

Robotic Operating Buddy.
posted by headless at 2:54 PM on April 12, 2005

If you don't get how a black and white flashing square is evocative of a NES, you didn't own one.

i owned one, but i guess i'm still not getting it. lay it on me.
posted by jimmy at 3:13 PM on April 12, 2005

jimmy - guess your house was cleaner than average, if you had dust on your cart you would just get a flashing black/white screen.
posted by Cosine at 3:34 PM on April 12, 2005

A phrase burned forever into my memory:

2 WARPS TO NEPTUNE

RPG instead of arcade, but certainly T-shirt worthy:

TCELES B HSUP (I'm pretty sure that's right.)

How much is a custom T-shirt? I'd wear either one of these. With a coat and tie. To any and all formal events. Including state dinners and the funerals of venerated religious figures.
posted by crake at 3:39 PM on April 12, 2005

"I am Error"

"Dodongo dislikes smoke"

"I'm getting sleepy - I feel asleep!"

"Let's play money making game"

"Get the heck out of here, you nerd"

"Bag big points for Rad moves"

"sorry, but you are finished here"

"The other Metroid"

Name the games for added nerd cred.
posted by Four Flavors at 4:17 PM on April 12, 2005

"Grumble Grumble..."

"Get equipped with Bubble Lead" (or any of the Mega Man 2 weapons)

"What a horrible night to have a curse..."

"Let us make a journey to the cave of monsters!"
posted by Servo5678 at 4:40 PM on April 12, 2005

How about
"I love the power glove, it's so bad. "
posted by graventy at 5:08 PM on April 12, 2005

there is the famous metroid code:

J U S T I N B A I L E Y
- - - - - - - - - - - -

or how about the classic introduction from bad dudes"

"THE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY NINJAS. ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT?"
posted by hendrixson at 5:39 PM on April 12, 2005

A big toggle switch labeled "amateur" at the bottom and "Advanced" up top
posted by Mick at 5:41 PM on April 12, 2005

back with a vengeance


how about a nice game of chess?
posted by bonaldi at 6:17 PM on April 12, 2005

i owned one, but i guess i'm still not getting it. lay it on me.

You didn't own a NES for *long*, did you?

(Any NES older than a year or two would flash black and white instead of actually playing a game, about one out of ten tries. Thus, the fantastic BLOW ME tshirt, which I must have. Though the Power Glove reference is also fantastic.)
posted by effugas at 11:43 PM on April 12, 2005

See also, gameskins. A couple of ideas mentioned above are already in production.

(I'm not connected with these guys in any way, but I do like their designs).
posted by grahamspankee at 4:58 AM on April 13, 2005

Winners Don't Use Drugs
-- William Sessions, FBI Director

BEWARE - I LIVE

INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!

How far can you invade our Scramble system?
posted by PlusDistance at 7:08 AM on April 13, 2005

SYS64738

Warrior is about to die

HEAVY BARREL!

Jab! Jab! Body blow! Body blow!

I HUNGER!
posted by papercake at 7:27 AM on April 13, 2005

I've been looking for good test pattern designs on t-shirts, but they seem to reveal too many flaws in the printer's process, nobody wants to put them on shirts. ;)

If you have resources to do text, you can probably manage simple shapes too. Try a Tetris block or two?

Lots of inspiration from text games like Adventure and the Infocom games.

I'm a C64 kid myself, so try sky-blue text on a navy shirt:

LOAD "*",8,1

Or, simply:

READY.

Next time my license plate comes up for renewal, I'm going to try for IDKFA. ;)
posted by Myself at 8:41 PM on April 14, 2005