From the bowels of Old Williamsburg
The Death By Audio Arcade is a series of local multiplayer arcade cabinets produced by local indie game developers that originate from Death By Audio, Brooklyn's influential DIY music venue. The collection currently resides at Wonderville, a bar, indie arcade, and event space located at 1186 Broadway in Brooklyn.
Press:
Gothamist: Step Inside The Dreamhouse, Where DIY Arcade Games Meet Queer Culture
Bedford and Bowery: An Indie Game Arcade Has Opened at Elsewhere
The Grand DBAA Timeline
2011: Droid Rising
Mark researches MAME cabinets and builds the Droid in January 2011 using an old eMac computer. It lives in the Death By Audio music venue running games like Altered Beast, X Men, Turtles in Time, etc.
2012: Electric Boogaloo
February
Mark meets Kunal and Syed from Babycastles and sets up gallery in the back of DBA with Haitham Ennasr. The Droid is converted to a PC showing Pole Riders. Also Hokra, Circadia, and Enzo are part of the show
2013: Answer The Call
June
Mark puts a call out on the NYU game center list asking for local multiplayer games to put into cabinets.
December
The launch party for Crystal Brawl and Field-1 takes place at Death By Audio complete with tournaments and prizes. This is the first Deathmatch By Audio event. Particle Mace and Videoball are also shown at this show.
https://www.facebook.com/events/239014932931109/
https://web.archive.org/web/20140223103636/http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/09/deathmatch-audio
2014: A Mag Dawn
January 1
Crystal Brawl makes its first appearance at MAGFest 2014
March 5
Nest by Audio event where Ken Amarit’s felt-covered Nest cabinet launches. Also Foiled! By Gabe Cuzzilo is shown on the Droid for this show.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1387402841484574/
March-April
Mark builds the Particle Mace cabinet with Andy Wallace, and the Powerboat Italia ‘88 cabinet with Nick Santaniello
May 13
Deathmatch by Audio III - the launch party for these cabinets
https://www.facebook.com/events/518108054977920/
August 22-23
Low-level Festival at Villain. Also the Futbol Forever cabinet launches at this event
September 10
Deathmatch by Audio IV featuring Futbol Forever
https://www.facebook.com/events/945663482126210/
September 20-21
World Maker Faire NYC
Featuring all of our cabinets to date
November 6 - 22
Death By Art: the final sendoff to Death By Audio
Featuring Powerboat Italia ‘88, Futbol Forever, Crystal Brawl, Droid
https://www.facebook.com/events/1375378596087090/
December 7
Indie Arcade at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
https://www.facebook.com/events/1719065978318415/
2015: Lots of Good Has Come of This
January 23-26
MAGFest 2015 features Crystal Brawl, Powerboat Italia ‘88, Particle Mace, Nest, Futbol Forever, and Nothing Good Can Come of This (on the Droid)
February 25
Deathmatch by Audio V featuring the launch of Slam City Oracles at Waka Waka Gallery
We also brought all the other cabs
https://www.facebook.com/events/732730926834489/
June 29
Deathmatch By Audio IV featuring the launch of Nothing Good Can Come of This at Silent Barn
This event also featured Badblood, Ninja Tag, and Sumer
https://www.facebook.com/events/1559495544273026/
September 26-27
World Maker Faire NY featuring our collection (and Vec9)
2016: Volley for All Occasions
January 16
Slam City Oracles is shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for the second annual Indie Arcade
February 18-21
MAGFest 2016
This year is the first year of the Indie Arcade at MAGFest. Our collection is joined by Trace Vector. This is also the first time we show the Star Versus cabinet.
March 14-15
The Arcade at the Fader Fort at SXSW
We are commissioned to build four cabinets to bring to Austin TX for South by Southwest. We build four identical cabinets and install Particle Mace, Slam City Oracles, Star Versus, and Powerboat Italia ‘88 and drive them to Texas. This is the first time the arcade is commissioned to build cabinets for money.
http://www.thefader.com/2016/03/16/death-by-audio-the-arcade-fader-fort
March 11 - April 8
Flowers For All Occasions Gallery
Launch party for the Star Versus cabinet
August 19-20
Low-level Festival 2016 at the Muse. We bring our entire collection (including new cabinets Volleygon and Video Freak) This show also features Super Russian Roulette and Line Wobbler and Vec9
September 2016
Members of Death By Audio Arcade are commissioned by Soylent to build two custom arcade cabinets and a custom game called Hungry Hungry Astronauts that ship out to Los Angeles:
http://blog.kleebtronics.com/soylent-arcade/
October 2016
A real estate company managing the new Manhattan West high rise commissions a new Slam City Oracles cabinet to put in their arcade room
http://blog.kleebtronics.com/sco-manhattan-west/
November 19th
Deathmatch By Audio VIII at Madwell
Official launch of Volleygon. This show also features Witchball, Skyhook, Stage Fright, and Black Emperor
https://www.facebook.com/events/1013954725398403/
2017: Games is Art
January 5-8
MAGFest 2017:
Second year of the indie arcade. We invite Babycastles to showcase with us. We also run tournaments for all of our games and give out custom laser-cut medals to the winners.
July 27
Deathmatch By Audio IX: Freak Show at H0L0
We bring the entire collection to H0L0 and center the gallery around a custom CRT installation of Video Freak
https://www.facebook.com/events/1563275423744730
August 5-6
SAAM Arcade
DBAA is invited to showcase at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for SAAM Arcade. We bring all of our cabinets down for the weekend.
https://americanart.si.edu/calendar/saam-arcade
August 19-20
Play NYC at Terminal 5
Members of DBAA make the Giffinator Photo Booth and Salmon Roll: two non-cabinet installations shown at this festival throughout the weekend
October 6th
DBAA is commissioned by Flux Factory to show a few cabinets in a storage container in Long Island City, Queens for the Self Storage Gallery
https://www.facebook.com/events/510837175945926
2018: Demo Knights
January 4-7
Mark is the department head of the Indie Arcade at MAGFest 2018, bringing all of the DBAA collection, Babycastles, and inviting other indie games like Robo Puzzle Smash, 1000 Button Project, Scoot Pooch, Phillytron, and Dobotone
February 3-25
Skybridge Gallery at Elsewhere. DBAA brings several cabinets to Elsewhere for the month, and hosts five events, including lofi night featuring a collection of Pico-8 games.
https://www.facebook.com/events/525887847768488/
March 9
NYC Demo Night. DBAA put out a call for local multiplayer games and showcased 10 from local NYC developers including Juggle Panic, Red Hot Ricochet, Kill Monkey Kill, Kung Fu Kickball, Zarvot, Super Sharp Birds, Tuned Out, Sloppy Forgeries, Seam of the Vultures, and Vicious Virus Versus
https://www.facebook.com/events/1460277350764847/
April 18
DBAA hosts Channel Surfing: an arcade at Flattops in Astoria featuring Tuned Out, Dobotone, Filthy Kitchen, and Waddleball
https://www.facebook.com/events/2035258300131337/
May 12-26
DBAA moves into the Dreamhouse in Ridgewood for a month-long collaboration. The dreamboxXx is created, complete with nine games by local queer, trans, gender-nonconforming, and non-binary game developers. These include Raunchy Feast XXX, Dream Hard, Arpongi, Queerspace, Safe Space, Conspiracy Theories About Myself, OrbTown, A Day At the Beach, and Local Informant. The dreamboxXx continues to live at the Dreamhouse and is free to play for guests of all future events.
https://www.facebook.com/events/103111567237372/
June 30
Powerboat Italia ‘88 had been living at Our Wicked Lady in Bushwick for most of 2018, so we did a summer party in the air conditioning. We also featured Dobotone by Videogamo, Red Hot Ricochet by Wyatt Yeong, and Arpongi by Ayla Myers.
https://www.facebook.com/events/260449041177633/
August 17
The collection moves to Superchief Gallery in Ridgewood for a steaming hot summer party. Allen Riley set up visuals using two NES consoles mixed together. Daytonite by Blake Andrews, Picture Processing by Frank Demarco, and 99 Hacks of Super Mario by Patrick Lemeiux were also shown in addition to the cabinets.
https://www.facebook.com/events/820745898314524/
October 6
DBAA rents out a Uhaul truck to participate in the Lost Horizons Night Market. The games featured were Particle Mace, Video Freak, and Nothing Good Can Come Of This.
November 17-18
DBA Arcade teams up with Brooklyn Research to host an Alt-Ctrl themed game jam. Teams of developers turned up to create four unique games: Circumnavigators, Team Orion, Octopod, and Shrine.
December 20
The projects from the Alt.Ctrl game jam get polished and showcased at Caveat in the Lower East Side.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1245531712267655/
2019: A New Home
January 3-6
DBA Arcade and Babycastles return to MAGFest as the curators of the Indie Arcade. Other games featured include 1000 Button Project, Phillytron, eCheeseZone, Sashimi Slammers, Scoot Pooch, Foiled!, Soarin Scurry, Kitchen Mania, Ossia Glow, geobio, and Don’t Push Me. We also built a new arcade cabinet at a panel titled “How To Build An Arcade Cabinet” for the game KungFu Kickball.
https://www.deathbyaudioarcade.com/indie-arcade-at-magfest-2019
The Future
Well, take a look!