Thanks to the Toffie Festival for inviting us to be there. We had a good time making new friends and managed to catch some of the talks. Thanks to Max for going beyond the call of duty and building a bespoke arcade cabinet for our stall and to all those who came to play. Siggi Eggertsson’s talk was mind bendingly good and inspirational. Looking forward to the next one. 
Cabinet Dry 20 minutes before the fest, love it when a plan comes together
2BOP Strapline: 2BOP/ Video game apparel for corner shop laanies who skiet games whole day
Toffie Fest
Classic of the Month Double Dragon II “The Revenge”
When I was about 10 years old, hey stop doing the math, I used to walk down my grandparents street, Highfield Road in Korsten in PE. Back then Highfield road was like a favella mixed with China Town and a main boulevard all rolled into one with one story apartments above Chinese owned corner shops. Id tell my grandparents I was going to the shop down stairs to play games but in actual fact I’d walk for kilometers looking for games I hadn’t seen before. I found this gem at the end of Highfield Road one day, I couldn’t believe it. The sequel to Double Dragon, the classic side scrolling beat em up. This game was so hardcore whereas at the beginning of the first game they just punched your girlfriend in the belly before kidnapping her. In this one they straight up gun her down in cold blood as you start the game. Hello! They were not messing around. DD2 takes all the best elements of the side scrolling beat em up and speeds it up and adds more colour and smoother animations and adds an extra button and a tricky but intuitive control scheme once you get the hang of it. The first few times it makes absolutely no sense and you look like a fool wondering why you get kicks facing one way , and punches facing another. Yes this is another of those games I was happy just to watch the other kids play as it was so fast and intense and basically killed your 2bop in 10 seconds if you didn’t know what you were doing. Unlike the Fist Double Dragon you could’t just elbow everybody to death while pulling a skuif on an entjie. These games fed my imagination as to what downtown areas in the states and in big cities were like even though they were made by Japanese companies using a limited number of colours and informed more by 80s action movies than reality. This might explain why I wanted to have a helicopter in my garage as a kid. I always thought it was Airwolf’s fault
Toffie!
We have a stall at the Toffie Festival this weekend so come skiet games and maybe win some prizes if you beat us at Street Fighter. (Not You Salie) Come hear talks by local and international design stalwarts such as Kim Jones , Shawn Carboy, Siggi Egertsson and Peet Pienaar. Check the flyer here
The Story
2Bop started in 2004 as a way to turn a passion for classic video games into a form of expression.
2Bop draws inspiration primarily from games that were popular in South Africa at corner shops and arcades in the1980’s and early 1990’s when gameplay was key and graphics if they were good were an added bonus. Disadvantaged areas during apartheid South Africa had little to offer in terms of exposure to cutting edge international design or computer technology but the bootleg arcade games that used twenty cent pieces (a 2Bop) to play at the corner shop were a window into what was happening in the outside world. These games granted access to excellent electronic entertainment and exposed the 2Bop crew to intuitive and engaging interface design, game design, graphic and sound design primarily from Japan and North America. And so began a long fascination with the medium that shows no signs of stopping.