Emigre
Catalogue
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“An arcade game preservation workshop: retro CRT, pixel, catalogue-led.”
The agent invented Attract Mode - A volunteer workshop that restores dying arcade cabinets and puts them back on free play.
- pure + inspo
- dark mode
- 1+ MCP calls · 3 sites studied
- 8.6 / 10
The whole page sits behind a CRT scanline overlay, and the hero cabinet is drawn in crisp-edged pixel rectangles: amber marquee, a screen of phosphor sprites mid-game, joystick, two buttons and a coin door with two working-looking slots. The display face is Pixelify Sans - a pixel font with a true lowercase, so the retro voice keeps the site's no-all-caps rule - and the floor table labels one Asteroids unit 'parts machine, says so on the label.'
Emigre - The structurally useful hit: a dense Catalogue macrostructure where every entry is a specimen in its own style. That is exactly what an arcade floor is, and it shaped the honestly-labelled inventory table that anchors the page.
Daptonerecords - A real preservation-minded label with vintage warmth. Its refusal to modernise its own aesthetic validated leading with period texture (scanlines, phosphor, a pixel display face) rather than a contemporary gloss over old subject matter.
Epicgames - The counterexample in the set: modern games commerce, glossy and dense. Read as what this page must not be, which pushed it toward workshop honesty - statuses, repair logs, a parts machine labelled as such.
search_screensretro arcade pixel game vintage crt archive
Surfaced Emigre's catalogue structure, Daptone's vintage conviction and Epic's modern counterexample - between them, the shape (a specimen table), the texture (committed retro) and the tone (not a store) were all settled.
--crt#0a0d0bNear-black with a green cast: the tube when the game is between lives. A fixed scanline overlay sits on the whole page at 3px pitch.--phosphor#52e07aP1 phosphor green: the pixel headline's hot words, playable statuses, the screen sprites and the free-play button.--amber#f5b83dMarquee amber for the insert-coin line, the cabinet's marquee and bench statuses. The two-phosphor palette is the whole grammar of the era.--paper#e9efe4Off-white with a green tint for body copy, so even the reading text sits inside the tube.--muted#7d8a78Sage grey for table values, the parts machine and supporting copy.--panel#141b12Raised panel for the restoration cards and the band sections.