And no, not the damaged Shinobi machine that I recently broke into a million pieces. This weekend, I sold traded away my good Shinobi machine.

Back in 2003, I went to a video game auction and bought two arcade machines: Bucky O’Hare, and Shinobi. I bought Bucky O’Hare on a whim because Bucky’s last name was so similar to my own, but Shinobi had been a childhood favorite of mine. The game was released in 1987, right around the height of my “ninja phase”. Something about the game clicked with me. I enjoyed it then, and now.

When I bought Shinobi I didn’t even have a game room. I put both of the machines out in my garage, and played them occasionally out there. As I’ve mentioned many times, it was Susan, my family, and my friends who surprised me on my 30th birthday by converting the shed in our backyard into a home arcade. At that time, my arcade only had those two arcade games (plus an air hockey table and a slot machine).

From 2003 to 2011, that collection would swell from 2 machines to 30. When I rearranged my machines, I put Shinobi as the very first machine you saw. That machine lived through it all. It was one of the first two machines I bought this time around, and one of the last ones to go. For all the ups and downs this hobby has taken me through over the past decade, Shinobi was there and along for the ride.