{"id":24415,"date":"2025-09-22T10:18:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T09:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=24415"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:18:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T09:18:53","slug":"the-retro-room-launches-belfasts-first-retro-arcade-premises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2025\/09\/the-retro-room-launches-belfasts-first-retro-arcade-premises\/","title":{"rendered":"The Retro Room Launches Belfast\u2019s First Retro Arcade Premises"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-2025-09-22-at-09.36.06.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-24417\" src=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-2025-09-22-at-09.36.06-1024x674.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"674\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was back to the 80s as The Retro Room at Cityside pressed start on Belfast\u2019s first retro arcade premises, with plenty more to come.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The arcade has a lorry load of new games on the way, including a very rare Tehkan World Cup, the iconic four-player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marble Madness, and Solomon\u2019s Key. A gigantic Guitar Hero set-up will also be launching soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An outdoor area will open at the end of September featuring classic tabletop games such as Rock \u2018Em Sock \u2018Em Robots, Operation, Battleships, Binho, Plakks and many others. This will also provide a respite and rest space for gamers when the 80s chiptunes and flashing lights become a bit too much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A number of special events are planned for the coming months, beginning with the first Halloween Spooktacular over the Halloween weekend. The arcade will be filled with Halloween-themed games including Terrordrome, Splatterhouse, and Castlevania. Spooky surprises will also appear around Cityside and a costume competition, in collaboration with Comic Book Guys, Northern Ireland\u2019s leading independent comic retailer, will offer prizes for the freakiest costumes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Founder Marty Neill said: \u201cIt\u2019s taken five years to bring The Retro Room to life but it was so worth it to see so many smiling faces of people from all ages at our launch weekend. People either remember some great games from their youth or discover great games that are new to them, which is exactly why we wanted to do this. We were kids in the 80s and we spent our lives in the arcades. It\u2019s nice to be able to do that for kids now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe have big plans for The Retro Room including the ability to hire the arcade for private parties such as team building, corporate events, birthday parties and retirements from the end of September.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWith loads of leisure activities such as mini golf, axe throwing, the Movie House Cinema, pool and darts at Gallaher\u2019s Bar, bingo and the kids\u2019 play area at Funky Monkeys, as well as plenty of food options on site, we feel Cityside is the perfect home for our retro arcade where people of all ages can come and spend the whole day playing and enjoying themselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>To find out more about The Retro Room, follow @belfastarcade on social media or visit<\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/retroroombelfast.com\"> <b>retroroombelfast.com<\/b><\/a><b>.<\/b><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was back to the 80s as The Retro Room at Cityside pressed start on Belfast\u2019s first retro arcade premises, with plenty more to come. The arcade has a lorry load of new games on the way, including a very rare Tehkan World Cup, the iconic four-player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marble Madness, and Solomon\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2025\/09\/the-retro-room-launches-belfasts-first-retro-arcade-premises\/\">Continued<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1903,388,1902,1901],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24418,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24415\/revisions\/24418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}