The unfinished Pac-Man maze at the National Videogame Museum

In 2015, I was 12 years old. My parents had been restoring arcade games as a hobby in their spare time. We had a Dyn-O-Mite pinball machine that my mother had had since she was a kid, a Ms. Pac-Man, a Tron, and a Gorf. I don't remember if we had all of those at once, but those were our earliest machines if I remember correctly.

Anyway, around that time the National Videogame Museum was being built in the Frisco Discovery Center. I can't remember how they got involved, but near the beginning my parents became the museum's technicians. I remember coming with them to a dinner at the Outback Steakhouse with the museum's founders and some of the team trying to figure out what they should name the museum's arcade. My kid self thought the name they picked, Pixel Dreams, was one of the stupidest ideas I had ever heard. I've grown to like it over time.

I remember watching a woman paint the mural on the wall for the consoles. She spent hours standing on an extremely tall ladder and I would pester her with stupid questions about video games. If you're reading this, sorry 12 year old me wouldn't shut up!

I nearly grew up in that building. My parents would take me with them and spend hours repairing machines in the half-built arcade and I would lay on the floor. It was interesting, but over time it got very boring. The museum's founder, Joe Santulli, was very kind to me and I loved talking to him. I haven't spoken to him since the museum's opening party in 2016(?), but I always looked forward to seeing him when he was at the museum.

Anyway, I remember when they were building the arcade, cutting foam for the pixel stripes and airbrushing the planets on the wall, they were also considering painting a Pac-Man maze on the ceiling. They got as far as drawing a sketch of it and then they just... didn't go through with it. I don't recall why. Instead, they put one of those party projectors on the floor in the core behind the machines where nobody could see it. It would project those moving neon lights across the ceiling. The kinda thing they put at raves and company parties. I'm not sure if it's still there anymore, but they didn't keep it on for very long.

If you ever visit the museum, look at the ceiling at Pixel Dreams! Part of the maze is still there. I'm not sure if anyone else has really talked about it.

I have more stories about being raised at the museum but they're not as fun. Just small stuff like cataloging the boxed Atari games that are at the game crash exhibit or donating a book of mine to be used in the bedroom. I also have an unused Pong console painted gold that was intended to be used in the sculpture in the foyer. I'm not sure where that went. It's probably in the attic.