Stickers and decals hold a certain, unique appeal, which is why even as adults we’ll throw down money for cool ideas like this which we can plaster onto our walls or other objects. As children, many of us find stickers strangely alluring, which would explain why “sticker books” are still being made, along with the vending machines that dispense stickers and temporary tattoos. As adults, we can enjoy the same thrill of marking objects with designs, and we can do so without parents yelling at us for covering the family dog in stickers.
The first example comes from Blik, a company which sells a variety of creative wall decals. I’ve purchased from them before and I have to say that they’re fantastic solutions for apartment life, when you can’t exactly paint or wallpaper your walls but want them to be less plain and empty. The decals stick to the wall quite firmly, but they peel off without any goo/glue. The more intricate ones are one-time use, but many of these video game wall decals are composed of simpler shapes, meaning they can be “re-stuck” a number of times. The Nintendo ones, for example, let you create your own Super Mario Bros. level, whether you want to re-create a scene from the original game or mix and match the various shapes to make a unique scene of your own. Atari has less wall-hogging designs, with simple scenes based off arcade hits Asteroids, Centipede, and even Pong. Astroids and Pong are especially good for a more minimal video-game design. Namco brings Pac-Man to the table (or the wall, more accurately) with wall decals mimicking Pac-Man levels and characters. Lastly, Capcom has their own contribution with a number of Mega Man sprites which can be removed and re-stuck in various orientations to build your own epic battle scene. You can grab your own for $35-75 from Blik. For articles on other video game wall decals, check out these Tetris Decals or some Space Invaders Stickers.
The second set of video game decals centers around more Nintendo nostalgia, turning newer video games into classic NES cartridges. At the moment, the decals are already stuck to cartridges, so you can’t buy them yet on their own. For $20, you get some beautiful Nintendo-style art stuck to an actual NES cartridge (most likely Mario/Duck Hunt given how many of those exist for cheap). Obviously, they’re meant more for display purposes, which is why each cartridge also comes with a plastic hook for wall mounting. These designs cover newer games ranging from blockbusters like Halo, Killzone, and Dead Space to somewhat lesser-known games like Okami and Katamari Damacy to indie games like Super Meat Boy and Castle Crashers. The variety means you should be able to find at least one that stands out to you in all its pixelated glory. I’m unsure of the exact dimensions, but for those who like to mod their toys, it might even be possible to turn these cartridges into DVD cases for the games pictured. As they are, though, they’re already a beautiful throwback to an older era of gaming.
