Yie Ar Kung-Fu

In my thirty-two years, I must have played thousands and thousands of computer and video games. I can probably only remember about 1% of them with particular fondness, and of those there are very few that I would claim to truly love. Yie Ar Kung-Fu is one of those. It’s not just a game that I love, but for two weeks in 1988, it saved my sanity…

It had flirted with me before then. When I was thirteen or fourteen, a mate and I used to go to the weekly roller disco at the YMCA. I remember a time when the lovely Allyson Scott kept playfully pushing me to the ground, and the very first time I retaliated, I was bollocked by the DJ. I sloped off in shame, only to find a room adorned with arcade machines. Tron was the big name, the one everyone wanted. But, to the side, a lesser-known game called Yie Ar Kung-Fu would sit and blink at me every once in a while. I threw in a few tens now and then, and was hooked. Sadly, the game was gone soon after and the affair ended for a while.

Roller disco, where the thrills and spills are never ending. Well, at least until the DJ shouts at you.

1988 was different. I had left school and was at Sixth Form College. ‘Recreation & Leisure Studies’ was my diploma of choice, and work experience was beckoning. The course was fast becoming a disaster, with only five students remaining, including myself. I got placed, along with a fellow student, at Durham Ice Rink, home of the Durham Wasps ice hockey team. This had to be good…

Unfortunately, it was shit. The place was a dump, run in a shocking manner by the captain of the team, an old woman and a smart young lass who was only in a couple of times a week and had no time for spotty students. They didn’t have a clue what to do with us, so we were stuck in the lobby most of the time. Fortunately, the lobby was home to two arcade machines: Super Mario Bros. (which I ignored) and Yie Ar Kung-Fu.

The object of my affection. “PaulEMoz and Yie Ar, sitting in a tree…”

Over the course of the next two weeks, when I wasn’t stocking the bar (no free drinks), sweeping the ice (no free goes with the skates), organising the stock room (no surplus to steal) or clearing out spider-infested cupboards that hadn’t been investigated in years, I was playing Yie Ar Kung-Fu. I ended up getting pretty good at it, and I fell in love with the game as it saved me from going out of my mind with boredom. The others returned from their work experience placements with tales of flirty young girls, free lunches and gifts from the staff. I returned with tales of the time I beat Blues on Yie Ar Kung-Fu but had to abandon the game to build some furniture.

See those raised seats there? I cleaned out the cupboards under them. Fucking filthy and full of
spiders, they were.

I now consider myself to be pretty good at it. I can consistently score over 850,000, but I’m confident I can reach a million someday. I’ll never get tired of trying either, because after all we’ve been through together, I love Yie Ar Kung-Fu.

PAULEMOZ, June 2004.

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