- Ryan Smith
- Joseph Vourteque (right) and fellow steampunk circus performer mingle shortly before their performance.
Chicago steampunk circus maestro Joseph Vourteque stood on the corseted back of a fellow performer as she lay face down in shards of broken glass. Wearing a top hat and a button-up jacket with a watch chain dangling from the pocket, Vourteque flashed a toothy grin as his colleague stood up unharmed—but only a tiny fraction of the crowd clapped in appreciation of the stunt.
- Ryan Smith
- The eccentricities of FTW’s ticket-redemption room.
FTW (Internet gamer slang for “for the win”) is something of a new experiment by the LA suburbs-based Lucky Strike Entertainment, which runs a mini-empire of 18 “boutique” bowling alleys throughout the country, including one at 322 E. Illinois, adjacent to FTW. The successful Lucky Strike formula is simple: take a shaggy working-class game like bowling and white collar it up by replacing shitty beer and the phantom smell of menthol cigarettes with fancy cocktails, elevated pub fare, and a dress code.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Nostalgia aside, Donkey Kong now feels like a Sisyphean exercise in frustration instead of a lighthearted pastime. It’s way more fun to try FTW’s new four-player dirt-track racing game Showdown, where you feel your car’s seat jostle and slide beneath you as you smash into another vehicle demolition-derby style. Even better is Dark Escape, which bills itself as a “4D shooter.” Two players climb into a booth and put on matching 3D visors while gunning down zombies. The extra “dimension” comes in the form of vibrating seats, a heart-rate monitor that measures your freak outs, and strategically placed wind machines that shoot compressed air at your face during jump scares (thankfully, the game doesn’t try to simulate the smell the rotting flesh).
In February 2018, this article was updated to use the phrase ‘arcade bar’ in place of the word originally used.
