GPS Graffiti: San Francisco Man Creates Videogame Homages -- That You Can Bike

By Joe Eskenazi Fri., May 29 2009 at 8:30 AM

Categories: Local News, SF Oddities

Vicente Montelongo

It's an 8.7-mile bike jaunt around the Mission -- and you get bonus points if you shoot the UFO at the top of the screen

Yesterday we wrote about the nostalgia-inducing Market and Brady mural featuring 1980s videogame stalwarts Q-Bert and Donkey Kong Jr. Today we've learned of videogame "graffiti" on a larger scale -- 8.7 miles larger.

With the aid of a GPS -- and nary a can of spray paint -- San Francisco graphic designer Vicente Montelongo has created a series of bike trails in the city shaped like videogame heroes of yore. What's his rationale? He tells SF Weekly, "I'm just doing it for the love of 8bit, San Francisco, biking, and the need to create."

Suits us! Montelongo has been posting maps of his GPS videogame trips on the Web site EveryTrail.com. View them there and, here, click on the jump for a handful of images (it won't even cost you a quarter).

Here's the pen-on-paper map for Montelongo's 8.7-mile Space Invader bike trip (complete with driving directions):

Vicente Montelongo

And here's a couple more jaunts around the city:

Vicente Montelongo

When in the Outer Sunset, don't fail to bike 'Pac Man and Blinky'

Vicente Montelongo

"Berzerk" -- that's one of the game's robot bad guys above -- never was as successful a game as Space Invaders or, of course, Pac Man (which obsessed a generation). Still, it has a place in many folks' hearts -- and you can play it here.