Read This: Philadelphia City Paper does God's work, interviews the main Photoshopper behind Erotic Photo Hunt
As any good, hard drinking dive bar patron knows, there’s only one game worth playing on those bar top Megatouch machines: Erotic Photo Hunt. Full of bleak pictures of ‘80s-styled Eastern European models, the game is not only fun, but inspires all manner of questions from players. What kind of photo shoots birthed the pics, for instance? Any do these girls know that they’re spread eagle in bars around the country?
Thankfully, former A.V. Club Philadelphia editor Emily Guendelsberger took it upon herself to talk to Megatouch’s head Photoshopper for the Philadelphia City Paper. Jim Hartman is the company’s head writer and content manager, meaning he’s in charge of the weird games and pics on the Megatouch machine. He’s also spent years, as Guendelsberger puts it, “clone-stamping semi-nude women with giant hair.”
In the piece, which is more than worth reading, Hartman muses on the challenges he has making Chippendales Photo Hunt, explains his process for placing differences in Erotic Photo Hunt, and even drops some hints for game play. He says,
“The hairdo’s always a good place to start, especially on the female version; the models in those pictures almost never have short hair, and it’s easy to work on that stuff. Don’t go for the breasts first, it’s almost never that unless they’re wearing something. That was kind of a mandate of mine, not to change the nipples. [Laughs.]
Another place to look is bracelets, jewelry and shoes, because that’s pretty simple to do. Other than that — I used to stick to background things. When I first learned to do this game, all my changes were one in each corner and then one in the center somewhere. As I got a little more advanced I tried to change it up, but if you’re playing an old machine, that’s where you wanna look.”
Bonus points to Hartman for also providing one of his favorite weirdo shots from the game, which has about 3000 rotating photos in it at any given time.