Collection essentials #31: Turtle Bridge (Game & Watch)

 

Behold, the first of very many Nintendo products in this series. Nintendo’s first successful foray into the video game world were these little standalone portable games in a series called “Game & Watch” which ran from 1980 until 1991. The action takes place on an LCD screen. I’m not familiar with how specifically exactly it works, but basically, all possible animations for the characters and objects in the game are engraved into the screen, and they “light up” in deep black when the actual game is going on to display the action. The word “Watch” refers to the fact that the unit can display the current time and have an alarm set.

Game & Watch was a success for Nintendo and the series sold millions of units. However, being a ‘90s kid, I don’t remember ever hearing about or seeing these things at all. What I DO remember were many LCD handheld games by a company called Tiger, which were never really all that good but any kid my age remotely interested in games probably tinkered with a few because they were so common. But my generation was made aware of Game & Watch in 2001 when Nintendo released Super Smash Bros. Melee and included a character named “Mr. Game & Watch” who was basically an amalgamation of various Game & Watch characters. There were also a few compilations of Game & Watch titles made for different Game Boy systems (stay tuned for those!) which let you play the various Game & Watch games with slight modifications to fit the Game Boy screen, so Game & Watch Gallery 3 was my first time actually trying out a form of the Game & Watch titles for myself. It actually wasn’t until fairly recently that I thought, “Hey, why the heck don’t I get a few original Game & Watch machines for myself??” and then did so.

Anyways, this one here, Turtle Bridge, was my first one. Basically, your guy has to deliver items from one riverbank to the other, and to cross the river he has to hop on a row of turtle shells. But this is hazardous because the turtles will regularly dive underwater to try and grab food (which you can see coming), which means you will fall into the water if you’re on it when this happens. It gets progressively harder the more you play. The “Game A” and “Game B” buttons represent two difficulty levels (as most Game & Watches have). In Game A, the center turtle will never dive so it’s basically a safe zone, but on Game B it will dive like the other turtles. If you “miss” three times then it’s game over.

Game & Watch games are fun and playing on the real thing is really cool and more enjoyable than, say, one of the Game Boy versions of these games. It feels like you’re holding a quality product, which you don’t feel when playing one of those ‘90s Tiger handhelds. Succeeding in these games is a matter of learning to pay proper attention to everything going on. I love getting really focused and invested into a play session. Stay tuned the next two days as I show off more Game & Watch units. 

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