Sorry, no time for updates

spending most of my spare time with the famliy (doubled since my last post)

see also here:

• Fossi
• Ola
• Flora
• Adrian
  

Nintendo Game & Watch Goldcliff

Multiscreen Game & Watch, 1988, Model Nr: MV-64.

An ebay-Austria purchase, came boxed in Pocketsize box, yeah!

Gold Cliff is the first game with a continue option. Your first mission is to climb the walls of the ancient ruin. You need to be quick as the steps soon disappear. Next you need to skilfully grab the key on the right wall. You need it to open the door at the top and get to the next chamber. Sometimes you get to a treasure chamber. Here you need to grab the sword on the left wall and use it to stab the enemy that is guarding the treasure. This way you will be able to get hold of the treasure. All you have to do is watch out for the crabs that patrol the bottom of the screen.

This is the first game with a continue button. When the key is held down, the top score and the words 'continue' will be displayed at the bottom left corner of the screen. When you release the key, you can start the previous game. However, the score and the number of mistakes are cleared and you start from '0'.




See also here and here

Tandy Pizza Doublescreen

Another ebay purchase: Tandy Pizza, dated 1986.
It's an LCD game, uses one LR43 battery.

What makes this item a little bit special is that it is a double screen. Since Nintendo had patended their Multiscreen Games, there are not very much double screen models from other companies.

But this game is quite an Nintendo rip-off. Gameplay is more or less the same as Nintendos Multiscreen Game & Watch Mario Bros.

Systema Cat and Mice

Arrived last friday: a Systema "Cat & Mice" LCD handheld game, boxed with manual.
Modelnumber is WG714, made in Hong Kong. Production date is unknown, there is no date on the game, the box or the manual.

Nintendo Game & Watch Vermin

Today is a very special day: I've got my very first Nintendo Game & Watch Silver series item: 'Vermin':



The so called 'silver' games was released in 1980 and was the first in the game & watch series. The first game released was 'Ball' and was followed by 4 more games before Nintendo delivered the gold edition (Manhole 81-01-29), with only minor changes in colour. Very hard to find this days, and expensive boxed.

My Vermin is box, though the box has seen better days:



Vermin is a game where you move a man holding clubs left or right. You need to position the man so he can knock the Vermin on the head with the hammer as they appear. Game A has only 4 different positions where the Vermin can come from and Game B has 5 (The middle one is also used).
This game is also known as "Exterminator" released by Mego Corp and "Maulwurfs-Jagd" by TricOtronic.

Coleco Total Control 4

New ebay arrival: Coleco Total Control 4, including all 4 known cardridges (Hockey, Soccer, Football und Basketball).
Well, its kinda handheld game, so I had to get it ;)

It is a fairly simple cartridge based sports game system for up to 4 players. It was sold with the football cartridge (which is the entire orange area in the picture).
Three other sports games were available: Basketball, Hockey and Soccer. They were all sold together as an add-on pack for the game.


1981, LED, 2 9 Volts batteries, Model# 2125, Cartridge add-on pack Model# 2129

Interesting note: The cartridges aren't really cartridges at all, basically just game overlays and a switch to tell the system which game to play. The only thing in the cartidges is a little circuit board that connects certain contacts together:

Game & Watch Fire Attack

I received a new Game & Watch today, an ebay purchase.

"Fire Attack" was released in 1992 by Nintendo as part of their Game & Watch Wide Screen lineup.



Gameplay:
Indians want to burn down your fort. Two try to do that by throwing torches and two other try it by climbing up the fort to light it with their torches. You have to prevent that. You need to knock down the thrown torches or the Indians who are climbing up your fort. If you are not able to hit a torch or a climber, your fort will be set on fire and you'll get a miss.

Get more info at the In the Attic Game & Watch webpage.

Tiger Game.com Handheld

In 1997, Tiger Electronics, Ltd. diverged from their traditional line of pocket sized LCD games and made a programmable system. What they came up with was the Game.Com. The original Game.Com as shown below featured two cartridge slots on the right side for placing games. Both could be utilized at start up, as the system asked the user which cartridge they would like to play. The system came with a limited speech function. The unit also used a stylus pen with a touch based screen for their system functions. Functions programmed in the system included a calendar, calculator, address book, and solitaire.

The device I aquired recently is boxed and almost mint :).
I also got 3 cartridges with games.

Heres a picture of my device:



and a picture of the box:



more info about this device can be found here:

• entry at MiniArcade.com
• a nice Review
• even more info...

Starting a blog...

I've decided to start a blog to document my quest for electronic (handheld) games of the 70's and 80's.
Some time ago I a dear friend of mine (Zyx) showed me a Game & Watch Donkey Kong emulator.
It was enormous fun to play these game again after so many years, and it brought back quite a lot of school yard memories.

If you want to check out some Game & Watch emulators you might have a look at one or more of these websites:

• Tossup (1.st Game & Watch ever) Emulator
• Lots of Handheld Emulators for download
• House of G&W simulators

I decided that I wanted the thing for real as well as at least the two other Game & Watch devices I had owned as a child (but have been lost since): Donkey Kong Jr. and Octopus.

And so I started collecting Game & Watch devices, and since I'm generaly fond of electronic handheld games, I added more other brands to my wanted list.

At the moment I'm aquiring most of the itmes from ebay, where my account is f0ssi (maybe some of you have already bid against me :)

In this blog I'll try to document my acquisitions and post the one or other news from the electronic plastic front.

I've already posted some of the latest acquisitions on the web, if you want to take a closer look check it out here.