Retro Thing

The iPad Finally Gets A D-Pad Controller

I admire Jony Ive's sense of minimalism, but sometimes it feels like things have gone too far. The iPad is a case in point -- the absence of physical controls makes it tough to play some games. No matter how often the Ghost of Steve whispers eerily that we're in the post-console world, wiggling your finger over a tiny image of a 3D joystick while banging another finger repeatedly against a sheet of hardened glass just doesn't capture the spirit of retro gaming.

To fill the gap, iCade will soon introduce the 8-Bitty. It's a rainbow colored iPad/Pod/Phone/Android controller that evokes the design of the original NES gamepad (a skinny rectangle, in other words). This diminutive bluetooth-powered gadget offers a Nintendo-style d-pad, 4 action buttons, a couple of shoulder buttons and the requisite select/start buttons. It's compatible with Atari Greatest Hits app for iPad, along with a number of indy titles and various incarnations of the MAME arcade emulator.

ThinkGeek is promising that the 8-Bitty will be available "later this year" for a surprisingly reasonable $24.99. So why are they telling us about it now? To give developers a chance to add 8-Bitty support to their apps, of course.

Find out more about the iCade 8-Bitty at ThinkGeek

Super Mario Bros. in 64 Pixels

Super Pixel Bros., the brainchild of Brad Slattery, is a reduction of the classic Nintendo game into its pure blocky essence. A reimagining of the original "Super Mario Bros.," Super Pixel Bros. boils down all the characters, blocks and other bits of the scrolling Mushroom Kingdom world into an 8-pixel-by-8-pixel handheld. Mario is a single pixel, as are the enemies and the projectiles you can fire.

"The game shares some similarities with the original, you just need to use your imagination since all the characters are represented by a single pixel," Brad writes. His version has 20 levels, based on the originals, and even includes boss fights. (Your single-pixel hero has to jump on his single-pixel nemesis a certain number of times before hitting the ground.)

He is working on plans to sell the PCB boards, which combined with off-the-shelf parts and his open source code would be enough to build the game. (A custom case might be fun to design yourself.) He also is working on a possible full-kit version. Either way, this is probably less of a beginner DIY electronic project, since it relies on tiny surface-mount components.

Still, with the challenging gameplay and the ability to make new levels, anyone willing to take it on could be in for some long-term fun.

[via Hack a Day]

The Most Fun You Can Have With 4 LEDs

Milton Bradley scored a smash hit in 1978 with Simon, a dinner plate sized electronic game with four lighted buttons. Its "repeat the pattern" gameplay took seconds to learn, but hours to master.

Simon spawned many clones, including Pocket Repeat (manufactured by Tiger). This tiny handheld game first appeared in Radio Shack's 1981 catalog, and I picked one up on sale just after that Christmas. It received sporadic bursts of attention before getting lost during my college years (most likely during a not-so-clever drinking game).

A decade or so later, I stumbled across an updated version in a clearance bin and adopted it. It now lives in my office, where it amuses visitors and occasionally exercises my withered synapses.

SUPABOY Pocket SNES Console

I have a love-hate relationship with console emulators. On one hand, my classic consoles tend to end up in storage because they're bulky and somewhat glitchy. On the other, a modern emulator rarely captures the heart and soul of the original machine.

That said, I'm strangely drawn to the Hyperkin SUPABOY. This ungainly handheld mimics the shape of the original SNES controller, except with a 3.5" LCD screen and an SNES cartridge port in the back. The need for a massive cartridge ensures that it'll be heavy and awkward while attracting countless bewildered stares and stifled giggles.

However, a pair of SNES controller ports and a composite video out jack turns it into a teeny, tiny home console that feels like the real thing (if you can scrounge up a pair of genuine SNES controllers). The unit carries a list of $79.99, which hopefully translates into a street price of around $50 by the time it hits Amazon. That's almost reasonable.

The 11.5 oz SUPABOY measures 8.5 x 4 x 1.5 inches and includes stereo AV out, a headphone jack and a bizarrely guesstimated 5.5 hour battery life (tested once, without sound...). The manufacturer tested it with a handful of popular SNES and Japanese Famicom titles, but they jury is still out on real world compatibility. Available sometime late this summer from an online retailer near you.

SUPABOY Portable Pocket SNES Console

Auction: Nintendo Game Boy Flown In Space

It should come as no surprise that my 8-year-old is an avid collector of vintage Nintendo handhelds. His latest acquisition is an original Game Boy and a handful of games from a used game store. The Kid thought it was an absolute bargain for $15, but he's always on the lookout for interesting additions to his collection.

I dare not show him this one, which is expected to fetch $1500-$2000 at auction.

Lot No. 250 in Bonhams' upcoming Space History Sale is a spacefaring Game Boy that flew on Soyuz TM-17 in 1993. It logged 196 days in space in the possession of cosmonaut Aleksandr A. Serebrov. The lot includes the Game Boy unit, (highly appropriate) Tetris game pack and the Tetris game booklet. The unit and booklet are marked with faint Mir postmarks and accompanied by a handwritten provenance note from Serebrov that reads, "Like all cosmonauts, I love sport. My particular favorites are football and swimming. During flight, in rare minutes of leisure, I enjoyed playing Game Boy."

For his sanity's sake, I hope Tetris wasn't the only game Serebrov took on the journey.

Lot No. 250: NINTENDO GAME BOY FLOWN IN SPACE [via a comment by Mikiex on this post]

Lessons Learned From The Original Game Boy

Handheld gaming has reached a crossroads. In one corner, we have the industry's old guard -- Nintendo and Sony -- with their more-or-less traditional 3DS and NGP gaming devices. In the other corner are a couple of young and eager upstarts -- Apple's iOS and the Google Android platform. Industry pundits have wasted no time arguing the merits of each, but I suspect the winner will be the device that most closely emulates key elements of the original Game Boy's success.

Let's take a quick walk down memory lane. Unveiled in April 1989, Nintendo's gray brick was laughably simple by today's standards - the microprocessor was a pokey Z80 variant clocked at a mere 4.19 MHz and the non-backlit display offered only four shades of gray arranged in a 160 × 144 grid. It had 8 kB of internal RAM.

Nevertheless, the Game Boy went on to sell over 118 million units. Its success can be contributed to several important (but perhaps accidental) factors.

The first element was the availability of killer games -- Tetris was initially included as the pack-in title, helping to spur Christmas sales in 1989. A broad range of impressive titles followed featuring the likes of Mario, Donkey Kong and a flock of Pokemon.

The second part of the puzzle was simplicity. The Game Boy could be picked up by a six year old or a sixty year old and its five front panel controls were easily understood - a d-pad, A and B buttons and smaller Select and Start buttons.

However, the critical part of the puzzle was somewhat counter-intuitive. The Game Boy fell short against stiff competition from the impressive $189.95 Atari Lynx (with color backlit screen and networking) and the $150 Sega Game Gear (3.2" color display). So how did the Game Boy -- with a ghastly 2.6" reflective monochrome display that spat out 4 shades of olive green -- win the battle against technically superior systems?

The key difference was overall cost. The Game Boy retailed for only $89.99 and required 4 x AA batteries that lasted about 12 hours. Its more expensive competitors chewed through 6 x AA batteries in as few as 4 hours of game play -- a difference that parents quickly picked up on.

So what does this say about gaming in 2011? First and foremost, cost is king. The iPod Touch, NGP and 3DS all fall into the $229 to $299 price range, and all feature rechargable batteries. So there's no clear winner on the hardware front.

But Apple has a distinct advantage with app pricing -- most games are priced well under $5, which makes it difficult for Nintendo and Sony to justify their traditional $35+ pricing structure. It's true that many iOS games are somewhat lightweight, but I suspect many parents are far more willing to fork out $30 for ten shorter games than risking the same amount on a single 3DS title.

A third element is still up in the air: simplicity. The iPod Touch doesn't include a d-pad or physical buttons, opting instead for touch screen control and software flexibility. It fits Apple's Zen approach to product design, but makes for a less than ideal gaming system.

Perhaps this is where the Android platform will slip past the others and dominate the handheld market.  Envision, if you would, an Android powered gaming device with a touch screen and physical controls that retails for under $200 and combines key elements of iOS (app pricing and software flexibility) with important handheld game attributes (low cost and physical controls). That could be the magic bullet.

Play The Pica Pic Retro Handheld Collection

Rich writes, "I was forwarded this by a friend. I'm a retro game aficionado and find this site a winner. Not only do they nail the game play, but the implementation of the control scheme really does a good job of simulating the button pushing."

The project was created by Hipopotam Studio, the brainchild of Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinscy in Warsaw. Pica Pic currently offers 18 recreations of vintage LCD games from the 1980s, including classics like Nintendo's dual screen Zelda and Russian Game & Watch clones such as the cartoon-based Nu, pogodi!

The controls are mapped to your computer keyboard, making it easy to enjoy these monochromatic classics in all their bleepy glory.

Explore the Pica Pic retro handheld game collection

Foreshadowing The Nintendo DS

I purchased this Game & Watch title in a moment of irrational weakness during the summer of 1983, somewhere in Knightsbridge. It was my traveling companion across Europe and North America at a time when handhelds weren't commonplace -- there were no iPhones to keep adults amused, and kids didn't have Nintendo DSes.

In 1979, legendary Nintendo designer Gunpei Yokoi spotted a businessman idly playing with a digital calculator on a train. His observation spawned the idea of a tiny LCD-based game that could also double as a timepiece.

The first Game & Watch - Ball - was introduced in early 1980, and almost 60 different titles were produced by the time production ceased in 1991. In addition to the immensely popular single and dual screen handhelds, there were also various tabletop and widescreen titles. Over 43 million Game & Watch units were sold worldwide, and their success encouraged the release of the immensely successful Game Boy series, also spearheaded by Mr. Yokoi.

I put mine on eBay last night and it's still at $1 with no bids.This could be your chance to own a bargain-priced piece of gaming history (If you're interested in photography, I also listed mint Holga and Diana+ Lomo cameras).

Now Shipping: Pandora Open Source Game System

I first wrote about the Pandora open source gaming platform over two years ago, excited by its retro gaming possibilities. For a while, I feared it was vaporware, but they're finally shipping the first units from the UK.

Pandora promises to be a retrogamer's paradise.  It crams a 4.3-inch 800x480 LCD screen, qwerty keyboard, 128MB RAM and Wi-Fi into a clamshell case only slightly larger than a Nintendo DS.

Pandora is Linux based, so it'll support numerous browsers and developers are expecting it to be an extremely capable platform for running emulators (Super NES, Playstation 1, SEGA Genesis and many others) along with homebrew titles.

An open source gaming platform means that gamers will no longer be at the whim of Nintendo or Sony, and there's a very real chance that some skilled independent developers will be able to eke out a lucrative market selling affordable original titles for the machine. It includes dual SD card slots and TV a TV output, so it's possible for Pandora to act as a media hub, too.

What do you guys think? Will you buy one? This thing appeals to me far more than a netbook, because I think it has a good chance of sparking a fervent following much like the C-64, Radio Shack CoCo and Sinclair Spectrum did in the early 80s.

Pandora: The Cortex A8 Powered Handheld Linux Console

Revisiting The Game Boy Advance

Deal Extreme is a weird and wonderful online shop in Hong Kong. They're worth checking out every now and then, just in case they've got some nifty new LED watches, compact flashlights or hand-held games in stock. 

I came across their aptly named Designer 2.9" LCD Portable Handheld Game Console a few days ago. On the outside, it's the spitting image of a crystal clear Nintendo Game Boy Advance. However, it houses an ARM-core emulator and 2GB of memory loaded with about 90 GBA titles and over 300 NES games.

A USB cable is included to charge the built-in battery and transfer new games, although there's probably enough here already to keep you occupied for a few weeks. The surprisingly well-built unit does a pretty good job of emulating most games, although some titles exhibit a bit of slowdown and weirdness. Build quality seems rock solid, too.

My main gripe is that the display aspect ratio isn't quite right -- I'm guessing that the creators used whatever panel they could. All in all, this is a great way to get a vintage Game Boy Advance fix for under $50 (with free shipping).

Designer 2.9" LCD Portable Handheld Game Console with 498 Built-in Games

Ode to the NEC TurboExpress

Aaron Nanto presents the most beautiful unboxing video I've ever seen.

This tribute to the NEC TurboExpress portable video game system was shot in 1080p at 24 fps using a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR and is presented in super-duper 2.39:1 widescreen. [via OhGizmo!]

Russian Handheld Game Emulator

Back in the 1980s -- when Nintendo's Game & Watch series was all the rage in the West -- there were similar LCD devices floating around the USSR.

Handheld Quake is a PC-based simulator that lets you try these brilliantly odd games without having to scour the grimy nether regions of eBay. It comes with 11 Russian titles including Explorers of Space and Merry Arithmetics (both would make great band names).

Five classic Nintendo games are also included, allowing you to cross the Iron Curtain with a simple click of the mouse. Available for Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP, and I wouldn't be surprised if it runs perfectly under Win 7 -- let me know.

Handheld Quake - Simulator of Soviet, Russian & Foreign Games [thanks, Ondrej!]

DOA: The Epoch Game Pocket Computer

Being first out of the gate doesn't guarantee success. A case in point: The Epoch Game Pocket Computer, released in 1984. It featured a 6 MHz NEC microprocessor, 75 x 64 pixel monochrome display and supported up to 16K ROM cartridges. Amazingly, it ran for 70 hours on 4 x AA batteries.

While not the first cartridge-based handheld (that title goes to 1979's Microvision, with its crude 16 x 16 pixel display and sluggish 4-bit TMS1100 processor), it was the first Japanese machine to offer a moderately high resolution display paired with a capable CPU. Unfortunately, Epoch made a couple of serious mistakes.

The industrial design was awkward, to say the least. The case was enormous and ugly (hardly pocketable, either). A peek inside suggests that the machine was designed in a hurry -- a bit of careful thinking and the use of surface-mount parts would have resulted in a much sleeker and more compact device. As it was, the beast was almost too large to be held comfortably by kids.

Epoch's second error was that they launched with a really weak selection of titles. There were five games in all, but only two -- Astro Bomber (based on Konami's Scramble) and Block Maze (a Pac-Man derivative) -- look even remotely interesting. The others are yawn-inducing -- Reversi, Sokoban and Mahjong. To add insult to injury, the machine didn't ship with a pack-in game; the package included a dummy cart to fill the space.

The lack of must-have titles was a fatal mistake, something Nintendo definitely kept in mind when they rolled out the Game Boy five years later with the highly addictive puzzle game Tetris in the box.

For more info, visit Chris Covell's Epoch Game Pocket Computer page

Club Nintendo Resurrects The Game & Watch LCD Handheld

Japanese Club Nintendo members who have reached Platinum status will receive a brand new Game & Watch LCD game. Well, it's not actually a new game. It's a reissue of Ball, the very first G&W title to hit shelves way back in April, 1980. It's powered by a CR2032 watch battery which should be good for months of simulated juggling.

Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of the early single screen Game & Watch series. I think they hit their stride when Nintendo unveiled dual screen games like Donkey Kong (1982) and Mario Bros (1983). Still, this is a nice perk for Japanese Nintendo aficionados who've accrued more than 400 points during the year.

As for the rest of us, we're apparently out of luck.

Club Nintendo 2009 Platinum Reward [via Kotaku]

Pocketeers - Handheld Games From The Mechanical Age

The first eight Pocketeers hit the UK in 1975. I was an impressionable 7-year-old when they appeared in local shops and it didn't take long for them to overrun my school, accompanied by their tell-tale rattle.

Predictably, the Pocketeers (sold in the USA as Tomy Pocket Games) were compact enough to slip into a pocket. Most were games of skill that required manipulating tiny ball bearings, but several incorporated thumbwheel-driven magnets hidden under the playfield that controlled little cars or horses.

Over the course of the next few years, British toymaker Palitoy produced a total of 46 Pocketeer titles under license from Tomy. New titles were introduced yearly and it seemed as if the craze would never end. Sadly, as with all toy crazes, things came to a grinding halt in the early eighties when a new breed of microprocessor-controlled handhelds captured the attention of kids worldwide.

My son is now a precocious 7-year-old and his Nintendo DS accompanies him everywhere. He grew up in a world infused with mp3 players, computers, video games and DVDs, yet I think he'd see these clever little mechanical toys as something really special...

The UK Pocketeers List [James Masters]
The US Pocket Games List