By Andrew Kamal

     Game and Watch is the predecessor to modern handhelds starting in the 1980s. Some of the games that were in this series all led to the modern NIntendo games that we have today. One of them being the very well known “Donkey Kong Series”. Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr. as well as almost all the mini-games were originally released on the “Game & Watch” series by Nintendo, which were basically series of handhelds meant to play single low bit games in the late 1900s.

     Another classic that was made insanely famous through this series was Mario with games before Mario Kart like the original Mario Bros or even a “Mario the Juggler” game. Some of the original Mario games even had no sounds or little sound effects, literally some of these games were released before the voice of Mario was even casted. The small but critical success of Nintendo’s “Game & Watch” series were one of their first success in the gaming industry and led to a nice reception of the N64, Gamecube and later handhelds such as the Gameboy or the Gameboy Micro.

     Zelda was also released as a “Game & Watch” classic in what I believe to be the year 1989. Since then it has been digitally remastered and featured many different effects and better graphics. Everyone who had a Zelda “Game & Watch” will now get Nostalgic feels playing 3D or 64 bit versions of the game today. Games like Snoopy and Pinball were also classics but they didn’t continue in wide reception for as long as games like Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong.

     Did you know some of your games also started as 8 bit handhelds or retros? What other games do you think may have started from a lesser innovation at its time? Was this a trip back to memory lane for you or something new?

Andrew Kamal is an app developer, programmer, and inventor who loves writing about historical technology and old games.

He can be found in his free time hugging pugs and debating people about which pizza topics are better. 

Coming Soon from Andrew:

5 Best Games for the Sega Genesis
10 Nostalgic Retro Atari Games