May 23, 2021
The Inspiration Behind Mattel’s Handheld D&D Game
Mattel Electronic’s blood-red Dungeons & Dragons handheld was inspired by a nascent 1970s adventure text game and designed by a…
Category: Handheld
May 7, 2021
The Queen’s Gambit and Mattel’s Chess
Before The Queen’s Gambit, before the more than 30 published books about chess, there was a chance phone call and…
April 3, 2021
When Cabbage Patch Creators Went Head-to-Head with Atari
The birth of video games, in many ways, was seeded in the fertile ground of an eclectic mix of different…
March 27, 2021
How the Microvision Inspired Nintendo’s Game and Watch
I’ve never really believed the old story that the Game & Watch was inspired by a man playing around with…
March 7, 2021
Jimmy the Greek and Handheld Gaming
Jimmy George Snyder Sr., better known as Jimmy the Greek, is not the sort of person you might connect with…
February 27, 2021
Digi Casse, Game Kid and the LCD Game Catridge
In the beignning there was Mattel Football, and it was good. Technically, that’s not really true. The first handheld is…
February 21, 2021
Before the Game Boy There Was the Game Pocket Computer
Five or so years before the Game Boy blew everyone’s collective socks off, there was a slew of attempts to…
February 14, 2021
A History of the Portable Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive everywhere but in North America) has a weird history when it comes…
February 6, 2021
Nokia’s Gaming, Sidetalking, Taco Phone
Before smartphones from Apple, Samsung, and the like were dominating the mobile gaming space, Nokia burst onto the scene with…
January 24, 2021
How Mario, Zelda, Pac Man Became Game Watches
Handheld gaming has been around for about 40 years, but wrist gaming has been around nearly as long. As far…