Category Archives: Handhelds

Who created the Munchman Handheld?

Anyone who has read my blog before knows I am a big fan of retro handheld games, and Munchman from Grandstand was a great example. Many of these games attempted to recreate the big arcade games of the time, which explains the proliferation of space invader clones, including the likes of Galaxy Invader and Astro Wars. The Space Invaders game format translated relatively well to the VFD handheld games, due to the relatively simplistic graphics, and that fact that the invaders and the player character didn’t occupy the same space on the game screen.

When it comes to replicating a maze game, and of course we are talking about Pac Man, the graphical challenge is much greater using a VFD screen. As well as having to create a realistic looking maze, you also have a playfield that requires the player character, the enemy ghosts and also the pac pills to be represented in the maze at the same time.Grandstand managed to achieve this with the classic Munchman, delivering a great Pac Man clone that stays true to original despite the limitations of the format.

Grandstand Munchman Design

The game itself is large and round, like a dinner plate, in a bright shiny yellow, a clear reference to it’s Pac Man heritage. Rather than using a joystick, which would have stood out against the smooth surface of the game, 4 directional buttons were used to control your Munchman. The only other switches are the on / off switch, and a difficulty selector that dicates the speed of the chasing ghosts.

The gameplay is as you would expect, albeit with a smaller maze and fewer ghosts, with the objective being to clear the maze of pills before being caught by the chasing spooks. Eating a red power pill would make the ghosts flash, and allow you to eat them for bonus points. The one thing that does however stand put about the gameplay is that your Munchman always faces to the left, regardless of which direction he is travelling, and can only eat going left, resulting in some back tracking needed to eat all the pills. Helpfully there is still a short cut, so you can continuously travel right to left and reappear on the other side of the maze. To accompany the gampelay there is a great soundtrack, typically loud as all Grandstand games tended to be, with jaunty intro tunes and in game effects.

Mini Munchman

Much like the Grandstand Scramble handheld, Munchman also had a smaller LCD based sister, predictably titled Mini Munchman, which aped the yellow case if not the classic round shape. Both games were very popular, and due to the rock solid build quaility can still be found in working order on ebay. In fact its difficult to believe these games are 30 years old, and can still be played today.

A “must have” for any retro handheld collector.

Grandstand

Grandstand Scramble 80’s Retro Handheld Game

February 28, 2012 rolyretroadmin 1 Comment

Grandstand Games

If you were a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s it is likely you will have owned, or knew someone who owned a Grandstand handheld game. For many retro gamers this was their first real “video game” – for me it was Galaxy Invader, but games like Astro Wars and Munchman were also incredibly popular. These were handheld versions of popular arcade games such as Galaxians and Pac-man, but only one of these Granstand games was named after an arcade original, and that was Scramble.

Arcade Scramble

The arcade Scramble was one of the earliest side scrolling shooters, relased by Konami in 1981 and set the format for such classics as Gradius and R-Type. The arcade version of Scramble featured a novel weapon configuration of a front facing missile, and bomb which followed a realistic arc to destroy ground based enemies. As an additional twist, you had limited fuel, and had to destroy fuel depots in order to top up (not quite sure of the logic here). This introduced a risk / reward element to the game, requiring you to concentrate not only on avoiding the scenery and enemies, but also keep up your rocket fuel levels to stay in the air.

Grandstand Scramble Handheld

Grandstand Scramble followed a similar in not identical format, a neat trick considering the limited capabilities of the Vacuum flourescent Display (VFD) which could only show fixed graphical images which could be turned on and off, like the LCD display of a Nintendo Game & Watch. Unlike earlier Grandstand games, the VFD was multi coloured, and through clever use of the space managed to pack in multiple images into each square on the screen, allowing the display of a missile one moment, and a spaceship the next. By scrolling the bottom layer of laser turrets, the impression of movement was acheived, with your player ship on the left of the screen shooting to the right.

Grandstand Scramble “Red Letter” Version — Grandstand Scramble Handheld “red letter” version

Before you get to the display though, the first thing that strikes you about Grandstand Scramble is the size of the game, this is no handheld, not unless you are a weightlifter, its more a tabletop game, and is best played resting on a flat surface. You could use an adapter, but if you wanted it truly portable you were looking filling it with “D” type batteries, the biggest and heaviest you can get, and normally only used these days in high powered torches. With these loaded the game is VERY heavy.

The other thing you notice when you fire up the game is the sound, which is incredibly loud, and would be extremely annoying to anyone within shouting distance. With no headphone option, the game is best played alone, in a locked and soundproofed room.

Grandstand Scramble handheld gameplay

Controls were well thought out, with a proper joystick and separate bomb and missile buttons, and a big on off switch. Everything feels very physical, and you imagine the individual plastic buttons connecting with the metal switches beneath as you play.

The objective of the game was not identical to the arcade version, as there was no scenery, and no requirement to refuel, just shoot enemies, bomb the ground based gun emplacements, and get to the end of the game before losing the 3 lives available.

There were five distinct phases to Grandstand’s Scramble:

Phase 1 destroy 4 waves of fighters that move towards you from the right in groups of four. Don’t get hit by missives or the enemy ships
Phase 2 destroy 4 base ships on the right, by first shooting the fighters they fire you in a zig-zag pattern
Phase 3 destroy a single moving base ship that fires fighters directly at you, while avoiding missiles fired up from the (now active) bases below
Phase 4 the base ship is now firing missiles at you, and asteroids are raining from the sky. Destroy the base ship enough times to proceed
Phase 5 avoid meteorites and destroy the moving energy base at the bottom of the screen

The differences to arcade Scramble are probably down to the fact that the game was not designed to be a Scramble clone, but a rebranded version of a Japanese game from Epoch called Astro Warrior. Presumably Grandstand thought it would sell more with the arcade association.

Grandstand Pocket Scramble LCD Game — Grandstand Pocket Scramble

There were 2 versions available, the only difference seeming to be the colour of the word Scramble on the front of the game. I have both (see my video below), and that’s the only difference I could find between the 2. Grandstand also released a Game & Watch style version of Scramble with an LCD screen and virtually identical gameplay to the arcade game – this time a true handheld, powered by watch batteries, which you could fit in a shirt pocket.

What happened to Grandstand Games?

Not much is documented about the Grandstand company other than it imported and rebranded its products from manufacturers such as Epoch and Tomy, releasing games in the UK and New Zealand, and that it ceased to exist some time in the Eighties. For a company with such a short career, it managed to make its mark on a whole generation of gamers, and produced some games that were so well built that they are still being used 30 years later.

Game and Watch

Donkey Kong Game & Watch by Nintendo

May 13, 2011 rolyretroadmin 1 Comment

Nintendo’s most famous (if not the first) arcade game needs very little introduction, but the origin of the Game & Watch is less well known. Gunpei Yokoi, the Japanese creator of the Game & Watch series, as well as the Gameboy, got his inspiration whilst riding a commuter train, and watching a fellow passenger playing with an LCD calculator.

What if the same technology for displaying the digits on the calculator could be used to display character sprites?

Nintendo have proved over the years that existing technology, used in a novel way, can create all new products and markets – just look at the wii, not the best graphics, or the most polygons, but by incorporating accelerometers into the handset, created a whole new games market.. By creating a large LCD display, filling it with character sprites, and simulating movement by turning the sprites ion and off in n sequence, the Game & Watch was born.

Early games were simple affairs, games like Fire! which tasked you with catching falling victims from a burning building, using simple left and right controls and a single LCD screen. Later games became more elaborate, with the famous Nintendo D pad being used for controlling characters, and a novel double screen model which allowed play to carry across a larger area.

The most popular of these twin screen games was Donkey Kong, an incredibly faithful (given the limited graphics capability) conversion of the arcade game, and the first appearance of Mario. Looking like a small orange DS, the game flipped open on a hinge to access the screens and controls (D pad and jump). By colouring the rear of the screen to create the girders of the building, and also the ladders, the LCD screen itself could be used to display mario running, jumping over barrels, and even using a hammer. There was also a Kong graphic waiting at the top for you – albeit with a different mechanism for defeating him, involving jumping on a crane and pulling out pins to destroy the platform Kong is stood on.

See my history of Donkey Kong here!

At the time I remember playing a friend’s version of Donkey Kong, and not being able to afford one myself, being very jealous of his ability to carry this fantastic game around with him. About 5 years ago, I was browsing ebay and found one of these games for sale, and a week later it was in my hands, looking like it was made yesterday. Due to robust construction and use of watch batteries, these games are incredibly durable, and many early examples are still in existance.

There are many avid collectors out there, their mission to collect the 59 different versions of Game & Watch that were made throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, but I just wanted to get my hands on the one game I couldn’t have all those years ago. This has now been joined by other classic handheld games from Grandstand, CGL, Bandai and Tomy in my collection, but due to the gameplay Donkey Kong is still the one I return to the most.

Gameboy

Legend of Zelda : Links Awakening DX

April 28, 2011 rolyretroadmin Leave a comment

The Best Handheld Zelda Game Ever?

I’m very fond of the original Gameboy, which was a classic Nintendo product, using existing technology in a novel way, and focusing on addictive gameplay rather than flashy hardware. The software for the Gameboy could however be a bit hit and miss, with many games being rushed onto the market, and not translating particularly well to the format.

Nintendo already had a great series in the Zelda games, starting on the NES and continued on the SNES, and a huge fanbase. It was only a matter of time before a Zelda game was released on the Gameboy, and when the first game was announced, there was a massive level of interest.

In 1993, The Legend of Zelda : Links Awakening was released to an expectant public. I bought this game at the airport on the way to Tenerife, with a view to playing on the, or the odd moment between beers by the pool. I had heard about the Zelda series, but having never played any of the games (something I have since addressed) I was not sure what to expect.

[amazon asin=B004JHY3Z8&template=iframe image]Slotting the small grey cartridge into the small grey handheld, you were immediately immersed into the world of Link, and I’m not sure I actually put the Gameboy down for 2 weeks.

As hero link, waking up on a desert island, you have to find 8 magical instruments to wake the mysterious windfish and escape. The game itself was an overhead scrolling action-RPG, and many of the classic Zelda features are there, including puzzles, dungeons, bosses, weapons and gadgets, bombs, chests, rupees, secret tunnels and side quests. It also had great music and effects for such a limited handheld console.

More than anything it had that magical ingredient that made you want to keep playing, to battle through the puzzles in each dungeon to the Boss level, and to unlock the next special power or piece of equipment, that would allow you to enter previously inaccessible areas.

5 years later, and having long ago put away my original Gameboy, Ninteno introduced an updated version of the game for it’s current platform the Gameboy Colour. Taking the original game, Nintendo used the colours available to introduce new puzzles, and also the ability to take screenshots for printing on the new Gameboy Printer. Playing this game again brought it all back to me, just hearing the music at the start of the game and I was back in Tenerife.

My son is now the biggest Zelda fan in the house, and he has the latest 3DS, and is looking forward to getting hold of the Occarina of Time. I’m not sure about all the 3D effects, but I know I shall be giving this a try when he has gone to bed to see if the magic is still there.

retrogames!now