LCD game
An LCD game is a handheld devices which use a prefabricated liquid crystal display dedicated to a single video game or set of games. They were primarily made from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, although some titles were made well into the 2000s. These handhelds are based off of older LED handhelds, but are more complex and have much more attractive art. Nintendo pioneered the handheld LCD game with their Game & Watch series, but Tiger Electronics dominated the US market. Various other companies made them as well, like Konami, but they weren't as successful, however companies targeting adults with card games like black jack and solitaire saw plenty of success. When more sophisticated handheld devices like the Game Boy became popular, the LCD game market dried up, although, there was a brief resurgence at the end of the 1990s with Tamagotchis. Nintendo primarily made unique titles for their games, but most of the games released by Tiger were licensed from existing console games.
Contents
Personal
I think I only ever owned a single LCD game that my mother bought me as a gift. I'm pretty sure she bought me Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and my older brother Double Dragon, though it may have been the reverse. However, I played with many LCD games as a child because my friends had them and we would swap them during lunch or play them on the school bus. I always saw them as highly inferior to my NES, but it was still something I could play on the go. One of the things I found really interesting about the game was how pushing the reset button would let you see the entire LCD light up all at once. I remember taking mine apart once and seeing the different layers that made up the LCD screen, but, when I put it back together, the display no longer worked (I probably put a polarized film in backward).
Games
- See all LCD Games.
These are LCD games that are important to me:
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
- Double Dragon
- Heavy Barrel
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- X-Men: Project X
Media
Tiger ad, 1989.
Konami ad, 1989.
Links
