This 1983 classic places Mario in a cement factory. And you have to ship that cement out ASAP. Hell yeah!

The Concrete World of Mario’s Cement Factory

We didn’t own many Game & Watch things. But we did have Mario’s Cement Factory (Mario Bros. in the bottle factory is another) and put a lot of time into the son of a gun.

Why? Because it’s bloody well addictive, that’s why!

As games were back in the day, the focus was on an arcade type high score experience. So anyone familiar with Donkey Kong will get the idea.

In Mario’s Cement Factory, you have to manoeuvre back and forth across the screen to get cement delivered to waiting trucks.

There are two elevators to navigate to get from one area to the next, with two trucks to feed cement into. So it’s a juggling act of getting your timing right and rushing a bit.

Titles like this have one thing about them—they’re addictive. Massively so.

The result? You do get wrapped up in Mario’s Cement Factory. These tiny little machines have stuck with us over the years as a result.

It seems to have done so with plenty of others, too, as they’re making a comeback!

The Return of Game & Watch

Nintendo is bringing back Game & Watches for a limited run in November 2020.

You can pick up an updated version with the original Super Mario Bros. on it. That and some classic Game & Watch type games.

Nintendo does enjoying basking in its long history. It’s something not many other games developers (and console makers) can do.

And whilst we love their new games still, little touches like this are always welcome. As we think the new Game & Watch looks ruddy fantastic.

What about the series, then? Well, Game & Watch (ゲーム&ウオッチ—Gēmu & Uotchi) titles ran from 1980 up until 1991. They were Nintendo’s electronic games, featuring an LCD screen with

Once the Game Boy arrived in 1989, it kind of nullified them. And so Game & Watch came to an end.

Gunpei Yokoi (1941-1997) was responsible for the series. He also invented the Game Boy! And the Virtual Boy. That last one wasn’t so popular.

But, anyway, Yokoi’s creative genius went on to earn Nintendo hundreds of millions. And also brought a lot of joy to the world.

Yokoi got the idea when he saw a bored businessman playing with an LCD calculator. With the video game industry in full flow in the early 1980s, he saw the potential to make a miniature games machine.

On a 4-bit CPU and with an LCD screen it’s basic stuff compared to our smartphones these days. But the simplistic charm remains to this day.

And it’s no surprise the series was a smash hit. Collectively, the 60 Game & Watch machines shifted over 40 million units worldwide. That’s good, that is.