Gunpei Yokoi's final two games

Gunpei Yokoi (横井軍平), Nintendo's legendary inventor and yearslong head of its R&D department, suffered a tragic death in a roadside accident on the 4th of October 1997, aged only 56.

One month earlier, his just established company Koto Laboratory released two products, that would turn out to be Yokoi's final two games.

Keychain games designed by Yokoi's Koto Laboratory

Yokoi worked at Nintendo for over thirty years, and played a pivotal role in the company's evolution from a relatively small manufacturer of playing cards to a global player in the world of electronic entertainment. The list of inventions that bear his name is beyond impressive and includes the Ultra Hand, Ultra Machine, Love Tester, Kousenjuu SP light gun series, Ultra Scope, Light Telephone, Eleconga, Ten Billion, Game & Watch, Game Boy, Virtual Boy and more.

As a result of Nintendo's prosperity, to which Yokoi himself had greatly contributed, the company's staff size had grown considerably and Yokoi's role had gradually become more managerial. He increasingly longed for the early days when most of his time was spent working hands-on on new ideas and inventions, and started dreaming about forming his own small ideas company that would allow him to do just that.

In August of 1996 Yokoi retired from Nintendo, after completing the design of the GameBoy Pocket, and founded Koto Laboratory in September of the same year. Like Nintendo, it was based in Yokoi's hometown Kyoto.

Inside Koto Laboratory in 1999
(Photos taken from The WonderSwan magazine vol 1, copyright Soft Bank)

The small team that Yokoi assembled at Koto started working on a number of projects, including an assignment from toy giant Bandai. Bandai had asked Koto to develop a competitor to the Game Boy, one of Yokoi's most successful creations during his time at Nintendo.

The Koto team also returned to another area were Yokoi had put a big stamp on in the past: LCD games. The heydays of the Game & Watch games were long over in 1996, but there still was a market for affordable, portable electronic games.

Koto's first products, a couple of keychain LCD games, were released in Japan by Hiro Company in September of 1997, one year after Koto had started.

What does the Nintendo Ele-conga sound like?

How does the Nintendo Ele-conga sound? That's a question I have been asked a number of times over the years. Multiple musicians also expressed an interest to use these vintage 1970s sounds in their music.

Nintendo Ele-conga (1972)

The Ele-conga, for those of you not yet familiar with this piece of Nintendo history, is one of the many brain-childs of Gunpei Yokoi. It's an electronic drum machine, with analog circuitry. It can produce five different percussion sounds. With the Autoplayer accessory, it can play pre-programmed rhythms.

Nintendo Ele-conga and Autoplayer

Well, for all folks interested to hear an actual Ele-conga play, your prayers have just been heard.

Nintendo Ultra Machine - instructions

The 1967 Nintendo baseball pitching toy Ultra Machine came with a large instruction sheet. This sheet was a fraction smaller than the box, and placed on top of the plastic tray that holds the various parts of the Ultra Machine.

There are (at least) two different versions of this sheet. The oldest one has a nice full-color picture of the Ultra Machine on the front.

Nintendo Ultra Machine instruction sheet - first release (front)

The Japanese katakana name for Ultra Machine is ウルトラ マシン. On the packaging this is writing in a stylized way: somewhat slanted to give the impression of speed and the three short strokes in last two characters (シン) are made to look like flying balls.

The Ultra Machine runs on a single D (UM-1) cell, and the instructions claims that one battery is good for 3200 pitches (「乾電池１本で３２００投球」).

Nintendo Game & Watch Multi Screen (ゲーム&ウォッチ マルチスクリーン, 1982-83)

Yesterday's post on my second ever Nintendo game (Game & Watch Mario Bros.) got me so excited about these great little handhelds, that I decided to continue with this topic.

Nintendo Game & Watch Multi Screen Mario Bros., Rain Shower and Lifeboat

The first two Game & Watch Multi Screen games (Oil Panic and Donkey kong) were released close to each other in May and June of 1982.

[Video uploaded by Youtube user ksoik]

Two more were released at the end of 1982, just in time for Christmas: Mickey & Donald and Greenhouse.

[Video uploaded by Youtube user ksoik]

Donkey & Kong II followed in March of 1982, bringing the total to five.

My second Nintendo game - Mario Bros.

The other week I told you about my first, ever Nintendo game I owned. Now, a single item obviously can't be called a collection. But two, that is starting to look like something.

My second Nintendo purchase, which I bought in the Summer of 1983, was Game & Watch Mario Bros.

My collection artefact #2 - Game & Watch Mario Bros. (1983)

Where the ColecoVision Donkey Kong cartridge was cool because it provided an approximation of the arcade experience at home, in a way this one was even more special, as it delivered a totally new experience for me: portable electronic gaming.

Without knowing it at the time, these two items where my introduction to the genius work of both Gunpei Yokoi and Shigeru Miyamoto. The former as the creator of Game & Watch, and the latter as the father of Mario.

Nintendo Block Crater (任天堂ブロック クレーター, 1969)

In 1969, the American space program Apollo reached its climax, when mankind set foot on the moon for the first time. The whole world went space crazy, and the moon landing became the television broadcast with the largest global audience up until then. In Japan it was broadcasted by NHK, using a satellite link with the United States.

In that same year, Nintendo released a space themed toy called Nintendo Block Crater (任天堂ブロック クレーター).

Nintendo Lefty RX G.T. Sport and Proto-Type (レフティRX G.T. スポーツ, レフティRX プロトタイプ, 1972)

In a previous post on this blog, Nintendo's remote controlled racing car Lefty RX was introduced. These toy cars have the surprising feature that they can only steer to the left (hence the name). Unlikely as that may sound, it was actually a good tradeoff between play fun and affordability - and still allowed for great races to be staged between multiple cars.

All four Lefty RX car types

The original Lefty RX series, introduced in 1972, featured a slick sports coupe car (in two slightly different body versions). When this became a commercial success, Nintendo quickly released a follow-up later that same year.

Lefty RX, Lefty RX G.T. Sport and Lefty RX Proto-Type

Two new Lefty RX models were introduced, which replaced the original series: Lefty RX G.T. Sport and Lefty RX Proto-Type.

Nintendo Crossover (任天堂 クロスオーバー, 1981)

While Nintendo's head of Research and Development Gunpei Yokoi was busy overseeing the roll-out of the Game & Watch silver and gold series, he still found time to create a follow-up to his very successful Ten Billion puzzle: the Nintendo Crossover (クロスオーバー).

Unlike the Ten Billion, which was sold in large numbers worldwide, only a small quantity of Crossover puzzles was produced, making it one of the more rare and sought-after Nintendo items from the toys and games era.

Nintendo Crossover (1981)

The Crossover was advertised using the phrase「偏光スクリーン」, which means 'Polarized Light Screen'. The official English sub-title was 'Polarized Light Puzzle'. Why this is, we will get to in a minute.

Crossover was released in 1981, in three color variants: green, red or purple. It cost the same as the Ten Billion puzzle: ¥1,000.

Television commercial for the Nintendo Crossover

Nintendo Ten Billion (任天堂 テンビリオン, 1980)

In 1980 Nintendo released a toy that would become a hit in their Japanese home market as well as abroad. Some of Nintendo's toys and early arcade games had been sold internationally before, but noting on the scale of Ten Billion.

Nintendo Ten Billion (1980)

The Ten Billion (テンビリオン) is a 3D puzzle (立体パズル). It was a response to the phenomenally poplar Rubik's Cube, which Nintendo's great inventor Gunpei Yokoi used as inspiration to come up with his own original puzzle.

It was not their first 3D puzzle. Many years earlier, Nintendo had already released Fifteengame and the Challenge Dice, both much simpler puzzles.

The Ten Billion came in a plastic case, and was sold for ¥1,000.

The top of the case contained a gold colored sticker with a "N", obviously referring to Nintendo. The Nintendo name was also included in the top and bottom of the game itself.

Nintendo copyright on top of the Ten Billion

The Ten Billion barrel is filled with 23 balls: four balls for each of the five colors (yellow, orange, red, blue and green) and 3 black balls.

The objective of the Ten Billion puzzle is to get all balls back into their original spot inside the barrel, after they have been thoroughly mixed by rotating the two drums (ドラム) in the middle of the barrel while moving the black plunger (プランジャ) up and down.

The Ten Billion owes its name to the 10 billion (10,000,000,000) different permutations in which the balls supposedly can be mixed. When counted properly, the number of permutations is actually around 450 times higher (4,509,264,634,875).

Front of Ten Billion Manual

The two middle sections of the barrel can be rotated independently, which moves ten balls at the same time.

The black plunger has three protruding pieces pushing against the balls. When the plunger is moved, three of the five columns move with it (moving a total of no less that 15 balls at once).

If you compare the image above with the one below, you notice that the column in the middle (with the two yellow balls and one orange and blue ball) did not change when the plunger was moved to the right, while the other two columns moved to the right with it.

Because of the large number of balls that move at the same time, solving this puzzle is very tricky. Nintendo provided to retailers a leaflet (解説書) with information on solving the Ten Billion.

Leaflet with instruction on solving Ten Billion

The leaflet shows step by step how to solve the puzzle, starting by moving the three black balls into the correct position, and then moving the colored balls in their right column, one column at a time.

For people not content with "just" aligning the balls in their original configuration, a final section in the leaflet provided sixteen additional challenges with various nice patterns for the colored balls.

Alternative patterns for the balls in Ten Billion

As mentioned, the Ten Billion was an international success and exported to many countries around the world.

German edition of Ten Billion, called "Teufelstonne"

In Germany and The Netherlands Ten Billion was sold under the name "Devil's Barrel" ("Teufelstonne" and "Duivelston", respectively).

In the United Kingdom, it was distributed by a company called CGL, which also distributed Nintendo Game & Watch games.

Teufelstonne Manual

For many people in the West, including me, Ten Billion was the first exposure to Nintendo's ingenuity. It was a serious brain twister with a high quality design.

Box in which Ten Billion was shipped to retailers

At the time, though, not many will have recognized and remembered the Nintendo brand name, as it was still very much unknown outside of Japan.

Of course, that would change very soon thereafter; an ape-centered video game and an avalanche of Game & Watch games made sure of that. But that is a different story.

Nintendo did create a follow-up to the Ten Billion: the Crossover. An equality interesting puzzle, but commercially much less successful.

Nintendo Time Shock (タイムショック, 1972)

In the second half of the 60s, Nintendo became successful through a number of initiative toys like the Ultra Hand and Ultra Machine. However, between 1965 and 1975, they also produced a large number of more traditional toys, board games and other family games for the Japanese market. During this period Nintendo closely followed the new developments in the toy industry in Japan as well as abroad and licensed or copied other companies' hits.

Nintendo Time Shock (1972)

In most cases when copying a game, Nintendo added some twists to the original design. This was most likely (also) done to distinguish enough from the original and thus prevent legal action, but frequently went beyond change-for-change-sake and actually enhanced or improved the game-play.

A good example of this is Time Shock (タイムショック).

We will get to the original game in minute (if you haven't already recognized it), but let's first take a look at Nintendo's creation, which is credited to Gunpei Yokoi.

Time Shock was released by Nintendo in Japan in 1972 and was sold for ¥1.800.

The box contained the Time Shock game and a bag with orange plastic puzzle pieces.

The bottom of the game contains a lid which can be turned to reveal two storage spaces.

The puzzle pieces neatly fit in these storage spaces.

In total 20 puzzle pieces are included. They all have different shapes, though some are mirrored pairs, which adds to the difficulty of the game. Four small pins are also included, used to keep track of the best scores of (up to) four players.

I expect many will have guessed that the inspiration for Nintendo's Time Shock is MB's Perfection, one of their famous toys - which is being sold to this day.

MB Perfection (2003 version)
[image taken from amazon.com]

The game was actually not created by MB, but by an American company called Reed Toys from Conshohocken, PA. Their patent states 1970 as the priority date.

From US patent 3,710,455 by Reed Toys (priority date 1970-11-20)

Reed Toys released the toy under the Perfection name, and soon also licensed it to fellow American companies Lakeside Toys (from Minneapolis, MN - famous for, amongst others, creating the "Barrel of Monkeys" game) and toy giant MB.

Lakeside simply put their logo on the version by Reed toys, but MB redesigned the game - keeping the game-play completely intact from the original, though.

In Japan it was Epoch who licensed Perfection from Reed Toys, and Nintendo clearly wanted to compete with them with the release of Time Shock.

Nintendo's innovation lies in the blue ring, which can be turned. This allows for ten different layouts of the play-field, which prevents players from memorizing the position of the puzzle pieces.

The objective of the game is simple: put the twenty puzzle pieces in the correct space on the play-field.

What makes Time Shock interesting is the race against the clock. You set the timer to 60 seconds and start puzzling. When you have placed all pieces correctly you stop the clock, by moving the red ring around the timer. The remaining seconds indicate your score: the more time left the better.

However! If you do not menage to finish the puzzle in time and stop the clock, when the time runs out the pieces will all jump in the air, and your score will be zero. The ticking timer and the prospect of these flying pieces add greatly to the tension.

Practice also makes perfect for this game, but the Nintendo added option to change the play-field before each runs helps increase the longevity of the challenge. It does not become too easy too quickly.

You have just ran out of time. Shock!

The game does not require any batteries; it works on a spring which is wound when you set the timer.

A portable version of Time Shock was also produced as part of Nintendo's Mini Game Series.

Nintendo Mini Game series version of Time Shock (1974)

The objective of the game is still the same, but this time only 15 puzzle pieces are involved.

The timer is replaced by a clever little mechanism. The game starts by moving the bird to the top and gently touching the spring which attaches it to the pole. The vibrations of the moving bird on the spring make it climb slowly down.

You need to finish the puzzle before the bird reaches the ground, which takes about half a minute. Making the pieces fly in the air you have to do yourself in this version, but it is still fun nonetheless.

We close this post with a short video demonstration.