Nintendo Mini Game Block Puzzle (ブロックパズル, ca 1972)

The Nintendo Mini Game series from the 1970s is one of the favorite parts of my Nintendo collection.

It's a combination of the colorful designs and simple but fun game play that I like a lot. The packaging and overall game design also oozes 1970s style, which is the time period in which I grew up, so nostalgia probably is part of the appeal.

From a collector's point of view, it is also great that there so many different games to collect in this series.

Nintendo Mini Game Block Puzzle (ca 1972)

For many years, I believed that the series consisted of 48 different games in total. Until a few months ago, when a 49th game was discovered.

Just recently, I discovered yet another Mini Game. It is called Block Puzzle (ブロックパズル) and dates from around 1972.

Although the two versions shown here appear to be different games, they are actually completely identical. The only difference is the sides of the blocks that are exposed on the front.

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 board games - part 3 - More Disney

Part 2 of the series about Nintendo's board games featured four Disney themed games from the mid 1960s. Today we will continue the Nintendo board game retrospective with five more Disney board games from that same period (ca 1964-1966).

We will take a look at:

• Disneyland Adventureland Game
• Bambi Game
• Peter Pan Game
• Lady and the Tramp Game
• Sword in the Stone Game

Disneyland Adventureland Game

We already saw some Duck based games before, and here is another one. Well, at least Donald Duck is presented on the box front; his popularity used to attract interest.

Nintendo Disneyland Adventureland Game

The front shows Donald and one of his nephews in dire straits; their canoe has capsized and a hippo, alligator and a handful of spear-toting natives move in, competing for the fowl feast. [Forgetting for a moment that hippos are herbivores. And come to think of it, the natives may actually only be interested in getting Donald's autograph.]

The game is called Disneyland Adventureland Game (ディズニーランド冒険の国ゲーム).

N&B Block vs LEGO (任天堂 ブロック vs レゴ)

I just performed a small experiment. For some time, I had been wondering about the compatibility between Nintendo's N&B Block bricks and - its source of inspiration - the original LEGO bricks. In fact, the experiment is so simple that I don't understand why I had not tried it before.

Let's first take a closer look at the respective rectangular bricks, side by side. They have identical dimensions and are overall very similar, except for the names on the top of the studs.

N&B Block brick (left) and LEGO brick (right)

When we flip them over, we see more differences.