FPGA-Optimised Game & Watch Collection
for Analogue Pocket and MiSTer FPGA
The Game & Watch core for MiSTer/Analogue Pocket by agg23 is excellent, but just running standard MAME files through the converter doesn't get you the best results. I've adjusted and optimised the ROMs and artwork to provide more display options (both on TV and the Pocket screen), better accuracy to the original games, and several bonus game variants. All 33 Game & Watch games supported by v0.2.0 are included, plus 50 Tiger Electronics handhelds and 27 games from other manufacturers.
Display Options
All games are available in four views:
- Screen Only (No Shadows): The screen fills the usable space edge-to-edge. No shadows or other frills. Looks great on Analogue Pocket!
- Screen Only (Shadows): As above, but with shadows that approximate the original layered LCD screen.
- Hardware (Frame): Large screen sizes but with a visible hardware border plus shadows and other physical attributes. Single screen games appear at approx actual size on the Pocket screen. Multi Screens are pushed together to maximise screen size.
- Hardware (Full): An unaltered, full view of the hardware, perfect for TV output on MiSTer and Analogue Dock (they also run on Pocket, with adorable tiny screens).
Bonus Variants
A selection of custom variants are included, based on other game versions from G&W history:
- Silver Series Color: The original "Silver series" (Ball, Vermin, Flagman, Judge and Fire) lacked the color background layer of later games. Fan-made color backgrounds by DarthMarino imagine what those could have looked like.
- Ball (Mario/Luigi) & Vermin (Link): Special new variants based on the 35th anniversary Game & Watch Color Screen releases!
- Fire (Reverse): According to Game & Watch Gallery 3 the original design for Fire had the building on the right side of the screen, but this was accidentally reversed during the development process. Now you can play the game as originally pitched!
- Fire Attack (Bandits): In Game & Watch Gallery 4, the attackers in Fire Attack were altered to remove the Native American imagery. This version recreates those changes.
- Judge (Green version): The original release of Judge had a green case, but also contained a bug in the gameplay. The later purple release fixed the bug, but you can choose the green case option to play the original. (Hardware displays only)
- Crab Grab/Spitball Sparky (White case): Very rare variants of the Super Color games had a white case, instead of silver. There's no gameplay difference. (Hardware displays only)
Other Improvements
- Screen frames have been cropped so the game fills the usable space (720x720). Additionally, visible parts of the frame have been adjusted to match the pure black of the surrounding screen.
- Tweaks to LCD and artwork alignment across all games.
- For Multi Screen games, the gap between screens has been significantly reduced to maximise screen size.
- The G&W Super Colour games Crab Grab and Spitball Sparky now display in their correct original colours.
- Tiger Electronics games have completely reworked layouts that are as close as possible to original hardware (with minor tweaks to line up UI etc), alongside control adjustments, new LCD shadows, slightly brighter screens in hardware views, and more.
- The Tronica games Shuttle Voyage and Thief in Garden are now playable. Press the Select button to cycle to the game modes: Set Time > Watch > Calculator (non-functional) > Game A > Game B.
Important - Please Read!
- These files are designed for agg23's Game & Watch FPGA core only - please make sure you're not using the older MiSTer core.
- There are more G&W games that use later CPUs, but are not currently supported by the FPGA core. If/when the core is updated I'll add those games here.
- This project is built off the incredible work of the MAME team, in particular the artwork and layout files created by hydef, DarthMarino, and others. Artwork for Ball (Mario/Luigi), Vermin (Link), Fire Attack (Bandits) and Fire (Reverse) was modified by Espiox (that's me). And of course thanks to Adam Gastineau for his fantastic FPGA core! Please consider sponsoring him here.
- The link below opens a search page on archive.org, but you are responsible for any software downloaded.