Don't recall these score sheets despite being part of the Nintendo Fun Club -- maybe I saw them but I just dismissed it as busywork. But my favorite part is the innocence of a world in which a kid says, "I made it to 6-1 in Super Mario Bros! Guys, I'm taking a photo and mailing this one in!"
Though I was never so innocent; a friend has a photo of himself beating SMB at like age 5 or 6. He kept up with the game into high school too, was always crazy good at it. So yeah, I never imagined that I was a gaming wizard.
Meanwhile the "Discovery Log" idea is a funny anecdote, but surely we were all committing that stuff to memory! The more meaningful the powerup, the more deeply it was seared into our brains.
Long, long ago, I had a girlfriend that really liked SMB but was so bad at it. She really struggled with managing Mario's running. So she had to very consciously tell herself that Mario needed to run for this part, then look down at the control pad to find the B-button, hold it, and then start running. And she played the game a LOT too, I want to be clear. I'm describing her after like 20 hours of practice trying to get better at it.
Anyway, she's the user I imagine for the Discovery Log.
As for Game & Watch, I had never heard of it until the Smash Bros. character was revealed. I'm really surprised that one released this late, and yet we still had no awareness of it. I wonder how widely it was marketed, how much shelf space was given to it at how many stores.
I was familiar with the Sega Master System just from seeing it in stores. I recall Toys R' Us having an unusually large amount of shelf space dedicated to SMS games circa 1988, so it entered my consciousness even though I never knew anyone who owned one. Yet Game & Watch never entered my consciousness the same way.
Taking a decent photo of an old tube TV was always a skill. But if you were determined enough, you could do it!
Hilarious story about that girl. God bless her, most of us would have given up long before then.
I don't recall seeing any Game and Watches being sold at Toys R Us either and they had all sorts of crazy obscure video game stuff there. Like you say, Master System stuff. I also remember a large amount of Game Gear games in the mid 90s. Maybe Sega and them had a really good deal for shelf space.
I had a few Nintendo Power issues and I called into the hotline one time. I never really interacted with Nintendo any other way outside of the video games themselves. But I find all of this stuff super fascinating. I love reading about the history of video game companies.
Good finds! Not much I'm familiar with here.
Don't recall these score sheets despite being part of the Nintendo Fun Club -- maybe I saw them but I just dismissed it as busywork. But my favorite part is the innocence of a world in which a kid says, "I made it to 6-1 in Super Mario Bros! Guys, I'm taking a photo and mailing this one in!"
Though I was never so innocent; a friend has a photo of himself beating SMB at like age 5 or 6. He kept up with the game into high school too, was always crazy good at it. So yeah, I never imagined that I was a gaming wizard.
Meanwhile the "Discovery Log" idea is a funny anecdote, but surely we were all committing that stuff to memory! The more meaningful the powerup, the more deeply it was seared into our brains.
Long, long ago, I had a girlfriend that really liked SMB but was so bad at it. She really struggled with managing Mario's running. So she had to very consciously tell herself that Mario needed to run for this part, then look down at the control pad to find the B-button, hold it, and then start running. And she played the game a LOT too, I want to be clear. I'm describing her after like 20 hours of practice trying to get better at it.
Anyway, she's the user I imagine for the Discovery Log.
As for Game & Watch, I had never heard of it until the Smash Bros. character was revealed. I'm really surprised that one released this late, and yet we still had no awareness of it. I wonder how widely it was marketed, how much shelf space was given to it at how many stores.
I was familiar with the Sega Master System just from seeing it in stores. I recall Toys R' Us having an unusually large amount of shelf space dedicated to SMS games circa 1988, so it entered my consciousness even though I never knew anyone who owned one. Yet Game & Watch never entered my consciousness the same way.
Taking a decent photo of an old tube TV was always a skill. But if you were determined enough, you could do it!
Hilarious story about that girl. God bless her, most of us would have given up long before then.
I don't recall seeing any Game and Watches being sold at Toys R Us either and they had all sorts of crazy obscure video game stuff there. Like you say, Master System stuff. I also remember a large amount of Game Gear games in the mid 90s. Maybe Sega and them had a really good deal for shelf space.
I had a few Nintendo Power issues and I called into the hotline one time. I never really interacted with Nintendo any other way outside of the video games themselves. But I find all of this stuff super fascinating. I love reading about the history of video game companies.
Same, I had a few Nintendo Powers, but didn't really engage with Nintendo anything beyond their games and later their strategy guides.
But agreed, all of these weird historical backroads are incredibly interesting!
John Solver! What a name. That's a guy who really needed his own '80s cop TV show.
Right? Nintendo nailed the name, big time.