Your plane just crashed in the wilds of Manitoba. The wreckage is cooling, night
is falling, and you can hear predators closing in. You search for supplies but
find nothing...
but antiquated Game Boy peripherals.
which means, you have nothing to be worried about.
To survive this disaster we're going to take a page out
of Gunpei Yokoi's book. He knew that just because a technology was a little
older didn't mean it was useless. In fact, his whole design theory relied
on tech that wasn't cutting-edge -- a philosophy he called "lateral thinking
with withered technology." Take slightly out-of-date technology that is cheaper
and easier to program, and use it in interesting ways.
The result was weird, great niche accessories like a barcode reader,
a portable oscilloscope, a scooter engine diagnostic software.
But none of that garbage is gonna save you.
The sun is setting, the cold is starting to sink in,
and northern Manitoba is about to get very dark.
Almost as dark as your Game Boy's screen.
Without a backlight, the notoriously dark screen isn't gonna be
useful for stumbling through the underbrush. Luckily the market was quick
to provide accessories that shed light on this. There were flashlights,
deluxe flashlights,
or the gameboy equivalent of a mech suit. So how do you choose the one
best for your unique catastrophe? Simple. You want the one that will best
discourage predators: the blob light. Released for Halloween in the year 2000,
this light was both fun... and frightening according to Robert Rienick, Nyko's VP of
Marketing. It's external camouflage and internal eyespot mimicry will help you
either evade or scare off Manitoba's large polar bear population. Come the
dawn, it'll be time to start exploring Manitoba's muskeg swamps. Progress will
be a lot slower if you don't grab these officially licensed Nintendo platform
shoes. Commissioned from shoe designer Helen Red Richards,
these pika-shoes were chasing a trend revived by the Spice Girls.
There were six varieties in all,
although no photos remain of "the chunky green" platforms mentioned in this
article. It's possible that nobody ever actually owned a pair of these shoes
because they were all MADE TO ORDER. You had to
call Nintendo to commission a pair. But they were shown in a few art galleries
in the UK, which means these are exhibition quality art objects you're wading in.
"Before we begin to select stitches, let's review the operation of
the Game Boy."
Your first instinct might be to scoff at the idea of a Game Boy sewing
machine, much less carding one around Canada's lush forests. But this
peripheral is not as strange as it seems.
And the northern parts of Manitoba are
subarctic, so you'll want to craft some winter wear the Jaguar Nu-Yell, and the
American version the Singer Izek, were pretty standard analog machines. But they
were beefed up by interfacing with the Game Boy, which acted like a
microprocessor.R aku Raku Mishin, the peripheral's game, let the user
program intricate stitch work like patterns, buttonholes, and even custom designs.
I know what you're saying, gamers. "Jenna, my sewing machine has all of this built in!"
Mine does too. But in the early 2000s this was still the dope shit. Plus
the Nu-Yell and Izek retailed for less than comparably powerful machines, even
accounting for the additional purchase of the Game Boy.
That's lateral thinking at work!
"Connecting the device to a Game Boy, music player, or video, the child
is excited to receive a new toy.
Once you've got the basic creature comforts covered,
it's time to start thinking about long-term survival.
Which is why you want the Pedisedate!
Which is a bad name, let's just get that out there.
It's WEIRD. But it is exactly what it sounds like; the PediSedate was meant to
distract children while they were gently knocked unconscious before surgery.
Basically it was just a pair of headphones that connected to a Game Boy,
with a snorkel-like mask that gassed the wearer with nitrous oxide, like a fun
prank from the Joker. Specifically meant for dental procedures, it also monitored
a patient's oxygenation and respiratory rates. Plus check out that late 90s bondi blue
electronics aesthetic. From performing self surgery, to gassing a
polar bear so you can remove a thorn from its paw so it'll teach you to hunt
and you become lifelong companions. the uses of the PediSedate are endless.
But maybe you're like me, impervious after falling in the river Styx
as a child, but highly susceptible to mental illness. Well there are at
least three patents for Game Boy games that monitor psychological health.
Unfortunately, unlike the PediSedate, it seems like none of these made it into
production. Well I guess you'll just have to go to therapy, a practice every human
should have to do regardless of how long they've been trapped in Canada's backcountry.
All of these suggestions have of course been 100% legitimate, but
Gyogun Tanchiki: Pocket Sonar is perhaps the most legitimate peripheral for surviving
Manitoba's lake-freckled wilderness. This Japan-exclusive fishing accessory was
released by Bandai in 1998. The card had built-in sonar that could probe the
water acoustically up to 20 meters. That info was fed into the cartridge to
generate an image with all the deets on hot single fish in your area.
Gyogun Tanchiki also holds the distinction of being the first sonar-enabled
game accessory, according to Guinness World Records 2009
Gamer's Edition, the only new source I trust. Like the sewing machine peripheral, the pocket sonar
was a good value for the time because it used the Game Boy as a cheap,
easily available microprocessor. Although withered technology meant the
Game Boy didn't have like the toppest of top-line graphics, it did make it
accessible-- the true people's handheld. So after you bury the leftover fish bones
from dinner, curl up with Iorek, your polar bear familiar, and your leaf-stitch
tent, take a moment to appreciate how Yokoi's philosophy brought so much
comfort to the stark Manitoba wilderness.