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The '''Game & Watch''' series is a series of self-contained handheld LCD games that by Nintendo which are often seen as the precursor to the [[Game Boy]], although new Game & Watch games were still released as late as 1991. Despite their simplicity, Game & Watch handhelds were completely unemulated for a very long time due to a lack of information about their hardware and difficulties with dumping ROMs and accurately recreating graphics. After an [http://forums.bannister.org//ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=97003#Post97003 extensive reverse engineering effort by several MAME developers], MAME became the first emulator to support many retro handheld electronic games, including a few Game & Watch systems.
==Emulators==
{| class="wikitable sortable"! scope="col"|Name! scope="col"|Operating System(s)! scope="col"|Latest Version! scope="col"|[[libretro|Libretro Core]]! scope="col"|Active! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]|-|style="text-align:center;"|[[MAME]]|style="text-align:center;"|Multi-platform|style="text-align:center;"|[http://www.mamedev.org/release.html {{MAMEVer}}]|style="text-align:center;"|✓|style="text-align:center;"|✓|style="text-align:center;"|✓|} * '''MAME''' is currently the only Game & Watch emulator, with support for a growing but still very limited amount of games. For the few games it does support, MAME is recommended, although most Game & Watch games still can only be played outside of the original hardware through simulation. ==Emulation issues==Although Game & Watch emulation is has recently became possible, it was difficult took quite a while to achieve for a long time due to the [http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=17884.msg259362#msg259362 lack of information] about the microcontrollers that drive these handhelds driving them and because the high difficulty of dumping the ROM from a system. (To dump a game's ROM containing , the program have to microcontroller must be extracted by decapping the microcontroller decapped, which is an expensive not only very costly and complicated, but highly destructive process, this to the system.) The lack of information on the Game & Watch's hardware lead to the false belief that Game & Watch do it does not contain any a CPU or ROM and therefore could not be emulated. Even though this was disproven after reverse engineering efforts of several MAME developers led to support for a few games being added to MAME, emulation of additional games is progressing slowly due to the high amount of time and patience it takes to dump their ROMsand recreate their graphics. Following an [http://forums.bannister.org//ubbthreads.php?ubb ===Graphics===showflatEven when Game &Number=97003#Post97003 effort by several MAME developpers] to reverse engineer various handheld electronic Watch game from the 80's ROM has been dumped, one of the biggest challenges with accurately emulating it is now known that with how the Game & Watch displayed graphics. Rather than by sending output to an LCD display like most cartridge based handhelds do, Game and & Watch have games (as well as most other handheld electronic games from the same time) displayed graphics by lighting up pre-drawn LCD segments, like a Sharp 4 bit MCUcalculator. In order to recreate this as accurately as possible, therefore they can be emulatedMAME uses . MAME now support genuine emulation SVG files traced from high quality scans of various handheld electonic games including some the LCD screen, allowing graphics in supported Game & Watch but games to be displayed crisply at any resolution without the loss of any detail. While this is the most accurate way to recreate the LCD graphics outside of obtaining the original art from Nintendo, it is a difficult and time consuming process, as not only does the LCD need to be scanned at a high resolution with all segments lit up to capture all of themthe graphics, but the scans must be traced very carefully to faithfully recreate the other software are simulatorsoriginal artwork.
==Simulators==
For most Game & Watch games, this is your only option outside of buying them used.
* Nintendo officially released virtual reproductions in the games and compiled them in the ''Game & Watch Gallery'' (and, later, ''Game & Watch Collection'') series of games. These games had both "classic" and "modern" variations of these games. While these collections have a loss of "authenticity" (especially in the collections that are running on earlier hardware), these collections are Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS games for which emulators are widespread. (A few games are from the difficult-to-pirate DSiWare series, though every game in the DSiWare series appears in another collection.) However, some of the games in the collection (notably ''Zelda'') may need to be unlocked before play.
* The [http://www.handheld.remakes.org/results.php?gamename= Handhled Handheld Remakes Archive] hosts some reproductions of games.
* [http://www.pica-pic.com/ Pica Pic] (by Hipopotam) is an online collection of Game & Watch games under an authentic presentation. While there seems to be no way to play these games offline, there are a few games that are exclusive to the website, one example being ''Nu, pogodi!''
* Madrigal wrote some [http://www.madrigaldesign.it/sim/ simulations] that give an offline, authentic presentation of the Game & Watch games, the collection of these games growing through time. Of particular note is that these simulations are available to play through [[RetroArch]] through the gw-libretro core. There are also some simulations that are not of the Game & Watch series.
! scope="col"|Pica Pic
! scope="col"|GW-Libretro
! scope="col"|MAME
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|Ball
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✗
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Chef
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Crab Grab
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✗
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Donkey Kong 3
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✗
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Donkey Kong II
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Donkey Kong Jr.
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✗
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Goldcliff
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Lion
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Mario the Juggler
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Mario's Cement Factory
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Mickey & Donald
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Mickey Mouse
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Popeye
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Snoopy Tennis
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Spitball Sparky
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|Vermin
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|style="text-align:center;"|✓
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|}
The following games are currently not emulated or simulated in any way:
*Blackjack
*Donkey Kong Hockey
*Pinball
*Squish
==Games exclusive to some collections==
