Special: The Game Boy turned 35 today – a personal story

The Nintendo Game Boy turns 35 today so it’s time to take a little trip down memory lane and discuss the handheld that introduced me to the wonderful world of video games. Let’s play it loud!

A new beginning

Back in 1989 on April 21st, Nintendo released their hottest handheld system of the early ’90s. With its Game & Watch handheld systems, Nintendo wasn’t a stranger when it came to handheld gaming but the Game Boy was something different. The Game Boy was a pretty impressive piece of technology that used cartridges so you could just buy new games instead of being stuck with one main game like on the Game & Watch devices. The Game Boy really was the first true step towards mobile Nintendo gaming and followed the same principles as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Consumers bought one console/handheld which they could use for several years thanks to the constant flow of games. Designed by Nintendo’s chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi and the infamous R&D1 team, the Game Boy ignored fancy color display technology in favor of the well-known monochrome screen that was less demanding in terms of power. This resulted in a battery-operated handheld that was ready to play your new favorite games on the go. Critics weren’t convinced and doubted if this less powerful device could compete against Atari’s Lynx and Sega’s Game Gear but thanks to a stellar line-up, the Game Boy easily wrote history and managed to sell millions of units. Tetris was the first big success and the first Pokémon games skyrocketed the sales even more. It was during that time that I got my hands on a solid green ‘Play it Loud’ Game Boy, the start of my gaming adventures.

My first years as a gamer

When I think about my first years as a gamer, it started on PC with the floppy disk version of DOOM and an obscure little game called Fury of the Furries. I had fun on PC but nothing compared to the fun I had with my brand-new Green Game Boy, the first gaming device that really made me fall in love with this type of entertainment. It was my sister who had a Game Boy first, being three years older than me, my parents made the obvious choice to give her a gaming system before I ever had one. I loved watching her play and remember getting really curious about how the games played on that small screen. I could borrow her grey brick Game Boy to play Tetris, Super Mario Land, and Wario Land (Super Mario Land 3). I tried to get through the levels where she got stuck or we tried to get as far as possible in Super Mario Land before the Game Over screen appeared and we had to restart the entire game. Since I played on her system a lot, my parents decided it was time I got my own, enter the iconic Green Play it Loud system, a system I still cherish to this day. I remember getting my own set of games including Looney Tunes 2: Tasmanian Devil in Island Chase, a game that quickly became my favorite as a huge fan of the Tasmanian Devil. I have fond memories of that game but the Game Boy also became my new travel companion and a way to connect and enjoy some time together with my sister.

When we were kids, we always spent our vacations in an apartment close to the coast of Spain. A big part of our family traveled to the same location and during the daytime, we enjoyed the beach together and played in the sand and water. When we were back in the apartment, I liked to read some comics or play on my Game Boy, together with my sister. We mostly played separate games but there certainly was something magical about sitting on the couch together and playing our own games while sharing our virtual adventures and frustrations if we got stuck. I was too young to truly understand the power of gaming back then but it’s clear now that gaming really enables players to connect, to share the joy and frustrations all together, and just come closer by sharing the same passion and interest. It’s something I really thank gaming for as I would have certainly been another person if I hadn’t been playing my Green Game Boy on that couch back in the day.

Pokémon Red

My first years with my Game Boy were great but it all changed when Pokémon Red was released. As a kid, I was a HUGE Pokémon fan and to this day I still am. Pokémon Red was the first game that really got me hooked, which wasn’t an easy feat back in the day. As a little boy living in Belgium, I had to learn how to read and understand English in order to play Pokémon Red. Nowadays all main games are translated into Dutch but that wasn’t the case when I was playing my first big games. Thanks to gaming, I became fluent in English, not because I wanted to score high grades but because I wanted to understand the games I was playing. The internet and Google weren’t a thing everybody could access so I had to discuss it with friends or go to gaming stores to buy special game guides to help me when I got stuck. It didn’t happen that often but when I did get stuck, I always managed to push forward because I wanted to become the best Pokémon trainer that ever was. Playing Pokémon Red was fun but it got better when it became the favorite subject of my classmates and we all invested in link cables to trade some of our Pokémon and trusted each other that we would trade Alakazam, Machoke, Graveler, and Gengar back when they evolved through trade. It added a huge social layer to my gaming experience and really made me belong to a community that shared the same passion. Pokémon Red is without a doubt my favorite game ever created because of that. Sure, it’s the nostalgia but it’s also the fact that it made me feel like I truly belonged somewhere, it’s one of those games that literally changed my life for the better and it’s all because of the Game Boy.

Thanks for everything

Looking back at the Game Boy system I really have to thank this little system for showing me the importance of videogames. Thanks to this handheld, I became a gaming journalist together with some of my closest friends and we created what is now known as Gaming Boulevard, a website that is internationally known and supported by the best team I could ever wish for. Besides that, gaming enabled me to travel the world, play the hottest new games, and meet tons of my heroes. People I looked up to as a kid became my colleagues as a gaming journalist. Playing previews next to legendary gaming journalists will never get old. Besides writing and making content, gaming also became a huge part of my life recently as I organized the first ever gaming in education event here in Belgium (it’s called OMG) together with my colleagues at Impact Connecting. I’m also working on a new project (GameHive) where we’ll try to motivate young adults to (re)find their talents and interests through gaming to give them a fair shot at a career again. None of this would have been possible if the Game Boy hadn’t shown me the power of gaming, so this anniversary feels like something I should celebrate without a doubt. Thanks for everything Game Boy, thanks for making me dream about a future in the gaming scene, and for teaching me not to give up until I reach that next level. I can’t wait to play more games and see where life takes me!