Octopus

Beneath the surface lurks a giant octopus, and you have a single task: retrieve the treasure from the sunken wreck before its tentacles drag you into the depths. Octopus is one of the best-known titles in the entire Game & Watch series and remains one of the games that fans of portable LCD classics recall first.

The gameplay combines greed with evasive agility. You control a diver who sets out from the boat to the seabed for gold coins and jewels. On the way there and back, however, you must weave between the moving tentacles of the giant octopus, which stretch tirelessly across the screen. The longer you linger at the treasure and the more coins you gather, the higher your score — but also the greater the risk that a tentacle will catch you. The game is thus essentially a constant gamble between greed and caution.

Octopus was created in the early phase of Game & Watch under the direction of Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi, whose approach consisted of distilling a single idea into a perfectly playable form. No story, no levels — just mounting tension and the desire to beat your own record. It was precisely this purity and instant comprehensibility that made Octopus one of the most beloved pieces of the whole line.

Culturally, Octopus became something of a flagship for the Game & Watch aesthetic. Its simple yet striking silhouette of a diver and tentacles imprinted itself on the memory of an entire generation, and the principle of "go for the loot and come back alive" is repeated in countless later games. When people say classic Game & Watch, many picture exactly this underwater chase.

Thanks to its popularity, the Octopus motif appeared in various commemorations and tributes to the classic era of Nintendo's portable games. For collectors and nostalgics alike, it remains one of the iconic symbols of what handheld entertainment looked like in the early eighties.

Why play: For a thrilling game of greed versus survival that ranks among the most iconic titles of the entire Game & Watch series.