Parachute

Parachutes descend from the sky, the water below is full of sharks, and you have a single task: catch every paratrooper in the boat before he lands. Parachute is one of the best-known and most distinctive games from the Nintendo Game & Watch line and a perfect example of how catchy a game built on a single mechanic can be.

The player moves a rescue boat across the surface from left to right and tries to catch parachutists who descend from three different positions. The pace gradually increases, the parachutes appear faster and at unexpected intervals, so calm running turns into frantic anticipation. A single missed paratrooper, and one of your lives disappears from the game, while the sharks beneath the surface make it clear how it will end.

Parachute falls into the era of Game & Watch, pocket LCD games that Nintendo produced from 1980 based on an idea by the legendary engineer Gunpei Yokoi. Each device contained a single game with a permanently printed image on the display and served simultaneously as a watch and an alarm. It was precisely the simplicity and low price that made these devices a worldwide phenomenon.

The significance of the series lies in the fact that it practically founded the category of handheld electronic games and both commercially and technically prepared Nintendo for the arrival of the Game Boy. Games of the Parachute type became the archetype of the entire "catching falling objects" genre, which was later imitated in various forms by dozens of other LCD toys and computer games.

Today Parachute functions as a small lesson in elegant game design. A single control principle, no menu, no story, just you and the constantly accelerating rain of paratroopers. It is the kind of game you start "just to try" and after half an hour are still fighting for a new personal record.

Why play: For an instantly understandable yet surprisingly tense game of reflexes that embodies the magic of the golden era of pocket electronics.