This Month in STEM: The Release of Game Boy
Mar 15, 2023
We recently celebrated Super Mario Day on March 10th. That’s because its abbreviated date - MAR10 - spells out Mario’s name! You likely have played versions of Super Mario games on the original Nintendo, Super Nintendo or N64 consoles. But you may have even played versions of these games on a Game Boy. In April, we celebrate this gaming device’s 34th birthday!
Hand-held gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch, the Switch Lite and DS are all updated versions of the original Game Boy. What may seem cumbersome and clunky to play with now, the Game Boy device was revolutionary at the time of its release because it allowed kids (and adults!) to take their games in the car, on an airplane, and wherever they went. Different games were sold as cartridges with an image on the front that could be inserted into the back of the Game Boy.
So how exactly did it work? The Game Boy used an 8-bit Z80 processor with a monochrome LCD display. This means that the text and images are displayed in different tones of one color only. Game Boy also had 4-channel stereo sound.
With your original Game Boy you also received Tetris, a game in which you move blocks to the bottom of the screen to form complete rows. As Game Boy became popular, many different games were released, including various versions of Super Mario, Zelda, the Kirby series, and later, Pokemon.
Nintendo continued to build upon their original Game Boy creation. As more games were released, new and improved consoles were released, as well.
These included the Game Boy Pocket - a smaller, slimmer version of the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Camera & Printer add-ons, the Game Boy Color - which could support up to 56 colors and still play original Nintendo games, and the Game Boy Advance. 
Gaming is an ever-changing industry, and it takes a plethora of STEM skills to successfully build these different video games and consoles. Computer programming, logical thinking, creativity, problem-solving and collaboration are all skills fostered when developing video games. If students have a solid STEM foundation and enjoy gaming, they have numerous opportunities available to them. STEM careers in gaming include being a Technical Support Specialist, Animator, Audio Engineer, Programmer and Developer - all of which are promising career paths.
So where should they start? Working in programs like Scratch allow children and adults to learn how to build basic video games. Scratch uses colored blocks to write programs, making abstract concepts a bit more tangible and visually-friendly for newer learners. Yet writing a program in Scratch still requires using programming skills like adding in loops, conditional statements, and variables. Eventually, students learn how to translate this type of code into text-based programming languages, preparing them to work in the world of gaming. As we celebrate the release of Game Boy, let’s be sure to expose our children to a solid STEM education, knowing that we could be raising the next generation of game creators!
References:
- https://www.si.edu/object/game-boy%3Anmah_1253117
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