Aside from these games, for some reason as I snuggled into bed tonight wrapping up against the chilly evening weather, I was about to again play another game of Harry Potter on my phone when I thought of handheld games of the 1970s when I was a kid.
I'd done a post about a few of my nostalgic, old electronic games back in 2014 but I ended the post complaining that one of my most beloved handheld games seemed lost in time. I couldn't remember the name of it and my Google searches at the time weren't proving to be very fruitful.
On a whim, I thought I'd give it another whirl tonight and lo and behold, I found it! Doing a search on Google Images for "1970s handheld electronic maze games," a few of the images showed this, seen above. It was called, apparently, Amaze-A-Tron. No wonder I didn't remember the name of it, that name showed no imagination on the part of Coleco. As I described in that original post, the game is part Concentration, part Simon and part Maze Runner. You had to progress in an ever-growing complex maze pattern on the grid of squares using visual, audio, and logical maze solving cues. I freaking loved this game! The above picture is grabbed from a listing on eBay for this very, very well preserved example. It must never have been opened for it to have lasted all these years. Unfortunately, they want $55 for it. I'm all for nostalgia, but, get real. So no I won't be buying it to relive my childhood.
Maybe if I'm a really good boy though, Santa might bring this for me?
I won't hold my breath.
I just now also found this YouTube video of a couple playing with it. Oh the memories of the sounds!