Clockwork arcade games

Possessing a playground collectability factor to rival that of Panini sticker albums and Top Trumps¹, Pocketeers were initially either teensy-ball-bearing variations of bagatelle, magnet-based racing games, or against-the-clock mazes. A Japanese invention (thanks Tomy - now take your Pokemon and fuck off), in fact nothing more than a bonsai version of that old parlour game Pachinko, they were marketed by Palitoy in the UK and were, naturally, just big enough to fit into a school-blazer-sized pocket (which was handily now empty of money).

The imagination behind every game was astounding (nearly every field sport was adapted to hand-held size at least once), and each new title was just different enough from previous editions to make purchase a necessity. But, basically, a game would consist of a coloured, illustrated plastic box with a clear lid, some additional buttons or triggers, and sometimes a small wind-up timer that would click down to zero with a disproportionately loud whirr. No potential genre was ignored; Pocketeers embraced the fruit machine, the casino (cards and dice), duck-shoots, golf, Pac-man and Smurfs, before finally meeting their nemesis in the form of Space Invaders².

The advent of the video game limited how impressive even the most sophisticated of moving parts in a Pocketeer could be made to look. Miniaturisation and the silicon chip rendered them archaic at best (and, for some reason, kids nowadays just don’t get that same nostalgia buzz from old toys). Tomy re-entered the market in the mid ‘80s with the rebranded “Pocket Games” (and later “Pocketmates”, though neither has the implicit excitement of the clearly Rocketeer-influenced original name), with less success. But, in the wake of your Nintendogs and Java downloadables, surely these hardy originals are long overdue a 21st Century eco-makeover by the likes of clockwork radio wallah, Trevor Baylis, what?