Adec Y888 Game Watch

Watch companies often have sub-brands — Seiko has Alba and Lorus (and other companies they acquired like Orient and Pulsar) and Citizen has Q&Q, Vega and Adec.

And when it comes to game watches, it’s these sub-brands you find that have the games — not the parent company (Casio being the obvious exception). I’m not sure why this is, maybe it’s merely a coincidence but all the sub-brands mentioned above have games in their lineups, while the parent has none.

So onto this watch – the Adec Y888 Alarm Game watch.

This is rare, it’s unlikely you’ll see a photo or any information about it on the internet, and there doesn’t seem to be a handheld version of the game (which is unusual for a game watch, most have a handheld sibling even if produced under a different name).

Unfortunately the watch itself has major problems. Putting a battery in makes the watch cycle then turn off in the space of a few seconds. The LCD displays strange characters and it’s pretty much unusable.

Unless you get it into game mode during those few seconds of cycling time — then it will work almost perfectly!

This would seem that unfortunately there is a problem with the IC itself which is non-repairable. On the plus side, you can play the game (complete with sound) if you’re willing to muck around with it a bit to get it working.

If it were working, the watch features time, date and an alarm, but it’s really all about the game.

You are a caveman on the hunt for bananas for your girlfriend. A monkey appears dropping a banana in a tree at the far right of the screen. If you try and grab it before he’s gone past, he will grab it back off you and you’ll have to wait for him to come around again. And the waiting wouldn’t be too bad, except a gorilla appears and will punch you if you wait too long. One punch = one life.

No problem, you can just wait on the left hand side. Except, there a lion will appear and likewise will give you a biff if you are there for more than a second or two.

So the aim of the game is to grab the banana at the right time, avoid the gorilla and the lion, and present it to your girlfriend (who isn’t on-screen all the time either, she appears and disappears at random so you can be left holding your banana trying to avoid all the animals and it all gets quite chaotic).

This is a fun game; simple concept but a lot of things to watch out for. You get five lives and can get into a good rhythm to rack up a decent score … or you can spend your time getting hammered by the lion/gorilla combo and lose with few points to show for it. There is a Game 2, which I haven’t managed to get to, which I can only guess is the same but faster.

When your game is over, you can start a new one as long as you’re quick. If you wait more than a few seconds the watch turns off and you have to pop the back, perform a reset, and try to get back to game mode before it goes off again.

I could live with the time section being faulty, but the unstable power means this one will spend its life in a box unless I can find a fully working circuitboard for it. And given I’ve never seen this one before and there’s no information about it anywhere, the chances of that happening aren’t great.