Mario’s Cement Factory puts Nintendo’s hero in a hard hat: riding lifts up and down a concrete plant, he must open the hopper valves in time to fill the waiting mixer trucks without burying their drivers.
This is the Table Top edition, a miniature arcade cabinet from the Game & Watch range. Its colour screen has no backlight: daylight or a lamp shines in through a window in the cabinet top. It doubles as a clock with alarm, and this one wears the sticker of CGL, the British importer.
Interesting facts
Queen in the cement works. Early Table Top units reportedly greeted players with a speeded-up snatch of the bass riff from Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust. Later production runs swapped it for an original jingle, so the tune depends on when yours was made.
The rare big brother. Two versions appeared in 1983: this Table Top on 28 April and a pocket New Wide Screen in June. Around 750,000 handhelds were made but only about 250,000 Table Tops, one of just four games in the range.
From cement to cookies. Mario’s job outlived the hardware. Game Boy Gallery (1995) ran it without Mario; Game & Watch Gallery 4 made it a cookie factory staffed by Yoshi and Toad; a 2009 DSiWare version became a best-seller.