You can play all the Game & Watch machines perfectly on Mame and it’s amazing! Here’s how…..

You may have heard of the excellent MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) capable of running thousands of retro arcade machines but what you may not know is that, thanks to the incredible efforts of a talented group, you can now also play every Game & Watch machine ever released flawlessly! The images above are how they actually look running in Mame, pretty impressive!  So I thought I’d do my best to guide you through how to get these and set them up……

Firstly download and install the latest Windows version of Mame from https://www.mamedev.org/release.php

Next download the regular Game and Watch roms from https://edgeemu.net/browse-mame-G.htm - just keep scrolling down until you reach the roms beginning with ‘Game & Watch’ and download each individual rom, they’re tiny files so each will download in seconds, it’s advisable to create a folder on your PC/laptop desktop called ‘Roms’ and download them all to that.

Now download the Micro vs. System roms from https://edgeemu.net/browse-mame-M.htm - again keep scrolling down until you find the roms beginning with ‘Micro vs. System’ and download all three to your previously created Roms folder.

Lastly you will also need the border artwork so create a second folder on your desktop called ‘Artwork’, go to https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vl9O-0jIGCHHY_lrWpOwBtqTXEKsVGOY - you need only download the files beginning with ‘gnw_’ and save them all to your Artwork folder.

Now load Mame and go into ‘Configure Options’ then ‘Configure Directories’ where you need to tell the emulator the folders for Artwork and ROMs, once you’ve done this select ‘Return to Previous Menu’ and ‘Save Configuration’.  Lastly you can map the controls by going to ‘General Inputs’ remembering again to select ‘Save Configuration’ once done.   If you have a Bluetooth controller you map the buttons to this instead.  I have a tiny little 8BitDo Lite controller which works perfectly.

You should now be ready to go, simply select the machine you wish to play, press ‘1’ on the PC/laptop keyboard to start and it should run perfectly!

I’ve set it up on my Microsoft Surface Go 2 and am so impressed by the flawless performance of each and every machine, it really is like playing the real thing especially with a Bluetooth controller! It requires a bit of effort to set up but you’ll be well rewarded if you’re a Game and Watch fan like myself!