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In 1991 one of the hottest crazes was the newly released Barcode Battler LCD handheld. This standalone system featured a built in barcode scanner to which you swiped hero and enemy cards to do battle with. Additional items and power ups could be scanned too, all of which adding or subtracting to the simplistic number game made up of three values, attack, defense and energy.
Although rudimentary, the Barcode Battler’s charm was within its ability to scan just about any barcode you could find. The school playgrounds were soon flooded with kids exchanging cutouts from the back of baked bean tins to pickled onion crisps, all in the hunt for the perfect warrior - the true Barcode Battler. It was very much a product of its time and it’s unlikely another craze will ever have children ripping the packaging off just about anything they can find, and then running it through a small slot on a handheld game.
Barcode Boy Emulation in GBE+
http://www.retrocollect.com/News/jap...-emulated.html
https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art7.html
https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art6.html
Although rudimentary, the Barcode Battler’s charm was within its ability to scan just about any barcode you could find. The school playgrounds were soon flooded with kids exchanging cutouts from the back of baked bean tins to pickled onion crisps, all in the hunt for the perfect warrior - the true Barcode Battler. It was very much a product of its time and it’s unlikely another craze will ever have children ripping the packaging off just about anything they can find, and then running it through a small slot on a handheld game.
Barcode Boy Emulation in GBE+
http://www.retrocollect.com/News/jap...-emulated.html
https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art7.html
https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art6.html