LCD.emu

🕹️LCD.emu — the golden age of Game & Watch, in your pocket

From 1980 to 1991, Nintendo sold over 43 million little LCD handhelds under the Game & Watch name — pocket machines with a fixed silvery screen, a built-in clock, and one or two buttons. LCD.emu brings that whole era back. It doesn't fake the games with new graphics; it runs the actual microcontroller code from the original hardware, cycle for cycle, so every blip, beep, and blinking segment behaves exactly like the real thing — now on your Android phone or tablet, with touch controls and gamepad support.

Single-screen classics, hinged dual-screen "Multi Screen" models, the wide and new-wide variants — and one guest from Konami — all in one faithful, offline emulator.

⚠️ Please read: this app comes with NO games. It is only the emulator. You add your own game files (see below). That's exactly what keeps LCD.emu legal to share — the games themselves are still owned by their makers, so they are not, and never will be, included here.

✨ Features

Cycle-accurate emulation of the original Sharp SM5-family microcontrollers — not a re-creation, the real code.

Touch controls tailored per game — on-screen buttons match each unit's real layout.

Gamepad support — connect a controller and the on-screen buttons step aside.

Portrait or landscape — play whichever way feels right.

Adjustable screen size, from windowed up to edge-to-edge full-screen.

Save & load your place any time.

Optional background photos — drop a picture of the real unit behind the screen.

Joystick-or-d-pad toggle on several games — pick the control style you prefer.

100% offline. Import once, play forever. Nothing is uploaded, ever.

🎮 36 titles supported

Add the files for any of these and it lights up:

Nintendo — Game & Watch

Silver (1980): Ball · Flagman · Vermin · Fire · Judge

Gold (1981): Lion · Manhole

Wide Screen (1981–82): Octopus · Parachute · Helmet · Chef · Popeye · Fire · Turtle Bridge · Fire Attack

Multi Screen — dual, stacked (1982–89): Oil Panic · Donkey Kong · Mickey & Donald · Green House · Donkey Kong II · Pinball · Black Jack · Squish · Bomb Sweeper · Safe Buster · Gold Cliff · Zelda

Multi Screen — dual, side-by-side (1983): Mario Bros. · Rain Shower · Life Boat

New Wide Screen (1982–86): Donkey Kong Jr. · Mario's Cement Factory · Manhole · Tropical Fish · Super Mario Bros.

Konami

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)

📥 How it works — bring your own files

Because the games are copyrighted, you supply your own legally-obtained files (for example, dumps of hardware you own, or a MAME "Game & Watch" set). Each game needs its original ROM (the chip data) and its screen artwork. It's quick:

Put your files in a folder on your device — one folder is fine, dump them all in together.

In LCD.emu, tap ➕ Add Games and choose that folder.

The app recognizes each file by its contents (no renaming needed) and installs it. Done once per game — it's saved inside the app after that.

Backgrounds (optional) are matched by file name: gnw_chef.png for a single-screen game, or gnw_dkong1.png + gnw_dkong2.png (top / bottom) for a two-screen game. The full ID list is in the included user-files-template/README.txt.

📲 Installing (Android)

Launch LCD.emu. Every game reads "missing" until you add its files — that's expected; see "How it works" above.

❓ FAQ

Why does everything say "missing"? Because no games are bundled — that's by design. Add your own files with ➕ Add Games and they become playable.

Where do I get the game files? LCD.emu doesn't provide them and can't point you to them. If you legally own the hardware or a MAME set, you already have what you need.

A game won't start / looks off-center. Make sure you imported both the ROM and its artwork. For alignment or size, use the pause menu — there's a Size control and an Align segments tool.

https://cmtz112190.itch.io/lcdemu