Mickey's Epic Gaming History

Did you know that Nintendo's published more Mickey Mouse games in America than either Star Fox or F-Zero, and even developed some of those games in-house? Or that Mickey's first appearance on a Nintendo console equipped the wholesome family character with an arsenal of ninja stars? How about that Disney's main mascot even got his own version of Tetris, once upon a time? There may be more to the Mouse than meets the eye when it comes to his history in video games, and as we approach the release of his newest outing – the Wii-exclusive Disney Epic Mickey – we're here to get you up to speed on his past three decades' worth of interactive adventures.

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Mickey's First Steps
1981 – 1984

We'll begin at the very beginning, where Mickey Mouse's first interactive video games were crafted in the very same place as a certain portly plumber – in an era when Nintendo's own main character didn't even have his name yet. It was 1981, and as development was taking place on Donkey Kong (the game that would first introduce Mario as "Jumpman") other artists at Nintendo's studio in Japan were using the licensed image of Disney's much more notable hero to create the world's first Mickey Mouse video game.

It was a Game & Watch. One of Nintendo's original, standalone handheld game units that used rudimentary, blinking LCD screens to convey a limited set of "animations" – the Game & Watch systems would go on to be remembered in various modern collections, remakes and the comical character of Mr. Game & Watch, but Mickey Mouse helped launch the entire brand nearly 30 years ago.


His first game, simply called Mickey Mouse, tasked the round-eared rodent with catching eggs. Really. For whatever reason, Mickey became a hen-keeping farmer armed with a basket, and it was up to you to maneuver him back and forth across the screen to two different chicken coops, where a total of four different chickens sat and constantly laid an endless amount of eggs. If you didn't get Mickey into position in time, the eggs would roll down ramps (placed inconveniently directly beneath the hens' rear ends) and then smash into pieces on the ground below.

So Mickey Mouse's very first video game was a bit out of character for him, in that it was a game design that didn't really take advantage of his character at all. (And it was actually released a second time with a more generic wolf character in his place, and was then simply called "Egg." That version, in turn, made an encore appearance in 1999's Game & Watch Gallery 3 for the Game Boy Color, and swapped in Yoshi catching tumbling cookies instead.)


Mickey's second video game, though, was much more in line with what fans of the Mouse expected – it was an adaptation of a classic short from 1935, "Mickey's Fire Brigade." The game was released in 1982 and went by the name of Mickey & Donald, and like the decades-old cartoon it was based on, the Mouse and Duck were teamed up with their pal Goofy as bumbling firefighters trying to keep a building from burning down.

It was one of Nintendo's first multi-screen Game & Watch games (the double-display design that would later inspire the DS), and in it you had to simultaneously control both Donald on the upper screen, and Mickey on the lower. Donald moved left and right to aim the fire hose down at the blaze slowly making its way up to the roof of the building, while Mickey kept the water flowing by both making sure the hose didn't burst and motivating Goofy to keep the pump going. Not a bad design at all, and a good debut for the characters of Donald and Goofy in video game form themselves.


Mickey made a brief detour away from the early '80s Nintendo handheld scene to make his first ever home console appearance, appearing in Sorcerer's Apprentice for the Atari 2600 in 1983. It was an adaptation of Mickey's role from Fantasia, and tasked him with keeping a tower from flooding while clad in his signature blue hat and red robe from that famous film – which actually didn't look that bad in the restrictive visual style of the Atari.

Finally, Mickey Mouse's Nintendo-developed Game & Watch adventures came to an end in 1984 with a third release – but it was really just an upgrade for the 1981 original. The egg-catching first Mickey Mouse game made an encore appearance as a "Panorama" Series Game & Watch product, an enhanced form factor with a larger display and reflective mirror that was meant to provide a better viewing experience.

Mickey Mouse's earliest adventures might not be well remembered, but they were the very first steps the character took into the gaming industry – and it's interesting that the Game & Watch games were developed and published by Nintendo itself, a company whose own main mascot would go on to grow in popularity to the point that he'd be named "the Mickey Mouse of video games." Mario's notoriety, of course, didn't really get going until the release of the 8-bit NES – and there, too, is where Mickey made his next mark.

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