This watch was a long time coming – literally!
First, it’s taken me ages to find one — several years — at a half-reasonable price. Thanks to Leo for alerting me to this one (on a non-eBay auction site) and bidding/forwarding for me — thanks mate, you rock!! And second, for some reason instead of going USA > NZ, it took a lengthy detour, somehow ending up in Israel where it languished at the airport for some weeks, before miraculously appearing at NZ Customs, and shortly afterwards in my letterbox!
This is Sea Ranger – branded by Mercury, but there are also examples by Gamma, Aldo, Nelsonic (I think) and others. I have an Aldo Planes and Tanks, and the game is pretty much the same. You have to get from one side to the other while avoiding objects from above. In Sea Ranger there are also sharks from below to avoid too.
There are two games (Pro 1 and Pro 2) with the second a faster and more challenging version of the first. You have four lives, rather than three, which is a bit of a thing in some Hong Kong game watches, but not with Japanese game watches, who seem to stick to the three life system, like their arcade games.
It has a daily alarm (beep beep, no melody) and an hourly time signal.
Never easy to find, Sea Ranger is a very playable game and like Planes and Tanks, can be found (much more easily) as a handheld game, rather than a watch.
Definitely a fun watch and this example, even 40+ years later, still holds up well in terms of construction and playability.
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