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Games

The Nintendo Game Boy Becomes A Percussion Instrument

It doesn’t really get any more lo-fi than this.

The Nintendo Game Boy is best remembered as the device that made school lessons more bearable back in the ‘90s, along with popularising Tetris and the electronic blippy sounds that have since spawned the genre of chiptune music. But just because these days the only time we see the Game Boy rear its blocky gray head is at the performances of artists like Sulumi, doesn’t mean that its potential as a musical instrument has to end there. YouTuber MrSeberi has used the portable console as an acoustic percussion instrument—tapping buttons, throwing the cartridges down, pulling and pushing the power cord or camera in and out, and switching the power button on and off to create a lo-fi music medley with this (formerly) high-tech device.

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An interesting, inventive, and unexpected use of the handheld console, but not the first and certainly not the last time a retro gaming device has been turned into a musical instrument. To compliment this Game Boy drum kit, surely you’d need to make the circuit-bending NES guitar from The Gizzards. Or better yet, might as well put together a full Nintendo-powered band. Now that we’d pay money to see.