From Springs and Magnets to Screens
Three generations of hardware, one design brief. What changed between a spring and a touchscreen, and what stubbornly didn't.
Springs and bearings: physics for free
Mechanical games never had to program anything. Gravity, friction and momentum came with the plastic, and difficulty was tuned by moving a wall a millimetre. The player's input was the movement of their own hands, which is about as direct as control gets.
Segments and buttons: rules replace physics
LCD handhelds threw the physics away. A character could only appear in positions the screen had been printed with, so designers wrote rules instead — timing windows, patterns, speed steps. Control moved to two or three buttons, and the challenge became reaction rather than balance.
Sensors and glass: both at once
A modern phone can do either. Its accelerometer restores tilt as a real control, while the screen can draw whatever it likes at whatever speed. That is why the club runs simulated bearings and moulded walls on some games and button-timing rules on others — the hardware finally supports both traditions on one device.
What survived
The constants are short rounds, an instant restart, a goal you can see without instructions, and a game that fits in one hand. Every generation of hardware rediscovered them, and they are the rules the club still builds to.