Catch-a-Coke

In the early 1980s, the Coca-Cola Company was trying to find a good way of marketing their drinks to younger consumers. They decided to marry their products to a sensation that was quickly becoming more and more popular: video games. They teamed up with Bandai to create an LCD game, based on the hardware of Bandai's handhelds, that would be built into Coca-Cola vending machines: Catch a Coke.

Catch a Coke was meant to be something that you could play while you wait for the vending machine to dispense a drink. Since vending doesn't take very long, the game was designed to be very quick: the owner could adjust the game to last from 10 to 30 seconds. The gameplay is simple: a Coca-Cola vending machine is shooting out bottles of Coke, and the player has to move around and catch them.

In addition to the games installed in the vending machines, actual handheld versions of the game were distributed exclusively to Coca-Cola employees.