I rather like this one, Taro and Jiro (*)
and his buddies have been left behind at the south pole.
He has to wait until the ship arrives to get him home. The clever thing about
this game is that there actually 5 things you have to do, which is a lot to
fit in such a small game. First at the bottom left corner he has to get ice(1),
then he has to wait for the seal to come on land and hit it on the head and
wait for him to die(2), there is even a small deathsequence in it! Then he has
to collect the meat (3) of the dead seal (seems rather cruel?) and feed it to
his little buddies (4). The longer you wait with feeding them the more of them
will fall down, which is all right as long as you feed them before the last
one is down, there are 5 of them. While you are carrying a piece of ice, you
have to avoid the seagull who will otherwise smash your icecube. You have to
keep this up until the ship arrives with a guy who says 'TARO! JIRO!' to save
you, you simply walk up to him and leave (5) or wait for the next boat, it doesn't
cost a life to miss a boat just points. After boarding the ship, it starts all
over again.
(*) (with thanks to Joshua for the info)
Taro and Jiro were the 2 surviving members of a 15 strong dog sled team abandoned in
Antarctica after a failed Japanese expedition in 1958. When they were found alive by a
returning expedition the following spring, they became celebrities in Japan, a symbol of perseverence.
There was a movie made in the early 80s, called "Antarctica", from this story.
So apart from giving us extreme nostalgic pleasure, these fiendish little devices teach some history too!
Is there anything they can't do?