McDonald's Releases Free Game Boy Color Inspired Grimace Game

McDonald's locations are currently celebrating the birthday of the Grimace, and as part of the celebration, the company has released a browser game starring the purple mascot. Appropriately titled Grimace's Birthday, the game is clearly inspired by the Game Boy Color era. In fact, when played on a mobile device, it even looks like the user is playing it on a Game Boy! The desktop version instead copies the look and feel of internet games from the late '90s and early 2000s, complete with advertisements surrounding the game screen, and a poll asking visitors if they've seen the Hamburglar.

An image from the game can be found below. Readers interested in checking out the browser game for themselves can do so right here.

In Grimace's Birthday, players are tasked with skateboarding around as Grimace, collecting purple shakes and finding other McDonald's icons like the McNugget Buddies and Birdie. The game actually features both a Normal and Hard mode, as well as Score Attack and Freeskate options; for a freebie game, that's actually a pretty good amount of content! Grimace's Birthday was developed by Krool Toys, who previously made another Game Boy inspired game for Atlantic Records. That 2020 game was an "adaptation" of Lil Uzi Vert and Future's album Pluto x Baby Pluto, and it found significant success online.

While the idea of a McDonald's video game might seem unusual, there have been multiple video games based on the restaurant chain. In 1992, there were actually two games released: M.C. Kids and Global Gladiators, both of which released on multiple platforms. In 1993, McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure was released exclusively on the Sega Genesis. Of course, McDonald's locations have also offered a number of video game themed toys and giveaways over the years, including a Chicken McNugget shaped Tetris game, which was recently released exclusively in China. Readers interested in learning more about that can do so right here.

Do you plan on checking out this McDonald's game? Is this the kind of thing you'd play? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!