Decades before we got married and started a family, my partner and I connected over a little Boxer pup named Charlie. We tossed a ball around, scrubbed him down when he got dirty, and took him for daily walks. It was a bonding experience — mediated entirely through the original Nintendo DS’s touchscreen. The tactile experience turned an otherwise simple game like Nintendogs, where the goal is to take care of virtual pets, into something that created a deep emotional connection. And years before smartphones were in everyone’s pockets, it helped show a generation of gamers just what’s possible with a touchscreen.
Now, we mostly take them for granted, but prior to the arrival of the first DS in 2004, the idea of a touchscreen was, for many…