Years ago, I was a Pokemon fan (street cred? What's that?), and among the more interesting toys they had was the Pokemon Battle Arena. It was made b y Tiger Toys. It was basically a fighting game. Players sat across from e ach other, with a small display screen between them. Looking at the screen , there was red film on both sides (it tinted the view red) but other than that, it was clear.
The game itself was a fighting game, and here's where the question comes in to play. There were a bunch of transparent pegs between the "glass" planes for the display. Something was wrapped around the pegs in such a way that the game would flash images, a total of six different ones. It was like a wire and made a rough wire-framish image of the characters. No motion, an d none of the pegs were used for more than one image. Character on the gro und, character up in the air from a jump, character falling back in a defen sive position, one set for each player, powered by IIRC three AA batteries and for about $30.
Every once in a while, I wonder what exactly was in that display. At first , I thought it was fiber optics, but looking at that, it appears fiber opti cs only emit light from the end, not for the entire length like the game di d to display the characters. Plus, there would be no need to tint the disp lay. Does anyone have any idea how they might have pulled this off?