Game Boy Homebrews?
I have seen many many homebrews for nes and snes, but never a gameboy homebrew. I know there are bootlegs and such but I've never seen an original game for GB. I would think that they would be easier because gameboy games are basically simpler versions of nes games. I know that the cartrages are smaller, but with flash memory and such I'm sure you'd be able to pack a lot of game on a gameboy cartrage. If no one is doing them, what does it take to start? Guess you need like a commador 64 and learn how to program
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I happen to be coding a program myself, but it will not be "for play." It is nothing more than a live-update-able variable table with communication to a device running C++. No time to discuss that right yet. FOr some software learning see here:
http://cratel.wichita.edu/cratel/ECE238Spr08
I learned everything from here.
Originally posted by: captainolimar
I have seen many many homebrews for snes ...
What homebrews are available for SNES? I only know of one or two and want to catch up.
Originally posted by: captainolimar
I have seen many many homebrews for snes ...
What homebrews are available for SNES? I only know of one or two and want to catch up.
I believe shiru had done uwol and the 16 bit snes Xmas, as well as creepy bird and whatever else he's working on with piko, and watermelon has one coming out as well. There was a 4 player beatm up that someone did but won't release the rom or sell the game. I think that person just did it as a project of his and doesn't want anything more to do with it.
http://gra.dforce3000.de/index.php
Edit:
He sure knows his stuff when it comes to the SNES.
As far as Game Boy homebrews go, there are three non-music games that I know of released on actual carts. Airaki was still available last I checked, and it is rather fun. Furrtek, the fellow who did the game, has also released tutorials for those wanting to learn. They are in French of course, but still...
I hear that the Z80 is easier to program than the 6502, but what do I know. I think that it'd be fun to do a GB game myself, as sort of a side quest or spin off to one of my regular projects (in the vein of Metroid 2, Final Fantasy Adventure, etc.). Oh yeah, I'd have to actually finish a NES project first
Originally posted by: SoleGooseProductions
N-Warp can be bought from Piko as an individual cart. It was also part of the multi-cart that he did.
As far as Game Boy homebrews go, there are three non-music games that I know of released on actual carts. Airaki was still available last I checked, and it is rather fun. Furrtek, the fellow who did the game, has also released tutorials for those wanting to learn. They are in French of course, but still...
I hear that the Z80 is easier to program than the 6502, but what do I know. I think that it'd be fun to do a GB game myself, as sort of a side quest or spin off to one of my regular projects (in the vein of Metroid 2, Final Fantasy Adventure, etc.). Oh yeah, I'd have to actually finish a NES project first
Airaki looks pretty cool. What, if any, are the other homebrew (or even repro) Game Boy carts out there?
However, I don't think programming difficulty is really the reason why there aren't too many GB homebrews out there. I'd rather guess it is mostly because the GB user scene (people who are still actually playing the original console) is pretty small compared to the NES/SNES, this is probably because the original platform is too old to be used with comfort (huge, drains battery fast, the screen is a disaster by any remotely modern standards).
Originally posted by: Shiru
Z80 is certainly not easier to program than 6502, it is quite vice versa. But GB does not have Z80, it has its own CPU that is mostly 8080 with a few minor features of Z80, and a nasty bug.
However, I don't think programming difficulty is really the reason why there aren't too many GB homebrews out there. I'd rather guess it is mostly because the GB user scene (people who are still actually playing the original console) is pretty small compared to the NES/SNES, this is probably because the original platform is too old to be used with comfort (huge, drains battery fast, the screen is a disaster by any remotely modern standards).
I don't know if it is the case anymore, but Z80 used to have a relatively large following due to being used in TI Graphing calculators (TI 85, specifically).
So a lot of GB-style homebrew has been done in Z80-assembly over the years on the TI calculators, instead.
They have more RAM than a GB anyway -- 32 kB vs 8 kB, though only 28kB is user accessible.
And a faster processor: 6MHz versus 4-and-change.
Smaller screen, though, and obviously ROM size is a huge limitation on the less-readily-expanded system (though there were mods for building expandable drives for the TI calculators that used the expansion port)
There were some really neat games actually that used pixel-flicker to generate multiple shades of grey-scale beyond the 4 shades of green you'd get on a GB.
Back in the 90's, it was just so much easier to do that kind of homebrew on a user-accessible system like the TI.
Nowadays better (and cheaper) tools exist for chip burning for something like the GB, than what was present back then.