gameboy
Latest
'Deadeus' is a darkly original horror game for the Game Boy
You're having a nightmare. So is everyone else? Something's up in the village and only you can save everyone in this new title for Game Boy.
Researchers created a Game Boy that doesn't need batteries
No need to carry around a set of spare AA batteries all the time.
GB Studio lets anyone create a Game Boy game
Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the Game Boy's release in Japan. If you're like our editors, that brings back all kinds of nostalgic memories. We've certainly come a long way since then -- so far, in fact, that you can now create your own Game Boy games. Last week, developer Chris Maltby released the code for GB Studio, a free tool for building real Game Boy ROMs.
Nintendo Game Boy at 30: As fun as it ever was
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Game Boy's release in Japan. Three decades ago, the portable gaming landscape would change forever. Whether you owned a Game Boy or not, it's likely something you're familiar with. The legacy reaches far beyond a retro gaming handheld. Three Engadget editors share their personal favorite version, and why it matters to them.
'Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening' gets a second life on Switch
Nintendo had a giant surprise waiting at the end of its latest Direct show: it's remaking The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the Switch. The company shared precious few details, but the brief gameplay demonstration showed that it would preserve the top-down perspective of the Game Boy original. This isn't a Breath of the Wild-style reimagining of the series, then, but it might be ideal for anyone wishing they could play the classic action RPG once again. You can expect it to reach Nintendo's system sometime in 2019.
What we're buying: RetroStone's smart take on retro handheld gaming
The recent spate of retro "classic" consoles might be switching a new audience on to vintage games, but some of us never left them. For most, a $60 - $100 machine with a few flagship titles on it is probably enough to scratch the itch, but Managing Editor James Trew has a much deeper itch: to play retro games on the go without someone choosing the library for him.
Nintendo could make a playable Game Boy phone case
Now that Nintendo has a couple of nostalgia-inducing consoles under its belt, there's a common question: how would it tackle the Game Boy and other handhelds of yesteryear? We might have an idea. The USPTO recently published a Nintendo patent application for a folio case that would turn a smartphone into a functioning Game Boy replica, complete with physical buttons that translate presses into touchscreen input. It's more than a little familiar if you've tried a device like Hyperkin's Smart Boy, only here you wouldn't need to plug in cartridges to play officially sanctioned game copies.
I need one of 8Bitdo's incredibly tiny Switch controllers
It's generally quiet on the hardware front at E3 2018, cardboard arcade cabinets aside. There are always people shopping for controllers, however, and 8Bitdo is adding to its generally excellent third-party Bluetooth controllers with the Zero 2, a retro-styled controller with motion controls, glossy color options and even a slot for your keychain. And it's actually small enough to warrant attaching it to something.
This guy attached a telephoto lens to his Game Boy Camera
Nintendo launched the wonderfully weird Game Boy Camera for its beloved handheld console in the late 1990s. It attached like a cartridge and allowed people to capture, edit and, if you had the companion hardware, print blocky images on thermal paper. These days, of course, the camera is out of production, but that hasn't stopped a small community from modifying and shooting with the tiny contraption. Designer Bastiaan Ekeler, for instance, has built a Canon lens adapter which supports a comically large (by comparison, anyway) telephoto lens. The result is a new, whimsical way of shooting landscapes and wildlife from afar.
This might be the Game Boy's ultimate form
Hyperkin is working on something for retro gamers looking to retire any venerable Game Boys that have seen better days. The aluminum-hewn Project Ultra GB might be the hardware you need to break out your old Game Boy hits. It takes the original cartridges, as well as keeping the dimensions of the Game Boy Pocket and those iconic simple controls.
Turn your smartphone into a Game Boy with Hyperkin’s Smartboy
The first of April has long been a day for practical jokes and silly pranks -- and there's no escape from April fools on the internet. Companies like ThinkGeek regularly announce fake products on April 1st, only to have customer demand push those jokes into production. It didn't take long for companies to start using the prankster's holiday as a soft test bed for silly ideas. That's how Hyperkin announced the SmartBoy -- a gamepad case that lets your smartphone play real Nintendo Game Boy cartridges. Two years later and Hyperkin's ridiculous April Fool's gag is actually a real product -- and, believe it or not, it's actually pretty cool.
Tech Hunters: Opening up new worlds with the Nintendo GameBoy
You have to hand it to Nintendo: the company knows how to change the way people play video games. As millions of gamers getting to grips with the Switch, which delivers A+ games on-the-go as well as it does docked at home, many will remember the console that pioneered the concept of portable gaming: the GameBoy. Launched in Japan in 1989, the GameBoy sold over 300,000 in its first two weeks and over 100 million in total. The 8-bit handheld console supported small interchangeable cartridges and its monochromatic display could screen render games in four different colors of gray, but thanks to titles like the side-scrolling Super Mario Land, Kirby's Dream Land and Tetris, consumers just couldn't get enough of it. With so many units sold, there's a plethora of handsets still available to quench your retro gaming needs, as Julia Hardy discovered in Croydon. But what if we could open up new worlds on the portable brick? We'll hand it over to Simon Ellis from Retrogamebase to see what else we can get it to do.
Researcher uses Game Boy Camera to capture 2-bit photos of space
The Game Boy Camera, released in 1998, wasn't even close to the weirdest peripheral for Nintendo's classic handheld console and even earned a Guinness World Record for the smallest digital camera in the world. Its 2-bit, 128 x 128 pixel CMOS sensor managed very grainy black-and-white shots, making it far more fun than technically impressive. And yet, a Dutch researcher and tinkerer just used one to catch some charmingly blocky photos of the moon and Jupiter.
Here is a tiny GameBoy emulator for your tiny Apple Watch screen
The last place you'd probably want to play a video game is on an Apple Watch. The wearable has a tiny screen, almost no buttons and can only be operated with one hand. It's a completely impractical gaming device, but developer Gabriel O'Flaherty-Chan made a Game Boy emulator for it anyway.
AI turns Game Boy Camera photos into decent shots
Many people have fond memories of using the Game Boy Camera, but to call its low-resolution black-and-white shots "photos" would be... generous. Don't tell that to Roland Meertens, though. He recently devised a neural network that turns Game Boy Camera images into more presentable pictures. He trained the AI to clean up, colorize and fill in details for images by feeding it thousands of photos reduced to Game Boy-level image quality. The results aren't exactly good enough to frame for posterity, but they're far easier on the eyes.
Unreleased 'Akira' title for Game Boy resurfaces
Akira, still one of the most definitive manga and anime ever made, never really got a game to do the source material justice. While that's probably not going to change, Patrick Scott Patterson, retro game hunter-gatherer, managed to pick up four slightly different copies of the mid-development Akira title on the Game Boy. They are all experiment builds, so all that mid-test gaming nougat is housed in open-air cartridges -- which makes me nervous.
Nanoloop's cartridge turns your Game Boy into an analog synth
Nanoloop has been providing ways for music and gaming enthusiasts to create tunes with a Game Boy for years now. The company is back with a new card for the original Game Boy handheld: the Nanoloop Mono. With the €69 (around $76) accessory, you can transform that classic gaming device into an analog mono synth. Thanks to one pin of Game Boy's cartridge connector working as an audio input and a built-in amplifier, the Nanoloop Mono can generate sound and output it through the headphone jack in a completely analog fashion.
Add-on brings Game Boy cartridges to your Android phone
Hyperkin toyed with gamers last year when it teased a peripheral that would play real Game Boy cartridges on your phone, but it wasn't just kidding around -- it's making good on its word. The company is now taking pre-orders for a Smart Boy Development Kit that lets your Android smartphone play Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges. The $60 peripheral isn't meant for everyday use -- Hyperkin is hoping you'll improve the open source code yourself. Nonetheless, it's likely the closest you'll get to reviving your childhood short of dragging the original hardware out of storage. Just be ready to wait until December 1st to get yours... and while Hyperkin originally talked about an iPhone version, Apple handset users are out of luck so far. [Thanks, Kristy]
Game Boy mod plays nearly any classic Nintendo game
It's trivial to play vintage Nintendo games if you're not picky about what devices you use. But what if you miss the look and feel of the original Game Boy? Wermy has an answer: build a Game Boy that does it all. His Game Boy Zero modification uses a Raspberry Pi Zero, a modified game cartridge and a whole lot of drilling to emulate classic NES, SNES and Game Boy titles (up to the Game Boy Advance) while preserving most of Nintendo's original look and feel. On the outside, the only concessions to modernity are the 3.5-inch color display and the stealthily integrated buttons needed to play some newer titles.
'The Legend of Zelda' marks its 30th birthday
Gamers, you have permission to feel old once again: The Legend of Zelda just turned 30. Nintendo released the classic action-adventure in Japan on the Famicom Disk System (it wasn't even a cartridge at the time) all the way back on February 21st, 1986, kicking off one of the biggest franchises in video game history. The series has since sold tens of millions of copies -- over 75 million at last count -- and has had a presence on virtually every Nintendo system to date.
