Gameboy Game Development in GBDK & Other Game Dev things
Because I’ve been busy beavering away in GBDK of course! Here’s a brief video with some nice details on progress with the game and, what needs to be done before I put it out in the wild.
It’s taken a long time but I’m over the 50% mark now, just need to cram the code into what space I have left (just over 2k in my main rom bank)
I think I’ve finally found a solution to my super gameboy problems, which I’ll be playing about with this week, it’s exciting stuff for me at least!
So I’ve just finished one of the most hectic weeks at work porting 10-13 year old code over to PHP7 and I decided to chill out with some Undertale pacifist mode playing about when my goddamned coders brain thinks to it’s self…
“Damn, I love Undertale and having a good time… but. I reckon this game could run on a Gameboy, which would be pretty cool, yeah, yeah?”
That’s not to slight the game, I love it, I doubt I’ll have the heart to do a genocide playthrough mind. But, looking at it objectively, could it be possible to port over to it? I mean, undoubtedly compromises would need to be made in terms of sprite sizes, and music downsampling but from the outset, you have a load / save system, background scrolling and fight sequences with conversation pop up boxes. Of course, there’s the over arching story with it’s many branches which would no-doubt push memory to it’s limits I’m sure and, whilst I doubt I’d attempt to port the game myself to GB, I think it could be done.
That and I had to see if the Undertale GUI would fit in the Gameboy’s tiny resolution, looks like it could. Apologies for my poor scaling of Napstablook btw 🙂
Okay, it’s been a while but, yes life, is a thing and it isn’t always coding of course 🙂
Having said that over the weekend just gone I’ve managed to get more of the game ready, including part of the opening sequence which just needs some palette work for the gameboy colour so that’s all in motion.
I’ve set-up the ability to have multiple levels in the game and I reckon I can easily fit a decent number in there, possibly with each one having it’s own variants in both colours and some other elements to break things up a bit.
I’m tempted to learn how to add a border for the super gameboy also, although I’d need to learn some more ASM first in order to figure this out.
Sadly, it looks like I won’t be finished for the February #1gam but, that’s okay, I’ve got more of a workable engine to use across the year for any future gameboy games and that’s pretty neat.
Speaking of engines… Damage is now a factor with your race car. Taking damage impacts acceleration and once the limit is reached, you will explode, lose three places, then respawn. Crashing into the back of another car or off track obstacles is particularly painful!
Cars get tougher to pass the further up the rankings you go and I’m still enjoying playing and making the game so, that’s all good for the moment I think! Now, back to figuring this Super Gameboy out a bit perhaps….
[edit] I shouldn’t have made this border, now it’s a mission! [/edit]
