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Tech

Play Over 400 Game Boy Games That Never Existed

Latest Game Boy Jam delivers big time.
Image: nukeSpoon

Released in 1989, the Game Boy racked up a significant amount of games for a handheld system with four AA batteries, eight bits, no backlight, and an olive green screen that looked like a regular Nintendo game had experienced copper oxidation. It has well over 1,000 games. A lot of crap, but also lot of classics and some hidden gems.

Those are the official games, but for its fifth year running, the GBJAM put out an open call for game developers to expand the library of Nintendo's famous handheld just a little more. This time around fans have outdone themselves with 486 games in total.

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The rules to the jam were simple enough. Games needed to be limited to four colors and an authentic resolution of 160 x 144 pixels. The games needed to feel like they're being played on the system, but do not at all need be limited by the Game Boy's original hardware specs, meaning that games could attempt feats that would burst even the sturdy Game Boy's circuits.

We played a heaping pile of the submissions to the GBJAM, and found that the following are worth checking out:

  • Offering first person action like the original Game Boy never saw, You're In Space And Everyone Wants You Dead, by Adam Gryu, is a Devil Daggers-like, gravity defying score rush where you collect coins across multiple planets while one-eyed death-orbs are in hot pursuit.
  • The Game Boy never got it's own DOOM, though Torfi Asgeirsson's Hell-Bent might be the next best thing.
  • An atmospheric, first-person puzzle game, EXIT, by nukeSpoon, gives the player a flashlight, clues, and seemingly endless chambers to find their way out of. EXIT is also an entry to itch's Halloween Jam, which is conveniently overlapping, though due to the season not the only reason for so many GBJAM entries to be celebrating all things spooky ooky.
  • A creepy cross-over between Harvest Moon and Link's Awakening, TJ Cordes' Reap What You Sow is a novel and addictive action RPG where you grow your own ghouly enemies to harvest their body parts.
  • If that's a little grisly for you, Valentin Simaer's Wokowoto is a cute but luscious platformer where you're a cartoon gator in a tiny hat.
  • I also recommend Virtual Madness' T.R.I.S., a puzzle-platformer about an alien trying to find the space gems to power its ship without getting squashed and speared by various traps.

With its fifth successful run, the GBJAM is currently crowdsourcing funds to launch their own platform to host all these mock-Game Boy games. With hundreds of free games to try and see, it's well worth taking a dive and checking out some of GBJAM's entries. Just like the original Game Boy, there's a whole lot to wade through, and it's likely there's a few things out there just for you.