game boy advance

42 Articles

Pump It Up Gets Homebrew GBA Port That Rocks

May 16, 2024 by 3 Comments

Pump It Up is a popular music video game that hails from South Korea. It’s similar in vibe to Dance Dance Revolution and In The Groove, but it has an extra arrow panel to make life harder. [Rodrigo Alfonso] loved it so much, he ported it to the Game Boy Advance.

The port looks fantastic, with all the fast-moving arrows and lovely sprite-based graphics you could dream of. But more than that, [Rodrigo’s] port is very fully featured. It doesn’t rely on tracked or sampled music, instead using actual GSM audio files for the songs.

It can also accept input from a PS/2 keyboard, and you can even do multiplayer over the GBA’s Wireless Adapter. What’s even cooler is that some of the game’s neat features have been broken out into separate libraries so other developers can use them. If you need a Serial Port library for the GBA, or a way to read the SD card on flash carts, [Rodrigo] has put the code on GitHub.

As you might have guessed, this isn’t the first time [Rodrigo] has pushed the limits on what Nintendo’s 32-bit handheld can do.

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Easily Add Link Cable Support To Your Homebrew GBA Game

February 29, 2024 by 7 Comments

The Game Boy Advance (GBA) link cable is the third generation of this feature which originated with the Gameboy. It not only allows for peripherals to be connected, but also for multiplayer between GBAs – even with just one game copy – and item sharing and unlocking of features in specific games. This makes it an interesting feature to support in today’s homebrew GBA games and applications, made easy by libraries such as [Rodrigo Alfonso]’s gba-link-connection.

This C++  library can be used in a number of ways: either limited to just the physical link cable, just the wireless link option or both (universal link). These support either 4 (cable) or 5 (wireless) players to be connected simultaneously. As additional options there are the LinkGPIO.hpp and LinkSPI.hpp headers which allow the link port to be used either as a generic GPIO, or as an SPI link (up to 2 Mb/s). The multiboot feature where a single ROM image is shared among connected GBAs is supported with both wired and wireless links.

It’s heartening to see that a device which this year celebrates its 23rd birthday is still supported so well.

Thanks to [gudenau] for the tip.

Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Busy Box Macro Pad

September 21, 2023 by 7 Comments

Well, I must admit that Google Translate completely failed me here, and thus I have no real idea what the trick is to this beautiful, stunning transparent split keyboard by [illness072]. Allegedly, the older tweets (exes?) hold the key to this magic, but again, Google Translate.

Based on top picture, I assume that the answer lies in something like thin white PCB fingers bent to accommodate the row stagger and hiding cleverly behind the keys.

Anyone who can read what I assume is Japanese, please advise what is going on in the comments below.

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A Game Boy Advance – Downgraded!

November 21, 2022 by 6 Comments

We feature a large number of game console mods here, because enhancing the experience of using a classic machine often involves some really clever work. But here’s one that’s a bit different, instead of upgrading his Game Boy Advance, [Wenting Zhang] has downgraded it from a colour screen to a monochrome LCD. Take a look at the video below the break.

One might ask why this would be necessary, given that there are plenty of backlit colour LCD upgrades already for the GBA, but perhaps people who played the original might understand that it’s about improving the viewability over the rather poor-quality colour LCD original.

Interesting too is the choice of display controller. Where it might be expected to find an FPGA, instead there’s an PR2040. He goes into detail about its programming, and we hope it might inspire any others looking at screen transplants. Meanwhile if the name [Wenting Zhang] means anything to you, it should be for his other work with mono LCDs.

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Taking Pokémon On A Walk

November 9, 2022 by 7 Comments

Emulating old computers or video game systems isn’t always about recreating childhood nostalgia or playing classics on hardware that doesn’t exist anymore. A lot of the time it can be an excellent way to learn about the mechanics of programming a video game. Plenty of older titles have available source code that anyone can pour over and modify, and one of those is Pokémon Emerald. This was the first Pokémon game that [Inkbox] played, and he added a few modern features to it with this custom ROM file.

The first thing to add to this game was the ability to have one’s Pokémon follow their character around in the overworld map. This is common in later games, but wasn’t yet a feature when Emerald and Ruby first came out. [Inkbox] needed to import sprites from later games into the Emerald game file, convert their color palettes to match the game’s palette, and then get to work on the mechanics. After everything was finished, the Pokémon not only follow the player around the map but are animated, enter and exit their Pokéballs, and even jump off ledges in a believable, 32-bit way.

One of the great things about older games like these is that they’ve been around long enough to have source code or decompiled code available, they often have plenty of documentation, and the platforms they operate on are well-known by now as well. Pokémon Emerald is not alone in this regard; in fact, there is a huge Game Boy Advance homebrew scene that is not too difficult to get involved in.

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A Primer For The Homebrew Game Boy Advance Scene

August 29, 2022 by 10 Comments

As video game systems pass into antiquity, some of them turn out to make excellent platforms for homebrew gaming. Not only does modern technology make it easier to interact with systems that are now comparatively underpowered and simpler, but the documentation available for older systems is often readily available as well, giving the community lots of options for exploration and creativity. The Game Boy Advance is becoming a popular platform for these sorts of independent game development, and this video shows exactly how you can get started too.

This tutorial starts with some explanation of how the GBA works. It offered developers several modes for the display, so this is the first choice a programmer must make when designing the game. From there it has a brief explanation of how to compile programs for the GBA and execute them, then it dives into actually writing the games themselves. There are a few examples that [3DSage] demonstrates here including examples for checking the operation of the code and hardware, some simple games, and also a detailed explanation the framebuffers and other hardware and software available when developing games for this console.

While the video is only 10 minutes long, we recommend watching it at three-quarters or half speed. It’s incredibly information-dense and anyone following along will likely need to pause several times. That being said, it’s an excellent primer for developing games for this platform and in general, especially since emulators are readily available so the original hardware isn’t needed. If you’d like to build something from an even more bygone era than the early 2000s, though, take a look at this tutorial for developing games on arcade cabinets.

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Modernizing The Game Boy Advance

January 8, 2022 by 9 Comments

[Zekfoo] decided to honor the Game Boy Advance’s 20th birthday by redesigning it at the circuit level to give it a more modern twist. To quote the project readme:

I really want to like the Game Boy Advance. Growing up with a GBA SP, I was spoiled by its clicky buttons, rechargeable battery, and illuminated screen. When I finally got my hands on an original GBA, I couldn’t be more disappointed by the stark difference in feel and function. While today’s retro modding scene has produced many improvements for the GBA (referred to from now on as its codename AGB), the console still has many quirks that simple modding hasn’t been able to fix, but that can be addressed in a circuit redesign.

The four-layer board looks great and there a number of modernized features.

For example, this new version is rechargeable. The unit has proper switches, which most people will prefer over the mushy membrane switches. There’s also a screen light and an improved power supply that helps produce cleaner audio, among other things.

We were disappointed that the repository only has images and audio files — if you want to duplicate the build you are on your own. He’s also done a clone of the Game Boy Color, but — alas — no design files there either. Still, a couple of good-looking projects.

We always enjoy seeing old products given a facelift. If you think you just need an emulator, they sometimes don’t exactly mimic real hardware.