Thanks so much for all the feedback guys! I'm cataloging all of this to study and practice when I can.

I was deliberately vague in my initial post, since hopefully future developers can use this advice as well. The more specific guidance is excellent too.

Garhoogin wrote:

Hey there,

figured I'd write myself an introduction and maybe recall this thread to life. I saw a link to this forum in the Discord server and figured I'd join to see what this GBA homebrew stuff was all about. At some point in the future, I think I'd like to try some of it out. I've done some stuff with the DS before, and know some C and ARM assembly.

Look forward to seeing what awesome things people come up with here and hope we can all get along :)

Do you have a GitHub or itch.io page? What have you been up to?

I was able to snag a copy before they sold out again, and there weren't many copies! I'm glad the game is available for free.

PSA: The rumble works on EZFO DE flash carts, if you want the full experience on real hardware.

Hey guys, I hope this thread gets a little bit of attention.

With absolutely no software development or game design background, I jumped head first into whatever possible tools and development environments I possibly could to make anything I could call my own. Now that I've released a small project (with many things still on my todo list), I plan to fully explore the creative possibilities with the skills I've earned so far.

However!

Now that there's no time crunch to make a game in time for a jam, I want to go about this in a more proper way, learning the background knowledge and skills that are fundamental to making software for the Game Boy Advance. My only problem is that I don't know what I don't know. Where do I begin, and where do I go from there?

I hope to encourage some productive conversation, because despite the variety of resources available to aspiring developers, I can't be the only one intimidated by the massive amount of information out there.

The Resources page at our own gbadev.net seems to be a fantastic start.

exelotl wrote:

And it's over!

Welp, I had to resort to my plan B but managed to squeeze in an entry.

It seems we got 15 or so in total which is great! Looking forward to trying them all out over the weekend. ^^

I'm glad you managed to make an entry. I love seeing everyone's individual styles and have current stuff to talk about.

This looks so good! One of my favorite things about GBA is the landscape orientation of the display area. It translates beautifully.

nuclear wrote:

I'm using the "dark reader" firefox extension, and I had forgotten that this forum doesn't have a dark theme :) Thoroughly recommend it to anyone with a strong aversion to bright screens like me.

Unfortunately, I'm a heavy Google user, so kinda locked into Google Chrome. I haven't found a great dark mode extension yet.

SkyLyrac wrote:

With jams I try to make an effort, though. For the 2021 GBA jam I actually managed to work a lot more than I normally do and it wasn't a great idea, to be honest. I sacrificed time I normally dedicated to socialize, and I felt it after a few weeks. This is also why I avoid jams in general.

...There is no point in forcing yourself to do something you are doing for fun.

I'm glad you were able to stick around after that tough experience. That last sentence means a lot.

pmprog wrote:

It's not the sole reason though, my personal life has changed a lot in those 20 years too, and my son often wants me to play those stupid LEGO games with him. Though we had a great run of Castle Crashers and BattleBlock Theatre, which are highly amusing as a team.

He also has been asking me to make his game, where he draw some pictures on paper, and both he and I then adapted them into sprites on the computer. I should put more time into that to be honest

The LEGO games are fantastic at what they do, it's not their fault they don't have any depth! I do love the heck out of some Castle Crashers. I got hundreds of community awards on Steam for the guides I wrote for the game.

I love that project for you two, definitely consider sharing some original drawings with us, it'd be cool to see the transformation.

pmprog wrote:

I played Pokemon Blue back on the DMG, and I really like the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald monsters, but I've yet to put any serious time into playing them though.

If you're interested, I can trade you some eggs or starter Pokemon, or the Shiny Zigzagoon that is distributed with select Gamecube demo discs. All genuine, of course.

My hands down favorite GBA game is Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. It's not even close. I have 250+ hours across those three games, and that's only counting my NTSC physical copies and not emulators or ROM hacks. In fact, I am so stuck on the third generation that I purified a Shadow Pokemon from Pokemon Colosseum and earned the max possible ribbons on my Flygon, Jinn. He currently has 67 ribbons and has been vacationing in Pokemon White for a long while.

So far, I haven't played any GBA games that I think are truly miserable and not worth a couple bucks or a half hour of my time. Nevermind, I just remembered that Medal of Honor Underground exists. At least my game can't possibly be the ugliest shooter on GBA!

Most people would say that the GBA Video cartridges haven't aged well, or that they're not even games at all! I disagree on both counts, insisting that their nuclear-blasted visuals and rusty garbage truck audio is what makes them classic history pieces.

I have been fascinated with the potential of first person shooters since I first learned that Doom made it to the system, and my love for the abominable concept has only grown deeper the more I come to understand just how much this shouldn't have happened on the hardware.

Ice Nine - Ecks vs Sever - Duke Nukem Advance - 007: Nightfire