exelotl
Administrator
Hey everyone! I wrote a blog post about making a faithful Minesweeper clone for the GBA, which we snuck into Goodboy Galaxy as a fun minigame.
It goes pretty in-depth, you can read it here!
https://exelo.tl/poopsweeper.html
Thx and merry christmas!! <3
It feels surreal to finally be writing this but... Goodboy Galaxy for the GBA released earlier this week!
It's an exploration platformer about a dog in space, which myself, Rik and so many friends & collaborators have been working on for the last 2.5 years (or 5 years if you include the demo!). We've poured absolutely everything into this project and we really hope you enjoy it after all this time! <3
You can buy the game digitally on itch.io: https://goodboygalaxy.itch.io/goodboy-galaxy-gba
Physical carts are currently in production, and can be preordered from First Press Games.
The game was made in the Nim programming language and uses the following libraries:
- Natu (in development) - Nim GBA programming toolkit
- libtonc - text rendering and many other utilities
- maxmod - music / sound engine
- libugba - interrupt handler
- ACSL - heap allocator / C stdlib replacement
- posprintf - string formatting
- Cult-of-GBA BIOS - RLE Decompression for video cutscenes
- agbabi - memcpy/set + coroutines
- nimcoro - high-level coroutine wrapper
- gba-rumble - brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Full game credits here.
We're currently working on the native PC and Switch ports, which will be out next year, but I figured I'd post about the GBA release here for posterity. Lemme know if you have any questions!
Update:
The jam is now over with 28 entries! You can play the final game containing them all here: https://gbadev.itch.io/gba-microjam-23
Hi everyone! We just launched the GBA Microjam '23!
For this jam, we're trying something different: everyone makes tiny 5-second games and then we combine them into one big WarioWare-like game at the end.
Submissions are open until the 29th October. Games should have a halloween theme and be made from the jam template (which uses C++ / Butano).
Check the jam page for more info: https://itch.io/jam/gba-microjam-23
Updates will be posted both here and on discord / irc, feel free to use these places to share your progress, ask questions, etc.
Hope you all have fun and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!!
Hey all, we had some spam accounts joining recently, so I've added a simple captcha quiz to the registration form.
Hopefully this solves the problem! If not, we may have to explore other solutions.
A dev called Archivist is running a beginner-friendly C programming course, it's not free (costs about $33) but I figured I'd share it here in case it's helpful to anyone.
You can reach them on Mastodon: https://social.linux.pizza/@Archivist/110072825143848419
(thanks @kva64 for sharing!)
Welcome to the GBA Winter Jam '23!
This is a casual game jam running throughout February, with a focus on making a kickass title screen.
No time to finish the rest of the game? That's fine! Want to add a title screen to an old project and submit that? Go for it!
The stakes are low, there's no prizes. After the submission period ends there will be a few weeks of public voting, just for fun and to encourage players to leave feedback.
More info at itch: https://itch.io/jam/gba-winter-jam-23
Oh yeah, and this is the first time we're using our own forum for jam news & discussion! Please feel free to share your progress and ask for help here!
Apotris is an absolutely stellar block stacking game for the GBA by @akouzoukos, which supports guideline rules, several game modes, heavy customisability, a banging soundtrack, and link cable multiplayer. Last month it had a physical release by insideGadgets, which sold out pretty quick, but is now back in stock.
You can order a cart (with optional rumble!) from shop.insidegadgets.com/product/apotris
or read more and grab the ROM from akouzoukos.itch.io/apotris/devlog/452358/apotris-v34-physical-release
The GBA Jam 2022 has come to an end!
You can find the final results and download links for all 26 entries at gbadev.net/gbajam22.
Many thanks and congrats to everyone who took part. Hope to see you all next year! (whether it'll be a big jam or something more relaxed like last year's winter jam is undecided, but we'll keep you posted!)
Also, @avivace recently added a web build of mGBA to the Homebrew Hub, which means you can play all the entries in your browser too. So go and try them out if you haven't already!
So like, who are you and how did you get here?
I'll go first!
I'm exelotl a.k.a. gecko. I started out making crappy flash animations and ascii art around 2007 when I was 11 years old. I discovered DS homebrew a couple years later, and got serious about programming because I wanted to make my own. It was hard! At college when my programming skills were better I decided to give it another go, and I found the fantastic Tonc tutorial, which left me with a lasting appreciation for the GBA because it's such a well-balanced console that I had fond memories of from when I was a kid.
My first interesting GBA project was a port of Vlambeer's Super Crate Box written in C, which I never finished, but I really want to come back to it some day (I'll probably rewrite it though)! At my first job I met Rik who's a great artist, and we teamed up to make goodboy advance one weekend, which was maybe impressive at the time, but in retrospect it was pretty basic. We've come a long way since then!
These days my favourite programming language is Nim which I'm using to make Goodboy Galaxy with Rik, PyroPyro and friends. I also make electronic music from time to time, though any musical energy I have these days is also being poured into the game... I'd like to finish my first album some day though!
Welcome to the gbadev.net forums!
We are a community of hackers & enthusiasts who enjoy making, playing and sharing homebrew for the Game Boy Advance.
The scene has been pretty active on Discord in recent years, hosting regular game jams and developing all sorts of libraries and tools for each others' benefit and to satisfy our curiosity!
But a public space for long-form discussion is something that we've been missing, especially since the old gbadev.org forums broke in 2020. Plus, Discord won't be around forever, and we shouldn't keep all our eggs in walled gardens, or something like that.
Please make yourself at home, and come say hi in the introductions thread!
Just keep in mind the rules:
Rules:
Be nice to each other - we're an easygoing bunch but we won't accept bullying, harassment, or bigotry.
Don't spam, demand attention or send unsolicited private messages.
Don't engage in piracy, or share leaked material (general discussion around such topics is fine).
No NSFW content, as this community is open to all ages.
You are always welcome to PM a moderator if somebody is breaking the rules or otherwise making you feel uncomfortable, or if you have a question about the rules.