What does a creative get their spouse for their birthday?
Original Post: May 6,
The Ultimate Birthday Gift
I’ve had the idea to create a retro video game that actually works on original physical hardware for a long time. When I heard about a new game engine that essentially converted JSON to C to Game Boy Assembly ROM files with the ability to allow for MIT ‘Scratch like’ block-coding as well. I had to give it a try.
Design by Jordan Halliday of Pinebee Creative
Design by Jordan Halliday of Pinebee Creative
Time Crunch
My wife’s birthday was just around the corner. But, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to treat the game I created like a Game Jam. Essentially creating an entire game in 72 hours. I used the base game as a starting point and utilized some open source elements as well as custom elements to get it done. Creating a game you can play in around 5 minutes with a custom story & many hidden Easter Eggs. The entire game came in around only 1/2 Mb.
Design by Jordan Halliday of Pinebee Creative
Design by Jordan Halliday of Pinebee Creative
Design by Jordan Halliday of Pinebee Creative
Design by Jordan Halliday of Pinebee Creative
The Result?
She loved it and said it was one of the best gifts she had ever gotten. Honestly, that’s all I wanted. It was a game and story just for her.
Play the Game
You can watch a quick playthrough on the side or if you wanted to give the game a try you can click the button below to play the game.
CONTROLS:
Up – Up Arrow / W
Down – Down Arrow / S
Left – Left Arrow / A
Right – Right Arrow / D
A – Alt / Z / J
B – Ctrl / K / X
Start – Enter
Select – Shift
Update
The game engine I used for this project was the initial public release version of GB Studio v1.0.0. Since then they’ve gone on to include some incredible updates to the game engine including gb color support, different game genre types, paralax scrolling, larger sprites, a sprite animation editor, a music editor and more. As of this update they are now on v3.1.0. I highly recommend you give it a try and send them some love and spare coffee money if you have it.