awesome-gbdev

The single, most comprehensive technical reference to Game Boy available to the public. Corrected, updated and maintained by the community

The Cycle-Accurate Game Boy Docs

A precise documentation by AntonioND to make a cycle-accurate Game Boy emulator

by Gekkio

by Rodrigo Copetti

Report of an hardware (on a Terasic DE1-SoC Board) developed as final project for the CSEE4840 Embedded Systems Design course at Columbia University

Opcodes table

A reference of all instructions, including short descriptions, cycle and byte counts, and explanations of flag modifications

A technical note regarding Hicolour mode trick for Game Boy Color and its realization in the GBC game “Crystalis”

Hardware schematics

Provides a study on the hardware and detailed constructional information for the implementation of three 8-bit bidirectional parallel ports

Related custom hardware

by Gekkio

ESP8266 GB Dev Board

Dev board for Game Boy accessories development, powered by ESP8266

ESP8266 GB Printer

A device that emulates the GB Printer and lets you retrieve images using WiFi

Page with loads of information on the hardware, custom boards to interface with the console and other related projects

Data and photos of various types of Game Boy consoles

dmg-schematics

Schematics and annotated overlay for the DMG-CPU B chip, extracted from die photos, made with KiCad. Also contains Electric VLSI library with layouts for some of the cells and memories

Obscure Game Boy hardware documentation

, a series of articles about emulating and investigating Game Boy accessories. Also available as in the GBE- emulator documentation

Internet connectivity and DLC on the Game Boy Color

A blue cart with built-in sonar hardware

Zok Zok Heroes' Full Changer, a motion-activated accessory

Infrared communication on the Game Boy Color

DMG-07

The first Game Boy card-scanner

A late 90s DMG-GBC barcode reader

Game Boy Camera RE

Documentation about GB Camera and tools used to reverse engineer it by using Arduino

An in-depth technical document about the printer hardware, the communication protocol and the usual routine that games used for implementing the print feature

(Errata: the used thermal paper is expired, 4 colors are actually printable)

Arduino Game Boy Printer Emulator

Emulating a Game Boy Printer via the Game Boy Link cable with an Arduino

A List of available, ready-made Game Boy Flash Cartridges

AntonioND's docs

Corrected schematics and infos on cartridge header data

An overview on existing cartridge types

;

;

Schematics for MBC2 and MBC3 types

First schematics by Jeff Frohwein

and explanation on how these MBC bank switch and control RAM

Navigable table of every game released with details on their cartridges

Emulating the functionality of a Game Boy cartridge with the development board STM32F4

Game Boy cartridge with co-processor

Homebrew-Gameboy-Cartridge

Eagle library, schematic, and board files for a cartridge PCB using an Atmel AT49F040 as ROM

Homebrew Gameboy Color Cartridge

Board layout for an EEPROM powered cartridge

Nekocart

Open-source flash cartridge using an Xilinx CPLD as MBC5 ( )

Commercial and homemade programmable cartridges and programming systems. Tutorials, wiring and schematics provided

Gameboy-MBC5-MBC1-Hybrid

CPLD implementation of a MBC5/MBC1 Hybrid cartridge

Workshop introducing basic assembly, debugging and reverse engineering

GBSOUND.txt

A document detailing the Game Boy sound engine

Must read by Jeff Frohwein

Commented dump of the DMG bootrom

Information on how the Game Boy interprets VRAM tile data to color pixels

43 minutes talk by Gekkio given at Disobey 2018 ( )

Emulation of Nintendo Game Boy

Overview of the Game Boy hardware with the perspective of building an emulator

An educational Gameboy Emulator in Rust and a companion book explaining its development. * - is a talk given at Rust Fest 18 about this

Step by step tutorial

Learning Rust by building a partial Game Boy emulator

A series of posts about the design and implementation of the RealBoy Emulator

Another series of posts documenting the building of an emulator

Blog post

Implementing a *rewind- feature

Porting of the binjgb emulator to Web Assembly

Investigations on emulations quirks

How to algorithmically decode Game Boy instructions (as opposed to writing one huge switch-case statement)

Notes about the development of a Game Boy emulator in JavaScript

Game Boy Doctor

A command line tool for comparing logs from your emulator to those from a known-correct one. Useful for line-by-line debugging of Blargg's test ROMs

144p Test Suite

Port of Artemio Urbina's 240p Test Suite to the Game Boy

dmg-acid2

and - Basic PPU rendering tests

RGBDS

Assembler and linker package.

ASMotor

Assembler engine and development system targeting Game Boy, among other CPUs. Written by the original RGBDS author.

wla-dx

Yet Another GB-Z80/Z80/... Multi Platform Cross Assembler Package.

GBDK

Maintained and modernized GBDK (Game Boy Development Kit) powered by an updated version of the SDCC toolchain. Provides a C compiler, assembler, linker and a set of libraries

Complete suite (IDE, compiler, programming language, resource editor) intended for developing games/demos for 8 / 16-bit line of computers, including the Game Boy and Game Boy Color

In-browser coding environment to try out RGBDS

Wiz

A high-level assembly language for writing homebrew on retro console platforms (Game Boy, NES, Atari 2600, and more)

gbforth

A Forth-based Game Boy development kit

An opinionated Rust based compiler for Game Boy z80 assembly code

gbasm

A JavaScript based compiler for Game Boy z80 assembly code

Macro Assembler

Assembler

Assembler written in Swift

llvm-gbz80

/ - Clang/LLVM port to the GBZ80 CPU (similar to the deprecated )

gbdk-go

A compiler translates Go programs to C code. The output C code is built into GB ROM by GBDK

Rust-GB

A compiler and library that enable the development of GB ROMs using Rust

ZGB

A little engine for creating games for the original Game Boy (expands gbdk, more info )

An engine for creating games (expands GBDK)

C library extending gbdk

gbdk-lib-extension

A small set of sources and tools for the Game Boy Development Kit by Michael Hope

mgbdis

Game Boy ROM disassembler with RGBDS compatible output

An online tool to inspect and modify a ROM's header data, including the logo

romusage

Command line tool for estimating usage (free space) of Game Boy ROMs from a .map, .noi or ihx file. Works with GBDK-2020 and RGBDS

awake

Game Boy decompiler

Game Boy Text Tools

Set of tools for text manipulation and translation of Game Boy ROMs written in Node.js

evscript

A scripting language for the Game Boy, useful for enemy AI, dialogue, animations, and coroutines

evunit

A unit testing program for assembly code

opcode_count

Generates statistics on which CPU instructions are run the most often using Python and Emulicious

Game Boy Tile Data Generator

HTML5 / JS web application that will convert bitmap images to hexadecimal data appropriate for use in tile based graphical applications, specifically GB

Some sources and home of Game Boy Tile Designer (GBTD) and Game Boy Map Builder (GBMB) tools

GBTiles

Converts .GBR files created with Harry Mulder's Tile Designer (GBTD) and .GBM files created with Harry Mulder's Map Builder (GBMB) to different formats for use with the Game Boy and GBDK

bmp2cgb

Graphics converter for Game Boy Color development providing real time palette adjustments

png2gb

CLI tool to convert image file to game boy .c array

GB-convert

Game Boy tile conversion and map editor tool (converts to assembly)

A collection of primitive editor/converter tools for making assets used with homebrew ROM development

vtGBte

A minimalistic ncurses tile editor

tpp1

Definition and specification of a custom GB/GBC memory/hardware mapper, as a functional superset of MBC

libstdgb

A C library of useful Game Boy operations (SDCC)

Tilemap GB

GIMP image editor plug-in for importing & exporting GBMB and GBTD tilemaps and tilesets (as bitmap images or .GBM/.GBR files)

Tilemap Helper

GIMP image editor plug-in for optimizing tile maps and tile sets

Tilemap Studio

A tilemap editor for Game Boy, Color, Advance, and SNES projects. Written in C++ with FLTK

Superfamiconv

Flexible and composable tile graphics converter supporting Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Mega Drive and PC Engine formats

cart-dumper

Game Boy Cartridge Dumper ROM

gbcamextract

Extracts photos from Game Boy Camera saves

Game Boy LCD sniffing

Sniff your Game Boy's LCD using a logic analyzer

swapdump

Diagnostic utility for Game Boy flashcarts

Gameboy-LinkUp

Game Boy LinkUp serial cable networking project

DevSound

Sound driver embeddable in homebrews which supports pulse width manipulation, arpeggios, and multiple waveforms

Music Engine

GBT PLAYER

A music player library and converter kit

mmlgb

A MML parser and GBDK sound driver for the Nintendo Game Boy

XPMCK

An MML based music compiler with support for Game Boy & Game Boy Color

GBSoundSystem

A modernized audio driver for GameBoy Tracker (aka the Paragon 5 music player)

hUGETracker

A music tracker based on OpenMPT, focused on ease of use, compact output, and embeddability in homebrew games

CBT-FX

A GBDK-2020 sound effect driver compatible with FX-Hammer sound effects

hardware.inc

Standard include file containing Game Boy hardware definitions for use in RGBDS projects

Good document to learn to produce working asm code for gb. Brief explanations of many important topics. Many examples with commented source code

assemblydigest

Exploring Game Boy programming techniques:

Some starting tips on disassembling and reverse engineering

Step by step tutorial to implement Super Game Boy features (frame and palettes)

Step by step tutorial

DMGreport

Game programming tutorials in assembly

Example of how to use OAM DMA in assembly

Game Boy Assembly Programming for the Modern Game Developer

An e-book about making Game Boy games in Assembly

A lot of working demos and sources

EmmaEwert's experiments

A collection of prototype programs, mostly just toying around. Among others, a daylight effect, transparency and a weather effect

DeadCScroll

A detailed tutorial on how to make the screen wobble, among other "raster effects"

rgbds-template

Basic hello-world example for Game Boy using RGBDS

Simple template code with memory defines, copy routines and IBM font tilemap

bootstrap.gb

An example Game Boy project

Gameboy Boilerplate

Boilerplate project to move quicker into the actual assembly code for your game

GingerBread

A software library for making your own Game Boy games. It is made to be used alongside the book which also doubles as documentation

gb-vwf

Library to print variable-width text, comes with a demo

gb-boilerplate

A template for starting Game Boy projects, providing a Makefile for infrastructure

gb-starter-kit

An expansion on the above, including base library code as well to get started faster

gb-template

A template with basic functions such as joypad input, DMA transfers, and map/tile data loading

gbz80-highlight

Notepad+- and gedit syntax highlighting files for RGBDS assembly

Vim syntax highlighting for RGBDS assembly

Vim syntax file for RGBDS

Another Vim syntax highlighting file for RGBDS assembly

A Sublime Text 3 package for RGBDS, including syntax highlighting and some completion snippets

rgbds-vscode

Visual Studio Code language extension for RGBDS GBZ80 Assembly

rgbds-mode

Emacs major mode for RGBDS assembly

8-Bit Wonderland

Well-written introductory document about how the Game Boy works and how to start developing working code for it

Grooves Game Boy Programming

A complete set of lessons about implementing various game mechanics in a Game Boy game

Old (but still relevant) tutorial

Fairly minimal game demo for getting started with GBDK

Presents a workflow for getting multiple sprites to display and animate

Extends your knowledge of basic spriting on the Game Boy by adding colors to sprites, backgrounds and the window layer

Details the use of the joypad with GBDK

Some full games and sources

Configuring GBDK, Using Tiles, Colliding Sprites, GBTD, GBMB, Memory Management and ROM Banking

A series of video tutorials introducing beginners to programming with GBDK

A collection of detailed GBDK-2020 based tutorials

A community-led attempt to collect, archive and preserve every unlicensed and homebrew game released for Game Boy. Entries are playable online

GB303

GB303 wavetable-based TB-303 style synthesizer for the Nintendo Game Boy

kupman

and some other projects

GBSlides

A simple Game Boy Powerpoint-like slides viewer

Pokered-gbc

Pokémon Red remade with full GBC support

StefaN

Fourway Breakout clone

desgb

DES encryption

waveform-gb

Program visualizing the wave form used by the wave channel. The wave form can be edited freely and playback of the wave is updated immediately

Developed with gbasm

Puzzle game for the Game Boy (Color) and Super Game Boy

Super Princess' 2092 Exodus

( )

Bubble Factory

*Vanilla- SDCC (no gbdk)

GBC Atari Boxing

Atari 2600 Boxing clone for the Game Boy (Color)

GB raycaster, Vision-8

and some other projects

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe

An arcade platformer for the Game Boy (Color)

( port)

Dino's Offline Adventure

A clone of the Google Chrome offline game

dino-gb

Another clone of the Chrome game

Evoland.gb

A port of the first level of Evoland

Petris

A puzzle game of shapely pets for the Game Boy Color ( )

Infinity

RPG developed by Affinix Software primarily between the years 1999 and 2001. The game never found a publisher and was eventually canceled. Got recently released with the full source, development tools and workflows

Side scrolling platformer for the Game Boy ( )

Shmup for the Game Boy ( )

Side scrolling platformer for the Game Boy (Color) ( )

( )

( )

Interactive horror fiction

matrix-rain-gb

A Matrix digital rain effect in assembler

GBVideoPlayer

A technical demo demonstrating how the Game Boy LCD controller can be hacked to make a Game Boy Color play a full motion video in color, together with music

GBVideoPlayer2

The second iteration of the above demo, which increases the resolution, adds

pokemontools

a python module that provides various reverse engineering components for various Pokémon games

A walkthrough to reverse engineer a Game Boy ROM challenge using radare2

A series of blog posts about disassembling Link's Awakening DX

A simple technique that allows you to run custom code in most GB/SGB/CGB games, provided you have an ACE exploit

pokegold-spaceworld

Pokémon Gold and Silver 1997 Space World demo

Tetris

Complete Tetris disassembly

Arduino Gameboy Printer Emulator

Emulate a gameboy printer via the gameboy link cable

ESP8266 Game Boy Printer

A device that emulates the Gameboy Printer and lets you retrieve images using WiFi powered by an ESP8266

WiFi GBP Emulator

A GameBoy printer emulator which provides the received data over a WiFi connection

Game Boy WiFi Printer - D1 Mini Shield

Game Boy Printer interface shield for D1 mini/mini Pro ESP8266 boards

Game Boy Printer Sniffer

Sniff packet communications between a Game Boy and the Printer

based on the above

game-boy-camera-frame-replacer

Manipulate the ROM of a camera to include custom frames

Game Boy Printer Paper Simulation

Generate as-if-printed images of digital printed images

Game Boy Printer Web

Gallery app for to the Game Boy camera: import pictures from exports or cartridge dumps and choose color palettes

Drag and drop game creator with simple, no knowledge required, visual scripting

ArduinoBoy

Serial communication (MIDI) from an Arduino to the Game Boy for music applications such as LittleSoundDJ, Nanoloop, and mGB

papiGB

Game Boy Classic fully functional FPGA implementation from scratch

fpgaboy

Implementation Nintendo's Game Boy console on an FPGA

Piglet

A LUA-driven AI that plays classic Game Boy color games using experimentation. In active development

Ostrich

A Game Boy Sound System player written in Swift

mGB

A Game Boy cartridge program that enables the Game Boy to act as a full MIDI supported sound module

GBVisualizer

Demonstrating the use of two undocumented Game Boy Color registers, nicknamed PCM12 (FF76) and PCM34 (FF77), which can be used to read the current PCM amplitude of the 4 APU channels

ArduinoGameBoy

Arduino based Game Boy cartridge reader and writer

gameboy-brainfuck

Brainf*ck interpreter

gbfk

Brainf*ck interpreter, with input

gb-save-states

Patches to add save state support to Game Boy games when playing on the original hardware

gbcpu

A CPU and peripherals implementing the Game Boy instruction set and functionality

What is it and how to use it to make cheat codes

Bypassing the Nintendo logo check

Making a Game Boy game in 2017: A "Sheep It Up!" Post-Mortem ( , )

Every cartridge has to show the authentic logo to be considered valid and be run, but obviously some companies managed to exploit the check system

liblsdj

Utility library for interacting with the LSDj save format (.sav), song files (.lsdsng) and more

lsdpatch

Tool for modifying samples, fonts and palettes on LSDj ROM images

Game Boy video effects

Some little experiments using the STAT interrupt to do funny video manipulations

gbos

A basic operating system for the Game Boy

Russian multi tasking operating system

VerilogBoy

Game Boy compatible console Verilog RTL implementation

GBCamcorder

Lo-Fi portable video recorder using a GameBoy Camera cartridge

GBCartRead

Read ROM, Read RAM or Write RAM from/to a GameBoy Cartridge

GBxCart-RW

A device for reading game ROMs, save games and restoring saves for GB, GBC and GBA carts from your PC via USB

A library of Game Boy related software, hardware and literature. Aimed to mirror and preserve old and fragmented contributions from the last three decades

The Game Boy Archive - Salvage

Historical archive of software, old articles, FAQs and various documents

Old home of the scene: examples, sources, complete documentation, guides, tutorials and various tools

Game Boy releases

Unlicensed games, blog posts about Game Boy, home of the hhugboy emulator