It's been 13 years since the Game Boy Advance last saw a commercial release, but that comes to an end soon as Richard Nicol is bringing Goodboy Galaxy to the console – as well as other platforms, such as Switch and Steam.
This platform adventure game stars Maxwell, a space-age pup, who "explores unfamiliar worlds, makes strange new friends and contends with mysterious forces". Goodboy Galaxy will feature "jam-packed levels with multiple routes, 50 different characters to befriend, secret areas and hideaways to be discovered as well as a wide array of beasties to blast".
There's a demo available now, if you want to give it a spin. Nicol has already gotten the game in front of some pretty influential developers, including Supercell creative director Paul Chambers, who had this to say:
Super crazy what you have done… seriously, well done - it’s a proper love note to classics and I feel it.
Adam Vian of SFB Games (Snipperclips) adds:
It’s so polished! Everything feels great. Real charming too, I love all the characters.
The Kickstarter funding target is £18,000, of which over £3,000 has been pledged at the time of writing. Funding options include a digital version for the GBA (£18) which you can play via emulation or on a flash cart, or a downloadable version for Switch / Steam (also £18). There's also a boxed GBA cart, which comes complete with manual and stickers, all supplied by First Press Games. This will cost you £44.
We have to admit, Goodboy Galaxy certainly looks polished. Will you be backing this one? Let us know with a comment.
- Further reading: Best Game Boy Advance (GBA) Games
[source kickstarter.com]
Comments (34)
Oh! I remember seeing a homebrew demo for this long ago, under the title Goodboy Advance. It was a game jam title made in three days and even then it had really impressive visual design.
https://youtu.be/QJZy7BP9_RM?t=1500
https://github.com/exelotl/goodboy-advance
In the homebrew demo, the good boy has to find power gems to fix up his red rocket.
@RupeeClock damn this chat empty Rupee Clock
immediately off to find the demo this looks so cool. Give me pups in space any day
Awwwww super cute and really polished! Definitely interested in this!
Oh, it's an original game? I thought it was going to be a remake of Commander Keen Episode IV-V.
I don't use kickstarter, but would buy it if First press games add it on their site.
This looks amazing! I'll pick it up on Switch since I don't have original GBA hardware anymore, but I might grab a physical cart just in case I grab a GBA in the future.
That looks good.
Just backed it! I'm really pumped to get that GBA cart to play on my Gamecube
Love these kind of games. Reminds me a bit of Drill Dozer on GBA.
$61 is a little steep but man... this looks really great. Plus they’re only doing 200 GBA carts of this, so it’s now or never. I’m in.
This is the right way to do this. Put it on a classic system but also on modern systems. Release a demo to prove you've made a decent game and not simply a nostalgia cash grab.
I'll be checking this out for sure.
Ok, I've said before that I'm going to back GameBoy kickstarters and then I back out of them at the last minute but honestly this one I'm going to back. I was just having some inner dialogue about how they never make gameboy advance games; it's always gameboy games. This looks so good.. It certainly seems like a metroidvania, but it doesn't claim to be. It reminds me of a beefed up version of Gato Roboto which I loved. Anyway, yeah... thank the writers for posting these sorts of articles because I'd never know about these releases!
@Poodlestargenerica why not? 🤔
Backed for a physical version. The more GBA the marrier.
Would love to see Retro City Rampage get a physical GBA release, since the dev once said he had a version of the game running on the GBA
While a permit from Nintendo to release these games is not needed, why they don't talk to Nintendo to release these games officially? With all of Nintendo's trademarks included in the packaging, and even adding the games to the official list of licensed games of their older hardware? Or they did, but Nintendo refused?
The game looks like it could be really cool. The [Scottish--I think] voice-over, not so much. lol
Man I kind of want that GBA cart. I have a few GBAs lying around and a GameCube with a Game Boy Player. Would be a great addition to my little GB collection!
The artstyle reminds me of Starfy! :0
"Dogged pursuit" So bad. So good. This one looks very nice from the trailer. Very nice graphics and art style. Animation is solid. Looks like they're putting a lot of effort into this. Better than I expected. I'll try to keep an eye on this.
That actually looks pretty awesome and I'd love to have a physical copy, but I'm not sold enough to throw my hat in the ring at this point. I'd rather wait to hear some impressions and hope that they expand their plans for the physical release(s).
EDIT: Scratch that, I played the demo and I'm completely sold. In for the GBA physical release! Now, to find my DS Lite charger...
Looks great! I grabbed the Switch physical as well as the GBA special edition.
Will the gba packaging have Europe or American rating system in the cover E or +3? Does someone know this?
@impurekind cries in Scots
@Schizor88
Since the game will be published by First Press Games, you can expect that they'll do packaging representative of each territory, but not using any license.
https://firstpressgames.com/collections/retro?page=2
Which is to say, they'll do EU/US and JP region style packaging without Nintendo branding.
I'm pretty sure they will lack any sort of rating organization label.
Looks like they've smashed the kickstarter now, $56000! Well done, guys!
@Poodlestargenerica Agreed. Feels very modern pixel art.
I won't be buying the GBA cart, but I will for sure be getting the emulator rom. Super pumped for this one!
"The physical editions will be released for collectors in limited quantities to help avoid it becoming a 'disposable' product."
They can piss off with that.
@Yorumi GBA is slightly less recent than Gamecube
@Tobiaku available right now at First Press at https://firstpressgames.com/collections/goodboy-galaxy but for just one month, promising more copies will be available when the game is out in December 2022.
@birdcat also on sale directly by First Press at https://firstpressgames.com/collections/goodboy-galaxy and they promise there will be more copies when the game is out.
First GBA Kickstarter I've felt the need to back after seeing the demo, the more good games are encouraged for older hardware the better in my opinion.
I tried the demo for this today and it's gooooooooooooooood. If it had come out in the GBA days it would have been one of the best games available I think.
Tap here to load 34 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...