Tag: Game Boy - Page 7
Video Hyperkin's Upcoming SmartBoy Lets You Catch Pokémon On Your Phone The Old-Fashioned Way
No data connection or walking required
As the world is gripped by Pokémon GO fever, you can't blame peripheral maker Hyperkin from leaping on the bandwagon in order to promote its forthcoming SmartBoy accessory. The device connects to Android phones and allows you to load up original Game Boy cartridges and play them via emulation. Hyperkin's...
Video Here's The Ultimate Game Boy Cartridge Storage Solution
Hanging loose
If you're a discerning retro collector then the issue of how to properly display loose cartridges will probably keep you up at night. If you're unable to get any shut-eye due to this troubling problem, then YouTube channel My Life in Gaming - along with the equally brilliant Game Dave - is here to help. They've pooled their collective...
Video Welcome To The Hellish Glitch That Allows Speedrunners To Beat Super Mario Land 2 In Minutes
Stepping into the Mario Matrix
Speedrunners are obsessed with finishing games in the fastest time possible, but they don't always play fair - any glitches in a game which allow the player to complete it in a faster time are considered by many to be perfectly legit, although they are usually classified differently to "normal" speed runs. Even so,...
News Hyperkin Seeking Developers To Help Bring The Smartboy To Retail
"WE built the Smartboy. YOU can make it great"
Hyperkin's Smartboy began life as a joke but has been quietly bubbling under in the company's R&D labs for the past year. The company has now opened preorders for the peripheral, which attaches to Android phones and allows users to run Game Boy cartridges with the benefit of proper physical...
E3 2016 Hyperkin's "April Fools" Game Boy Phone Attachment Is Alive And Well
Now only confirmed for Android phones, though
Remember the Smart Boy? It began life as a 2015 April Fools' Day joke by hardware maker Hyperkin, but the company later admitted it was making the thing for real. We've heard little since then, but the Smart Boy is still very much alive and well - it has even been spotted on the show floor at E3. The...
Hardware Classics Game Boy Pocket
A refreshed icon
It would be fair to say that the Game Boy's longevity surprised everyone, including Nintendo. Originally released in 1989, it was still going strong by the middle of the following decade and experienced a notable boost thanks to the timely introduction of the first Pokémon titles, Red & Blue. The momentum provided by these...
News This Freshly Translated Interview Sheds New Light on the Development of Super Mario Land 2
Bring back the Magic Carrot!
The Super Mario Land games on the GameBoy were always something of black sheep among the rest if the Super Mario canon. The games experimented with different themes and felt very weird for lack of a better word, but nonetheless were solid games within their own right. While the first game was a decidedly simple affair,...
Video Learn How The Game Boy Made Clever Use of Memory Mapping
Find a comfortable seat
A couple of months ago we shared a video by JackTech, which explored in some detail how the Game Boy CPU works. It was part one in a 'hardware autopsy' series that aims to unpick and explain how the iconic portable device operates, providing some insight into how humble technology was used in clever ways. The second part has...
Video Re-Live your School Years with these Five Nintendo Lies We All Believed
My dad worked for Nintendo
Thanks to the internet the storm of misinformation that swirled throughout friendship groups and magazines are largely a thing of the past, with a few exceptions. There was something strangely appealing about all the whispers you'd hear on the breeze about how you could unlock various unbelievable content in various games,...
News New Handheld Channels The Spirit Of The Game Boy And Can Run Virtual Boy Games
All for $49
Those of you who follow the homebrew coding scene might already be aware of CHIP, a self-contained computer which costs just $9. This super-cheap piece of hardware is now being put inside a portable shell to host "Fantasy Console" platform PICO-8, and the end result is looking fantastic. Created by Next Thing and dubbed PocketCHIP, this...
Rumour Nintendo Once Worked On A Game Boy Successor That Promised N64 Power In Your Pocket
Lifting the lid on Project Atlantis
The Game Boy was a stunning success for Nintendo. Released at a time when rival hardware was packing backlit colour screens, the monochrome handheld proved that sometimes having the most powerful tech doesn't always ensure commercial triumph. The Game Boy sold millions and established Nintendo's dominance of the...
Random This Game Boy Zero Uses a Raspberry Pi for Lovely Retro Gaming
The Boy ate all the Pi
We've mentioned the Raspberry Pi before, a budget micro-computer that's gone through multiple iterations - its low price (typically $50 or under) means it's a wonderful educational tool or, alternatively, a side-project for enthusiasts. The Game Boy Zero is an example of the latter. As the name suggests this is a Game Boy...
Weirdness Minor League Baseball Team Is Making Its Players Wear Game Boy Jerseys
Knocking it out of the park
Minor league baseball team Frisco Roughriders has something of a habit of getting its players to wear unique shirts based on pop culture icons, and this year the team is harnessing the power of Gunpei Yokoi's finest creation, the Nintendo Game Boy. The Roughriders - who play at the amusingly-named Dr Pepper Ballpark -...
News Takashi Tezuka Began Development On Zelda: Link's Awakening Without Nintendo's Permission
Director wanted to "defy Zelda conventions" with Game Boy outing
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening might seem like the pint-sized sibling of the sublime Link to the Past, but many regard it as the superior release, despite the cruder visuals and sound. The 1993 Game Boy release was one of the first titles for the handheld which showed it could...
Video Here's What A DJ Battle On Game Boys Looks (And Sounds) Like
Live from the Niche Nights ChipBattles event
Game Boy modder and chiptune master Joe Heaton is here to give us an official on-the-floor report from an amazing musical event - enjoy! On February 12th 2016, Niche Nights hosted the first ever ChipBattles event at Fab Cafe in Manchester. This is a brand new event within the scene of "Chiptune" music,...
Video It's Fun To Learn About The Game Boy's CPU
'70s tech powering '90s dreams
The Nintendo Game Boy is without a doubt one of the most iconic gaming systems of all time, having shifted millions of units and turned countless individuals into Tetris addicts and prolific portable players. However, the console itself was actually seen as something of a weakling, even by the standards of the late...
Weirdness Conceptual Artist Attempts Tetris World Record as a Metaphor of Capitalism
"Eventually they fall so fast that you can’t keep up and you die"
Conceptual and performance artists find meaning - or try to - in the unlikeliest of places, often taking mundane or obsessive aspects of life and applying an artistic different vision. One artist doing this is Rutherford Chang, who's based in New York and has previous works that...
News Let's Debunk Some Of Pokémon's Biggest Myths Ahead Of This Year's Virtual Console Resurrection
No, you can't capture Pikablu
Nintendo is finally launching the first-gen Pokémon games on the 3DS Virtual Console, and this event has gotten the peeps over at Red Bull thinking about all of the classic myths which grew up around the games back in the late '90s - before the internet came along and made it easy to debunk such nonsense. No, you...
Art If Nintendo Did Resurrect The Game Boy, We'd Want It To Look Like This
Past and present
The Game Boy line may be effectively retired in Nintendo's eyes, but the name itself still carries a lot of weight with gamers all over the world - including German designer Florian Renner, who has put together a cool concept which resurrects the classic brand for the modern era. The Game Boy 1up is of course nothing more than a fe
News Bertil Hörberg Releases Playable Game Boy ROM of Gunman Clive
You feelin' lucky, punk?
We're big fans of both Gunman Clive games, which are among the finest releases on the 3DS eShop and are also available as a collection on Wii U. Developer Bertil Hörberg has certainly demonstrated his design flair and ability to create tight platformers with some retro feel. Hörberg has taken his degree of homage to retro...
News Nintendo Has "Moved On" From Game Boy Games on the 3DS Virtual Console
No wonder the VC has been so quiet
When the 3DS Virtual Console was introduced, it brought with it the promise of giving classic portable games a new lease in life much the same as the Wii Virtual Console did for classic console games. While it had a pretty strong start, it's no secret that the 3DS Virtual Console has been lacking for quite some...
Hardware Review BitBoy Lets You Back Up Your Game Boy Camera Snaps With Ease
Digital photography, 1998 style
In 1998 Nintendo launched the Game Boy Camera, a tiny (at the time) digital camera that sat in the Game Boy's cartridge slot and took simple monochrome photos that could be edited and printed via the link cable and an optional Game Boy Printer, using a roll of thermal printing paper similar to a till receipt. In the...
Mario Memories A Portable Warp Pipe To Lost Adventures
Catching up on history
In this series of not-quite-daily articles celebrating the upcoming 30th Anniversary of Super Mario, various members of the Nintendo Life extended family will share their memories and thoughts on the iconic franchise. This time we have reviewer and contributor Conor McMahon. SEGA's dominance over the UK and Irish market meant...
Ninterview Dave Higgins And The Quest For A Complete European Game Boy Library
Collecting at a rate of 1.064 games per day
Nintendo is responsible for some of the most iconic gaming systems of all time, but one of its most technically humble seems to be undergoing something of a resurgence at present. The monochrome Game Boy may not have the visual impact of the SNES or N64, but its portable nature arguably lends a more...
Mario Memories How Super Mario Land Made Me A Nintendo Fan
Damien McFerran on the game which started a portable obsession
In this series of 30 daily articles celebrating the upcoming 30th Anniversary of Super Mario, various members of the Nintendo Life extended family will share their memories and thoughts on the iconic franchise. Next up is Editorial Director Damien McFerran. Tetris is widely regarded...
News This SquidKid Splatoon Game Boy Mod Aims to Make a Splash
Pre-order details due this week
Nintendo wasn't shy of releasing a whole load of Game Boy designs and variations in the '90s, and in the modern day enthusiasts and modders are more than happy to keep the trend going. There are a lot of cool mods out there - if you can think of a cool design you'd like to see, the odds are reasonable that someone,...
Video Say Hello To The SNES Game Which Ships Inside A Game Boy Cartridge
Invading a 16-bit home console near you
One of the really cool things about the Super Game Boy adapter - besides the fact that it allowed you to play your portable titles on SNES - was that it added embellishments to certain titles, like two-player modes, additional colours and even attractive borders around the screen. However, there's one title...
News This 'PikaBoy' Game Boy Color Mod Goes the Extra Mile
LED cheeks, a tail and feet to stand up
We sure like retro console mods here at Nintendo Life, as fans take classic systems and apply a neat twist to their design. Nintendo systems are often re-imagined in wonderful ways, and this 'PikaBoy' system is another example. The creator, 'eforie', had the idea in 2011 but made it a reality for...
News Gunpei Yokoi Discusses The Struggle To Make The Game Boy In One Of His Last Interviews
"Hardware design isn't about making the most powerful thing you can"
Gunpei Yokoi is one of the most important figures in the history of Nintendo. One of the engineers who helped turn the company into what it is today, Yokoi produced some of its most significant releases - including the iconic Game & Watch series and the world-beating Game Boy...
News The SmartBoy Is Real, Will Let You Play Original Game Boy Carts On Your Smartphone
Hyperkin's April Fool's joke turns out to be true
Back in April, hardware maker Hyperkin posted what many people thought was an elaborate April Fool's joke. The "SmartBoy" was pitched as a bolt-on controller which allowed you to play your original Game Boy carts on your smartphone. A fantastic idea, but surely too bonkers to actually be true, right?...
Weirdness Someone Captured E3 2015 Using A Game Boy Camera
And then downloaded the images using a cool new device
Remember Jeremy Parish? He's the guy behind Game Boy World and the boss at US Gamer. He's also the kind of guy who thinks nothing of taking ageing retro tech to the world's biggest gaming event and snapping photos of famous video game celebrities. Parish snapped the likes of Nintendo's Bill...
Feature Game Boy Collector Tracks Down Original Owner Using The Power Of Social Media
A very modern mystery
The internet is a wonderful tool which allows us to do all kinds of things – shopping, keeping in touch with loved ones and (of course) reading amazing websites like Nintendo Life. It's also rather handy when you pick up a second-hand piece of vintage gaming technology and want to know who owned it a few decades ago – and...
Weirdness The Game Boy XXL Makes The New Nintendo 3DS XL Look Puny
Supersize GB
Sometimes it feels like electronics manufacturers these days are all totally obsessed with the miniaturisation of their products. We recently got the iPhone 6 Plus and the New Nintendo 3DS XL... erm, actually, it's probably best to stop there. Let's be honest, the original Game Boy was always a reassuring brick in stature; not exactly...
Weirdness Indie Hit Progress Gets Ported to the Humble Game Boy
Now that's progress
Indie developer Ludosity is well known for developing fun games for tablets and smartphones, but now it seems to be taking its first steps to porting one of its games to Nintendo hardware - just not the Nintendo system which you might have assumed! Speaking to our chums at AppSpy at this year's Nordic Game show, the developer...
News Modder Creates A Bluetooth-Ready Game Boy, Because Why The Heck Not
Fantastic retro-fitting fun
If you're familiar with the world of Game Boy modding and music, then the name Joe Heaton should be known to you. This UK-based tech genius has been featured on the site in the past - both as an interview subject and to offer sagely advise to prospective modders - and he's back with his latest amazing creation. Heato
Ninterview Jeremy Parish On Cataloguing The History Of The Game Boy, One Game At A Time
"I've made peace with the fact that I'll die before completing this"
The original monochrome Game Boy is the elder statesman of Nintendo's handheld family, having arrived on the market back in 1989. The console became a commercial and cultural phenomenon, effortlessly casting aside its more technically-competent rivals and establishing a brand which...
News Clean Up Your Act With This Game Boy Laundry Basket
Begone, foul undergarments
Playing on your Game Boy all day long is so much fun, but if you're anything like us you'll find that it tends to eat up time you'd usually spend cleaning your house and tidying away all the smelly clothing you casually drop on the floor. If only someone could somehow combine these two elements to make the process of...
Music Say Hello To The World's First LSDj Music Album On A Game Boy Cartridge
Includes Nordloef, Tommy Creep, Pixel Hero Zero and Solarbear
The Game Boy may be as old as the hills, but it's alive and well in the world of chiptune music. In recent years an active musical community has grown up around Nintendo's iconic handheld, intent on creating awesome tunes and even playing them to live audiences. If you needed any more of...
News We're Over The Moon With This Zelda: Majora's Mask Game Boy
You've met with some awesome paint, haven't you?
We love a good custom paint job of classic gaming hardware here at Nintendo Life Towers, and this Majora's Mask Game Boy is one of the coolest mods we have seen in a while. French artist Oskunk has given this tired old Game Boy a refreshing new lease of life by bringing it bang up to date with a...
Weirdness The Mail on Sunday Still Thinks We're in the Game Boy Era
Nice work
When Nintendo announced the original DS (sometimes know as the "Phat") there was talk that it was a separate pillar of the Nintendo portable business, with the Game Boy to continue. The phenomenal success of the DS family, though, has meant that it's taken the place of the iconic brand, and it's hard to know if we'll ever see a new Game...
Video YouTube's Gaming Historian Takes Offense At One Element Of Mario's Game Boy Past
"Come on Nintendo. You're better than this"
Mario is one of the most recognisable characters in entertainment media, and has starred in a staggering number of games over the past few decades. The portly Italian plumber has also enjoyed a number of cameo roles throughout the years, and it's this element of the character's history that the latest...
Feature Tales From The Frontline Of Game Boy Development
The Rise And Fall Of Crawfish Interactive
As the video game industry lurches from one generation to the next, the multitude of companies involved with producing software for the endless conveyor belt of platforms never remains static; just as studios are created to cater for the demands of new hardware, established firms are forced to close due to...
Guide How To Create A Custom Game Boy From Start To Finish
The glorious rebirth of a handheld gaming legend
In this unique one-off feature, esteemed Game Boy modder Joe Heaton — also known as Joeteach — takes us through an entire Game Boy custom job. Over the last couple of years, since getting hooked on the Game Boy modification scene and sharing my creations on Instagram, I have been asked a lot of...
News AI Program Can Learn To Play Game Boy Games, Next Stop: The Subjugation Of Humanity
When is Judgment Day due, again?
Developer Daniel Shumway has created an AI program which is capable of learning how to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Named Piglet — but previously developed under the moniker WideEyes — it's a machine-learning AI built with Lua and designed to interact with the Visual Boy Advance emulator. Inspired by...
News Kickstarter Project Wants to Turn Your Game Boy into a Full HD Beast
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in 1080p
Gunpei Yokoi, the late father of the Game Boy, famously embraced a design philosophy of "lateral thinking with withered technology," in which one found cool new ways to entertain with cheaper, older equipment. One can only wonder if Yokoi ever even considered the notion that, 25 years later, his iconic...
News Nintendo Renews Patent On Multi-Platform Game Boy Emulation, But Don't Get Too Excited
Unlikely that official games will be on your iPhone any time soon
Patents are funny things. Every new product needs them, but there are countless patents filed every year which never get used for anything productive. Take Nintendo's patent for
Review Donkey Kong Land III (3DS eShop / GB)
Marvellous Monkeys
In 1997 the fifth generation of video games was well underway (even Europe and Oceania had the N64 by then), but the trusty Game Boy was still the place to go for portable gaming joy. Having successfully brought monkey platforming action to the handheld twice already, Rare produced a third game — the imaginatively titled Donkey...
Video Let's Celebrate The Game Boy That The West Never Got
Shedding some light on a handheld classic
Nintendo's Game Boy range was massively successful all over the world — heck, even Kurt Cobain had one — but not every variant of the system made it out of Japan. Just before the launch of the Game Boy Color, Nintendo produced a revised backlit version of the original monochrome system which was...
Video You are Hereby Ordered To Surrender Nearly Three Hours Of Your Life To Game Boy Title Screens
Strangely mesmerising
Ever wondered what it would be like to sit through every single Game Boy title screen? Ponder no longer, as YouTube user NicksplosionFX has given us the chance to do just that. The video below is almost three hours (2:42:02, to be precise) of Game Boy title screens — that's every known original game for the console — and...
Weirdness Hearthstone Game Boy Demake Is An Experience Nintendo Fans Can Never Have
At least we’ll always have the Pokémon Trading Card Game
If you’ve ever wondered what Hearthstone would have been like on the original Game Boy, wonder no more. A digital artist by the name of Pixelpowerluke from Game Boy Demakes is currently teasing fans with images of what Blizzard’s online card game would have possibly looked like if it...
