Welcome to the Game Boy Showdown 2025 - Cutscene Edition! 

The Game Boy Showdown is a 10 day long Game Jam,
followed by a 7 day voting period.
This time it's  about cutscenes only!
Submitters, Sponsors and Helpers can vote.
Voting criteria will be Animation, Graphics & Sound.
The winner will be decided by the best score over all categories.

We got some sponsors again this year, to make some awesome prizes available for the winners!
• 1st place will receive a Funnyplaying FPGBC,
    a GBxCart RW, a  4MB flash cartridge
    and the GB Studio   Magazine (Issue 1-6).
• 2nd place will receive a Funnyplaying FPGBC,
     a GBxCart RW and a 4MB flash cartridge.
• 3rd place will receive a  GBxCart RW, a 4MB flash cartridge
     and the GB Studio Magazine (Issue 1-6).
• On top of that, all participants can claim a digital copy
of the latest BrewOtaku Magazine, while the voting period is running.
There will be a pinned post in the community section,
once the voting period has started. 

*Funnyplaying FPGBC  is  a  brand-new  FPGA based Game  Boy  Color.*
*insidegadget's GBxCart RW is the best  device  to  read and  write  Game Boy flash cartridges.*
*The  GB Studio Magazine is  a physical print magazine all  about  GB  Studio.*

There will be an official live-stream of the voting process
on twitch.tv/yogi_tronimal running on May 24th and May 25th 2025.
If you are also live-streaming or making videos of your dev process,
please let us know in the community section.
I'd be happy to watch and share!  

There will be no theme this year.

Please read this very carefully,
feel free to ask in the community section if anything is unclear.

• You must create a real Game Boy ROM file,
only *.gb (Game Boy) and *.gbc (Game Boy Color) files are accepted. 
• Uploading a web release additionally is allowed and recommended to increase visibility.
• The whole project has to be made within the 10 days - while the jam is running.
But feel free to test your art skills prior, check how animation works, how to make music,
what tileswapping is, or how to use actors to animate parts of a background image.
• Cutscene Edition! So only animation - graphics & sound. Maximum lenght is 60 seconds.
• No playable games this year.  So it has to run without any button press.
Just make an animation, a cutscene, a little story, a music video or something similar.          
You can add credits and a title screen and add a button to start, but that's all.

• Teaming up is allowed. Make some friends with other game devs.
• It's ok to use assets (pieces of premade music or graphics) and templates (pieces of premade code),
but you have to tell everyone about it on your submission page!
• Only original  work is allowed, no fan projects, no remakes, demakes or romhacks.
It's simple. No copyright violation.
• No NSFW or offensive stuff! Be nice.

Any rule violation will get your game removed from the jam. 

Don't go too big and stick to schedule.
You can use RGBDS, GBDK, ZGB or GB STUDIO to create your Game Boy project,
or anything else which will let you create a valid Game Boy ROM file.

If this is your first time making a Game Boy ROM file,
GB Studio and GBDK-2020 are recommended for beginners.
If you need help, there are some great tutorials on how to get started by Robert Doman.
GB Studio Central also offers some very useful information.

There are some sound assets available by Beatscribe  or Tronimal for example.
Plus graphic assets by Gumpy Function, PiiiXL, 2bitcrook and many more - on itch.io
If you are developing a "Game Boy Color only" project,
make sure to add a lockout screen for the classic Game Boy (DMG).

Time to celebrate! We got helpers and sponsors - again. :)

GB Studio Central - helpful website about GB Studio.
insideGadgets - the maker of the awesome GBxCart and lots of flash cartridges.  
NCON - Nintendo Fan Convention club based in Germany.
Robert Doman - making games and GB Studio related videos.
BrewOtaku - a retro homebrew gaming magazine.
Space Luchadores - a private sponsor,
helping out because he enjoyed the past Game Boy Showdown so much.

There are various good reasons to join and participate in a Game Jam.
For just having fun and making some friends in the Game Boy development scene,
or to see what you can achieve in a short amount of time. 
This one is special, I'm challenging you to work on art - animation and music...