Hi! The day has come, we have a Kickstarter campaign for the physical release of GB Corp, with some very unique items and goodies inside the box: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yastunagames/gb-corp-a-new-physical-gameboy...

Hi! The day has come, we have a Kickstarter campaign for the physical release of GB Corp, with some very unique items and goodies inside the box: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yastunagames/gb-corp-a-new-physical-gameboy...

Hi! The day has come, we have a Kickstarter campaign for the physical release of GB Corp, with some very unique items and goodies inside the box: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yastunagames/gb-corp-a-new-physical-gameboy...

Thanks a lot, I hope you'll enjoy the game! :)

Thanks a lot for your kind words! :)

Yeha!

As promised, here is some news: DMG Deals Damage is now available again in physical format, and so does Sheep It Up!

The games are comes in a beautiful fully boxed edition (cart, box, manual), or as a single cart like before. And of course, if someone  bought the "cart only" version before wants to upgrade it, we are also selling a "package only (manual + box)" version too!

You can get the new physical edition of DMG Deals Damage from here:

https://yastuna-games.com/en/nintendo-game-boy/51-59-dmg-deals-damage-gb.html#/28-gb_cart-grey/33-packaging-box_booklet_inlay

Good question! I honestly haven't found the time to start working on this game again, but I'll do it someday :)!

Hi again!

I'm happy to hear that you have a SNES project in the work too! The SNES needs more and more homebrew titles, so I'll be happy to answer your questions on this topic too.  You can contact me directly through email: drludos AT ludoscience DOT com

Hi, thanks for feedback!

Your analysis is right, in many games you usually recycle the enemy sprite to make an explosion, and reduce the total sprites count  . But for Yo-Yo Shuriken, it wasn't possible, because when an enemy is killed, its sprite is reused to display a coin (or a bonus). The enemies always drop a coin or a bonus, because it's the only way to score points in the game.

So I had to use an extra set of hardware sprites to display the explosions :). It was more convenient because killing an enemy can now trigger more than one explosion at a time (like with the bosses).

So yes, for this game I do have up to 24 enemies (16x16 pixels) + 10 explosions sprites (32x32 pixels) on screen.

Thanks a lot

And yes, the music in a very cool public domain resource file produced by a member of the talented GB Studio community, so it's used in several games :).

It's titled "In The Town" and composed by krümel (crumb)#0723, under a public domain license (GB Studio Community Assets):  https://github.com/DeerTears/GB-Studio-Community-Assets/tree/master/Music

You're welcome :)!

Hi! Thanks a lot for your interest! 

Yes, I'm currently working on having this game (and also my other GB games) available on another shop.

It'll take some time as I'm working on having a fully boxed release available alongside the "cartridge only" one, but they will definitively be available again as physical format.

I'll make a post here again when it's available so you can get the information :)

Woaw, thanks a lot for your interest and your support!

I'm definitively planning on expanding / enhancing the game, and try to make a physical release for it in the future :)!

Hi!

To be honest, the low level hardware detection is performed by the SDK i use: GBDK-2020 https://github.com/gbdk-2020/gbdk-2020

The test itself is made at startup: https://github.com/gbdk-2020/gbdk-2020/blob/develop/gbdk-lib/libc/targets/gbz80/... (see __cpu variable)

Basically, the boot rom is slightly different and leaves the values of some register in different states at startup, and that's how we can detect which GB model we are running on (for DMG / Pocket / Color / Advance detection). For the detection of SGB, it's different: we ask to enable some SGB only features (such as mutliplayer support). If the machine replies a with specific value, then it's running on a SGB, else it does nothing meaning it's not running on a SGB but on another Game Boy model.

Yes, I do plan to try to add SGB2 support too in the future :)

(first I need to get an actual SGB2 to test if everything is working well :p)

Hi!

I never tried to do large SNES games (for now), but from what I've read the maximum "standard" size for games is 4MB (32 Mbits): https://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm#snescartridges

But by using special chips inside the cartridge, you can go way larger: the two largest SNES games from the commercial era (Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia) where 6MB (48 Mbits) each. And nowadays, using the SD2SNES / FXPAKPRO Flashcart with the MSU-1 mapper, you can go up to 4GB in size: http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2018/01/sd2snes-and-msu-1.html

But honestly, with the way the SNES stores audio and graphics data (very efficient formats = small sizes), 4MB is quite a large amount of space to make cool SNES games :)

Thanks a lot for the kind words! :)

Thanks a lot, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)!

Woaw, thanks a lot for your support, it's motivating! :)

If I manage to push this project up to a physical release, I'll announce it on my newsletter. You can subscribe to it from here: Dr Ludos releases newsletter

Also, I post early beta versions and in progress information of all my homebrew projects for my supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/drludos

Hi, thanks for the kind words, and for the warning!

I only have an Everdrive GB (1st model) at home, and it doesn't have any issue with this as it saves the SRAM content on SD cart only when we are loading a new rom. But if you have a Flashcart that writes directly the SRAM contents on the SD card, yes, it definitively can be an issue I guess.

The current version of the game doesn't have a pause feature, but I'll add it for a next version so people with such a FlashCart can "disable" the SRAM writes to avoid corrupting the SD card.

Regarding the EZ Flash Omega, can it run GB/GBC roms? (as it's a GBA flashcart if I'm not mistaken). If no, I don't think this device will be able to run the game: to run this game on a GBA you should run it from a "Game Boy" Flashcart so the console switches to the "GBC" mode instead of the GBA one.

Hi, thanks a lot for your interest! 

I do intend to keep working on this game (for example, adding new GB models), and then yes, I'd like to make it available in physical format. I've already released 2 GB games on cartridge  in the past few years, so I'll try to do it for this game too!

I've checked the latest version, and there is indeed a is_gba variable now. Thanks a lot for the heads up, I'll definitively use it to add GBA support in a future version of the game :)!

Woaw, thanks a lot for your feedback, it's really motivating to keep doing such games :)

This is a very good idea indeed! I wasn't aware the newest GBDK did have this feature, thanks for telling me, I'll look into it! The game is compiled with the 4.0.4 version of GBDK-2020, as I didn't want to update the SDK a few days before the deadline to avoid "breaking stuffs, but now I'll take time to update and explore the 4.0.5 version!

Thanks! I hope you'll enjoy it on real hardware too :)

Hi, thanks for the mention and i'm glad the comments in my HTML files could be helpful to someone :)!

To restate them here, I used a HMTL5 port of RetroArch SNES9x core made by Toadking (https://toadking.com/retroarch/snes9x-next.html)

I set various options and modified the HTML page to embed a specific rom so it's easier to release a homebrew game on itch, so It might be easier to take my customized files and simply edit them and replace the rom file with your own game :).

@BennySnesDev: do you also have issue playing KeepingSnesAlive through HTML5 emulator on your computer? From the HTML5 SNES emulators I've tried, I found this port of RetroArch to be the fastest (I use a fairly low-spec / cheap pc myself too, and the game is running smooth for me).

I like the concept, it's quite original puzzle perfectly suited to the GBA! The presentation is top notch, the music is great, and it plays smoothly!

A very great entry, the only stuff I lacked is a "pause" button! :)

Very cool and unique entry, I love it! The music is wonderful and helps you get "in the zone" while playing. It would be even better with sound effects, but even without it the music compensate for them!

I love the "triangle" art style and the overall polish. Gameplay wise, it's easy at start but become quite challenging once you reach level 3!

One suggestion would be to reduce the number of hit points of the enemy on the lower level, especially on level 1 - as the game is meant to be played over and over, after a while it get tedious to restart knowing that you'll have to kill them all again has they have a quite large life bar!

Anyway, great work on this game, and I hope you'll keep working on it!

Woaw, very original and literally mind-twisting puzzler! :)

The game is very challenging, but I enjoyed it once I got used to the controls. The music is great too, and set a great mood.

Congrats on this great entry!

Woaw, my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw so many 3D polygons rendered at a solid 60 fps, with outstanding music playing in the background and very fun game to play!

Congratulations, this is a VERY impressive entry, and it feels like a commercial game!

The game is already complete (and challenging), but I had an idea that maybe you'll like to make it a bit easier: how about making players only bounce/slow down when they hit a wall instead of exploding, unless they have a turbo activated?

That way, you'll a have nice risk/reward: you can go faster, but you risk losing precious seconds if you crash because you'll explode. And if you hit an obstacle without using a turbo, it'll be less frustrating to just being slowed down that exploding right away.

Also, wouldn't it be cool to be able to activate the turbo after the timer reaches 0, but the car isn't slowed down yet? That way, some players may be able to complete a race at the very last second (I lost a couple of time right being the finishing line with a turbo still available). Of course, if the car is stopped, triggering a turbo won't save you because it's too late.

Anyway, these are just random ideas because I spent lot of time crashing into walls :)

This would definitively be worthy of a cartridge release!

Woaw, 462 points is an incredible highscore!
Are you some kind of Jedi who can see the near future? ;)

More seriously, congratulations, I'm not sure wether anyone will be able to top 462 points!

And BPCore-Engine is a really great engine (its author Evan Bowman also submitted the game Skylands for this jam, a very impressive entry), I honestly think this is the most "newcomers friendly" way to make GBA games. It's also very fast to compile new roms so it's a breeze to make fine tuning on the gameplay.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm really happy to see some fellow developers try to beat the highscore!

Thanks! :)

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

And congrats on your record, this is really impressive, especially on a GBMicro! (I mean, with the smaller screen it should be harder than on the SP!). Nice Yoshi faceplate by-the-way :) 

Hi!

Thanks a lot for the clarification!

I think I'll go another route then, as being able to play the game I want to make would indeed require either an actual SGB+SNES or to use BSNES  emulator (BGB does support most SGB features, but not all).

Thanks again for running this compo :)

Hi!

Would it be allowed to submit a game that requires the Super Game Boy to this competition?

By requiring, I mean that the game would use some of the SGB-only features (like colors, borders covering the gameplay area, audio played from the SGB, two player controls with SNES gamepads, etc.), and thus won't be really playable on other GB models.

From reading the rules ("SGB features are allowed (but don't rely on them"), I think the answer would be a no, but I'm asking to be 100% sure it's forbidden as I had a cool idea for a game using the SGB features.

Thanks for your answer, and for running such a cool competition! :)

Thanks a lot! :)

This is a very good point, I did forgot about that!

Is it still current though, as with allowing SuperFX and other expansion chip I think it also prevent such a compilation cart happening ?

Hi, I see things in a similar way, and think that a "SGB only" game should be allowed by the current rule as it's now clearly forbidden.

My intent is to make a SGB only game, that mainly run on the SGB and not a SNES Rom embedded in the SGB. I want to try to use the SGB feature regarding display (colors, the fact that you can display part of the border over the gameplay area, etc.) and audio (the library of embedded sound and audio engine) in a unique way, in a way that no commercial game did it during the 90's. A GB cart that can't be played on a GB would make no commercial sense then, but for such a retro development I think it could be a cool project :).

But I wanted to ask if it was OK before going too far in the project, and I can see that not everyone is ok with this "edge cas". I hope we can have an official answer from the compo organizer to see if it's ok or not.

Regarding accessibility, I actually though of it too, and I think requiring a SGB is less an issue than requiring a SNES mouse or a Super Scope. For one, the SGB is perfectly emulated in the latest versions of BSNES and Higan. And for real hardware, if you don't have SGB + GB flashcart, you can actually play the game directly on the SNES with a SD2SNES / FXPAK Flashcart, as it have a SGB core now :).

In the gameplay idea I have in mind, the code will mostly run on the SGB CPU indeed, but the input, and audio and graphical output will be SNES related. I know it's kind of a stretch, but I see it quite similar to using a SA-1 chip or SuperFX chip, which the compo rules allows. And the fact to use an accessory like the SGB is tied to the "perspectives" theme :).