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I like that the contrast is pulled back ever so slightly. Gives a nostalgic film feel to something that is otherwise so characteristically digital.

Cool idea to tell a story. I thought about maybe posting sequences like frames of a single animated action, but I like the approach of using each photo as a line of a poem!

Thanks! I didn't know either it either until this jam; it was an exciting find.

Really nice contrast balance on these!

It's cool how the castle's spire fades up into the sky!

Thank you!

One of my favorites! And just in time for the moon festival too :)

Right on! I had an idea for a tool and spent about 30 min drafting notes — I'll shelve it and hold off then until June 1st (or whenever the countdown shakes out for my local time).

Looking forward to participating!

Hello! I've followed GB Compo over the years but never entered. I'd like to do something for the Tool category this year, but have a question about the start date:

For the Tool category, can work on that be started now? Or should it be held off on until May 31st when the jam opens?

I wanted to ask since the Tool category doesn't follow the theme-inclusion rule that the Game category does, so I wasn't sure how that shakes out with the fine details.

Much appreciated!

I am glad you enjoy it!

While I didn't intend on doing something as off the wall as last year, it did lean that way a bit since I did want to explore fun approaches to the theme. These jams are, in my eyes, an opportunity to get a little funky so I will likely take a similar approach next year as well.

Interesting stuff about the screen types, thanks for sharing! Talking about the use of the original Game Boy's LCD display made me think of the Game & Watch and what a different style that is. Video games, and handheld devices in particular, are a platform to build something that feels like so much more than displays. Displays that are often, in comparison, much smaller than the vast worlds that they spark in a player's imagination. 

I like what you mention about each developer highlighting what sparks their interest the most. That feels particularly apt for this jam as I've seen a lot of different approaches to the art. Each piece reflects their respective creator and showcases something new to the viewer. It's been a blast seeing all of them!

I appreciate the kind words :)  Given that it turned out to be more versatile of a system than expected, I'd like to try do to more with it (or a similar system). And I'd certainly be curious of how others would approach it!

Thank you for checking it out!

Woo hoo!
I just finished browsing through all of the submissions and will do so in more detail later. Just wanted to say congratulations to everyone who submitted. So many folks joined this year and it's been a really fun weekend to create, chat, and enjoy some cool creations :)

Excited for next year!

Thank you! I like your approach too, it's a lot fun to experiment with what can be done with a 2-bit palette.

Thank you, glad you like it! I think i'd like to play around more with this sour of thing in the future, using set blocks to build something and all. Maybe RGB, maybe something else.

Cool! Thanks for sharing about your process

How much do you try and plan for achieving that balance of unique and repeated tiles? Do you just sketch whatever you're picturing and then worry about it later? Or do you sketch it out thinking "this section will have some repeats" and specifically plan for it

I like how expansive the night sky is. Really cozy vibe all around :)

Wonderful work as always. I love how many elements are fit in (like the owl) despite being a 192 tile limit. 

I'm curious, do you draw or paint out your ideas before creating the pixel art? Or do you start straight away with it?

Knowing that the hard limit is 192, I try to think of things that naturally have a ton of repeated tiles. My first draft for this year came out to be 187 unique, so I luckily had a few to spare if needed.

Correct! The full credits are listed at the bottom of the description.

Beautiful artwork as always.
Interesting twist for this game, both the themes and the gameplay, I'm excited to see this expanded!

Particularly I wanted to note about when the grandpa says something along the lines of "It's been so many years since I've started, I only have these three now" - I thought that was a fantastic way to juxtapose this game to Pokémon. Normally you'd expect someone who's experienced to have quite the haul of 'mons, so the "only three left" really showcases well the darker themes and elements here.

Yes! It is a bonafide GBC ROM and should run the exact same as any other GB/C ROM on the console.

Much appreciated! Thank you for playing.

Thank you so much for your engagement with the game! It is NOT an easy game, especially when going for all of the bananas so I'm happy to hear that you were invested in it.

The glitches that occur are, as far as I know, related to the GBS 2 Beta 5 engine as opposed to a logic issue in the scripts. Many OnUpdate scripts are used simultaneously for enemies, camera, and other things. I believe that in running so many, some events are either skipped or even overloaded in the RAM. So while the logic is good, the design does not make the proper accommodations for this, though there was certainly attempts! Level 3 is actually a good bit different because the original layout triggered these glitches far more easily. However, it was still not enough to be totally glitch-free.

That being said, I had a blast getting all that I could out of the engine (even if I pushed a little too hard) and who knows? Now that GBS 3 is out and has all of its great features, it could be a good time to build out a game closer to the original plans.

Thank you again for playing and for your thoughtful post! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed :D

I appreciate the interest, that game was a lot of fun to make. Limitations were higher in GBS 2b5 but now with GBS 3.1, so much more is possible! (Still need to do that palette change though haha)

It's nostalgic to see that old-style YT playbar :,)
This is a cool choice for subject since that era of the UI lends itself so well to recreating in GB (as opposed to the current day YT) with its 4:3 ratio and big visual elements that it itself needed due to SD monitors of the time.

I like seeing personal discoveries with this jam theme. And it being the mid 2000's adds more flavor to it. I've always thought it was interesting the idea of playing a console past it heyday by a few years and, while this may not have been intended, displaying a 2000's subject matter on a console from (mostly) the 90's feels very much in the spirit of discovery to me. I can imagine it being the mid 2000's, browsing YT and playing GB, perhaps still finding out about new games from online or getting the most out of the games one has had for years.

Nice entry :) And congratulations on your very first jam submission!!

Very nice, I enjoyed reading the poem alongside it. Though I feel that you did a good job capturing the essence that the art stands on its own!

It's very cozy, and I think the view-port border helps with that. I wonder, was that originally part of the composition or born out of matching the tile limit?

The pose and light of the raccoon and leaf make it feel like a proper Zelda setup when the player finds a new item, which is super neat to have that GB DNA in the composition. Though, the diagonal line of elements from the top left to the bottom right gives it more of a feeling of a traditional painting. That's a cool balance!

Thank you!

Originally, I actually wanted it to be a totally linear succession of unique tiles starting at the top left and then having the remaining 168 tiles be just a blank bottom half. That would've really hit home the "192" idea. However, since the point of the piece was to push to the limit with what new techniques I could discover, I took that opportunity to make the two large sections of plain/dithered tiles to explore how they would look blending into one another.

The limitations of GB/C can be a lot of fun to max out though. The gorilla face on the left is from my game DE '22 and you might have noticed that some of his face is dark green instead of light green. This is because I needed a different color palette to help show the buildings in the background too. So in the final game, his face is all one solid color. That was a technique a lot of GBC devs will come across and I first discovered it for myself on that game hence its inclusion here.


Working within 192 is certainly tough! It can be frustrating and take some patience and testing, but I think it's very rewarding to have the final product.

Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you like it!

The 192 is admittedly one of my favorite tiles :)  At one point I went over the limit and had to decide what to cut out but I was def keeping that one haha

Thanks! I've never heard of YY-CHR, going to look that up.

Tilesets have a mysterious aesthetic to them I feel - like seeing the garbled mess that you know is played out so cohesively in game 

Neat perspective and use of line art.

I too would like to discover this awesome bliss '~'

Cool use of repetition and unique elements!
Isometric is always a treat to see on GB and this is a really smooth way to get some milage out of repeating tiles while maintaining detail. And I see you got two tiles to spare!
Always a joy to see your illustrations :D

Thanks howdy! Much appreciated to hear from a fellow GB dev ^u^

Thanks for making an awesome front (and back) cover!

Damn, that bass digs DEEP!

I downloaded the ROM two days ago, looks like I might've  missed that update!

Glad to hear about a full release! If you need help with testing in the future, feel free to reach out to me :D