Making a Game Boy Color Game in C!

Hey everyone! Finally announcing the game that I'm making with some backstory and a bit of a dev log. Let me know if you'd like to see more! Planning on doing a physical cartridge release.
If you'd like to follow along, take a look at my code, or help me financially here are some links to look at:
/ esoteric_games
github.com/eso...
/ esotericsean
ko-fi.com/esot...
Links to the development tools I'm using:
GBDK: github.com/gbd...
ZGB: github.com/Zal...
GB Tile Designer and Map Builder: github.com/gbd...
Milkytracker: milkytracker.org/
Aesprite: www.aseprite.org/
Tools and supplies I use:
Soldering iron: amzn.to/3NmLrSL
Iron stand: amzn.to/3njx1Iu
Solder: amzn.to/3HW6evl
Flux: amzn.to/3QJ2Yrr
Solder wick: amzn.to/3OG7u81
Hot air station: amzn.to/3QNP736
Screwdriver set: amzn.to/3bufQ4v
JIS Screwdriver: amzn.to/3NiFsOR
Scalpel handle: amzn.to/3OG6twJ
Scalpel blades: amzn.to/39OSMwV
Wire: amzn.to/3NgeUOg
Silicone mat: amzn.to/3OFH0DB
Metal spudger: amzn.to/3btL3Vb
Metal tweezers: amzn.to/3HQ544y
Plastic tweezers: amzn.to/3btgcZ7
Flush trim cutters: amzn.to/3OKVYZh
#gameboy #gbdk #nintendo

[@lolzasouruhm179]

I’m at game dev school rn and this seems like a fantastic side project (if I have the time) can’t wait to buy a physical copy of your game

[@Smoon161]

teach me your ways

[@dorianjepsen]

I love the fact there's folks like you keeping these old systems alive with new games! Santa brought me a NES in 1986, a GameBoy in 1989, and a SNES in 1991. Great childhood memories.

[@blooexeofficial]

“So i have just started my little quick side project.” *2 years later* “Yep, quick side project” but seriously this is some good stuff dude.

[@EC-tn9jt]

Cool project Sean! You have so many skills!!! Looking forward to the release (?)

[@CristofherGuersoni]

I loved it and your game looks really fun and cool, please keep us updated in your game development journey =) I wish I can develop something someday too

[@esotericsean]

Thanks so much! You should give it a try. GB Studio makes it really accessible now

[@adrianomaozinha1088]

​@@esotericseanOlá Sean Tudo bem? Gostaria de saber se você consegue colorir esses jogos abaixo? Quantos você cobra por cada jogo? Original Tetris 1989 Tetris Attack Master Karateka Motocross Maniacs 1989 Multiplayer Mode Solar Striker Double Dragon 1, 2 and 3 Super R.C Pro-An F1 Race F1 Fastest Lap Tennis 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1, 2 and 3 Side Pocket Castlevania Legends Penguin Wars Trax Wave Race Yoshi's Cookie Mario & Yoshi Boxing Mole Mania Real Bout Special Samurai Shodown Fatal Fury 2 The King of Fighters '95 and 96 Bomberman GB1, GB2 and GB3 Donkey Kong vs Mario Nekketsu - Dodge Ball Nekketsu - Downtown Nekketsu - Nintendo World Cup Robocop 2 Rubble Saver 2 The Amazing Spiderman 1, 2 and 3 Top Ranking Tennis WF Superstars

[@esotericsean]

@@adrianomaozinha1088 Ah, colorizing a game requires knowing ASM. I know a tiny bit, but haven't really gotten into it yet. Maybe for a future project! I would love to see all those games colorized too! Google Translate: Ah, colorir um jogo requer conhecimento de ASM. Eu sei um pouquinho, mas ainda não entrei no assunto. Talvez para um projeto futuro! Eu adoraria ver todos esses jogos coloridos também!

[@Juhram]

This looks sick man! Hoping the best for future development

[@NaraMakesGames]

Such a great video. Thanks for sharing, brother.

[@esotericsean]

Hey! Thanks for watching ☺️

[@JakeSimmons]

I can’t wait! It looks so cool!

[@esotericsean]

Thanks Jake!

[@Alex-lp6bg]

Super cool! Feature Creeps

[@Exoamylase]

looks really good !

[@tonyortiz623]

Nice game. I started about 2 years ago to make a game in GBDK but life got in the way. Watching this, i want to get back in soon as things calm down. Thanks for re lighting my fire.

[@Godot-Game-Dev]

I am probably the only person who has watched this video who has played the game, and I probably will never get a response, but when I was watching your video, I saw that you had the game inmost! The funniest thing is that is one of my all time favorite games! Hope you enjoyed playing it as much as I did and amazing video by the way (: wish you luck on your game dev journey when you posted this video last year I hope you keep making great games.

[@esotericsean]

Inmost was amazing! Such amazing art in that game. And thank you so much, still working on game dev but my wife and I had a baby so life got very busy 😅

[@Godot-Game-Dev]

@@esotericsean All good, hope you have fun taking care of your new child and making games 😃

[@TheTrudgians]

Awesome, please share more of this - this is exactly what i've been after, i've wanted to create a GBC game myself, i have the structure and story sketched out, but making the thing is another story. Keep well. Dan

[@juanmacias5922]

Such a cool video, thanks for the insight into GBC development!

[@VideoGameRestoration]

This is awesome!!! Learning to do this has been in the back of my mind for ages. Your game looks amazing man, I hope we can all play it! 😁

[@esotericsean]

It’s super fun to learn! You should give it a try :)

[@VideoGameRestoration]

@@esotericsean I need to learn some coding first 😅

[@Ryclemm]

This video is exactly what I needed to see to get me going on my side projects. Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing what you end up creating!

[@Asobitech]

Awesome stuff, I wish you all the best on your GBDev journey. Looking forward to seeing the completed game.

[@spamsir]

This is awesome! And the game looks very cute. This definitely might inspire me to convert one of my calculator game projects to GBC! I would definitely want to try at some point.

[@rogerwinright2290]

This is very awesome! I've also been on the path of learning ZGB or GBDK (or SGDK!) but I haven't had time between work, school, and some other projects I need to get out the door first. This is very awesome content and I look forward to seeing more!

[@richardbriansmith8562]

Awesome Video esotericsean looking forward to see the finished gamboy game

[@thepokerus4184]

Awesome work Sean, this game looks pretty amazing. I can tell you are putting you heart into it and giving it your all. Can't wait to see the final results.

[@esotericsean]

Thanks so much!

[@Nyedav]

looking forward to try it! Awesome work! 🔥

[@esotericsean]

Thanks David ☺️

[@erloncabral]

this so cool! I'm a developer too, good luck on this journey creating games, for sure this will inspire me and others to one day try to make a game too o/

[@esotericsean]

Awesome! I’m really excited to focus more on gamedev. Thanks for the comment :)

[@JonasSegerstedt]

I love new games for old hardware!!

[@dccelly1615]

Very cool Sean! In a previous video you showed us a bit of it and I can’t remember if you told us where we could purchase it from once released. I would like to, if/when it does. Great job

[@esotericsean]

For sure! It’s going to be released through Incube8games, but I’ll announce it when it’s for sale too :)

[@WikiPeoples]

👏 very cool side project

[@coopermaitoza6377]

This is awesome! Keep up this kind of content it’s very interesting

[@TeamAquasHideout]

This is pretty cool! I've been using the Pokemon decompilations for a while for the GBA. It's a lot of fun to program on embedded systems like the GB.

[@SatoshiMatrix1]

Making sprites and tiles is something I have dabbled with, so I would love a dedicated video on your process of creating background tiles, especially keeping them within the GBC's color per tile limitations and how you find solutions to limit the color. IIRC, GBC is like the NES MMC5 in that you can have four colors per 8x8, but still most tiles on GBC are 16x16 metatiles like on NES.

[@esotericsean]

Would be fun to make some videos about that! :)

[@LampShadeAffair]

This is really cool! Keep up the good work!

[@AlleNamenWarenBelegt]

Hey, wow! I hope i can buy the Game if your finish :D

[@randomretroplays3123]

really enjoyed watching sean. very nice work. I for one would very much like to play your game. great work 🎉👍⭐

[@AlynneTheFlorifant]

As long as you create stuff and film it. I will be here to watch it. Whatever that maybe.

[@esotericsean]

Appreciate that friend :)

[@vahn_legaia]

This looks great - awesome work!

[@LoveGia]

awesome video :) excited to see whatever else u do.

[@samdogygaming918]

Your plan for this game is 10/10. Please add a timer for the levels :)

[@esotericsean]

Can definitely add a timer! Good idea :)

[@liamjones2131]

Nice! I'd heard about Nutmeg from somewhere but I didn't realise it was you making it! Great work on the game, it's already looking really impressive. My main project at the moment was a small puzzle minigame from a DS game I used to play a lot, and I wanted to see if I could run that on the original GB. Turns out I'm getting pretty close to having that built too.

[@esotericsean]

Ah, how funny! Thanks so much. Would love to see more about your game. Do you post about it anywhere?

[@liamjones2131]

@@esotericsean Not yet, I never really share what I do too much. Have you ever played Voltorb Flip from Pokémon HGSS?

[@esotericsean]

@@liamjones2131 I see. I haven't played many Pokemon games past GBA, but I looked up Voltorb Flip just now and it looks pretty fun! Pretty good concept.

[@liamjones2131]

@@esotericsean I know, I spent almost as much time on playing just that minigame, as I did during the main game. The only sad part is because of the 40 Sprite limit, I've had to cut it down to a 4x4 grid.

[@esotericsean]

@@liamjones2131 Can you manipulate background tiles? That’s what I do in Nutmeg for a lot of things.

[@adrianronquillo6410]

Great job Sean!

[@LordYamcha]

Thanks Sean - I enjoyed your insight and the game looks awesome especially the sprite work- could you possibly go over how to use game boy studio for an episode

[@esotericsean]

Thanks! I’ve never actually tried using GB Studio. But I’m sure there are some really good tutorials out there.

[@LordYamcha]

@@esotericsean no worries mate

[@bbretro]

love this update vid! cant wait to try it out :)

[@peachy3271]

Very hyped for this game.

[@bravo1oh1]

Love the content. Thanks for making

[@tim000x3]

This is really cool, I'm kinda inspired to try my hand at it.

[@NwoRun]

Awesome.Keep up a good game!

[@DrablyOlive]

Really impressive

[@AdamBarkerThe]

Very cool stuff! Have you tried gameboy studio?

[@esotericsean]

I have! It’s great for some things, but I wanted a bit more control of things in my game. I’m also already very comfortable with C languages, so that’s what I’m sticking to. Update soon!

[@AdamBarkerThe]

@@esotericsean that’s awesome, I bet you can do a lot more with knowing coding (I just started learning a bit like game maker language). Best of luck on finishing your game and can’t wait to see the final result.

[@wengel21]

Put me down for a copy when its ready!

[@wyattalexander4041]

I always come back to this video Sean seeing your game journey inspired me to learn about hombrew games and in particular the 8Bit music as I am a professional audio engineer. I cannot seem to find a clear answer on how to import 8Bit music into a GB cart would happen to have an answer?

[@esotericsean]

That's so very kind of you! I'll have to check out your music sometime :) Easiest way would be to generate .uge files using OpenMPT, Deflemask, GB Studio's built-in tracker, HUGETracker, or you can make .mod files with other trackers (MilkyTracker for example). I think .uge has more support now, though that wasn't the case when I started making Nutmeg so I'm using MilkyTracker and .mod files. GB Studio is probably the easiest way to create a music cart, but it can be done with GBDK as well. Could be even easier with ZGB, but GB Studio is still the easiest.

[@Venomous28]

Did you actually build the Game Boy in the thumbnail? Looks sweet

[@esotericsean]

I did! The shell was UV printed for me as a gift from Retromodding :)

[@retrorewind6042]

A while back i tried making a music player type of game for the GB with the GBDK and with C. I had to put it on hault unfortunately due to a lack of resources and information as well as a lack of knowledge about C (im a web dev, i never used C before this). But i might pick it back up after seeing this video

[@esotericsean]

Have you seen @gamingmonsters GBDK tutorials? They're really really helpful. ZGB has also been updated quite extensively since I started working on Nutmeg, so it's even easier now, but I'm too far into development to switch to the new version at this point. Hopefully you give it a go again! :)

[@retrorewind6042]

@@esotericsean yea i used gamingmonsters tutorials for a while until i started having issues with collision detection and couldnt figure my problem out. Ill probably try to mess with it again at some point though

[@MainHook]

Hi! I've been looking for this game boy cartridges (0:11) for roms that I work on and wants to play on gbc. My english is terrible so idk if I'm searching with the right words on ebay. Did you made this yourself? Do you have any place where I can find those and buy? Thank you!

[@esotericsean]

Try looking at InsideGadgets, they have some really good cartridges you can flash yourself with your own ROMs with the GBxCart.

[@intergalactictoast96]

Have you done a video on ur white game boy I'm buying a retro pi gpi case 2 an would love to mod the buttons to light up an just like ur buttons have designs

[@draxx85]

Anymore progress on this project? It looks pretty cool

[@esotericsean]

Yes! New video coming soon :)

[@blastygamez]

Tip: did u know u can have inline asm for c?

[@Nikku4211]

Isn't GBT's Game Boy branch discontinued? HUGETracker can already import GBT .mods.

[@esotericsean]

Yeah, HUGETracker is the way to go for the future, but GBT Player was what everyone was using when I first got started with this project so I've just kept it.

[@shriram5494]

I thought the gbc was limited to 4 colors on the screen at any given time.

[@esotericsean]

Just 4 colors per tile. You can definitely have more than 4 colors total.

[@andrewferguson6901]

side project 2 years oooooooh shit it's gonna take me forever to make a GBA game , isnt it

[@zer0b0t]

can you add the links for all the software?

[@esotericsean]

Great idea! Just added them all to the description :)

[@jahronegolby8322]

Someone needs to do a god of war gbc game man 😢

[@intergalactictoast96]

Would you sell me a copy honestly looks really peaceful game

[@leinad3955]

Stop talking like that

[@esotericsean]

Like what? If I sound weird then let me know so I can try better :)