Because I got myself a GameBoy Color a few weeks ago I have been interested in also getting a couple of games for it, obviously. I do have a flash cart but it's not ideal to "Get to know" the games. I did not count but I have about 12 GB/GBC games now. Some are fun...some not so much. 
One thing I did to my yellow GBC is transplant it's internals into a new shell with an IPS screen. The mod is not complete...and I do not like the color scheme I chose...but it works! And now I can actually SEE the games I am playing!
But this post was not meant to be about the GBC mod per se....but it's part of the reason my head was spinning in this direction. Working on BatteryCheck for the last few years was fun for the most part...and challenging for 90% of the way! I am not complaining it's difficult because it's mostly my own fault! It's not even related (I think) to the many consoles my game engine can run on...or at least...not entirely.
On the consoles I have worked on the most (Wii,GC, 3DS and PS2) there is more than enough RAM and CPU resources to do things in awkward ways...and leaving out optimizations. Although the PS2 and it's complex architecture had me rethink a couple of design choices already. The first version that booted up into the game was running at 5-10 FPS!!!! There were also issues with colors but those are not related to the speed. Having found the issue....I think it was the math function "floor()"...or something. At least something that was working fine on nearly every other console except for the PS2! I still don't think it's solved completely but FPS is at least in the 30-50's I think when running on real hardware. But that was a while ago since I last tried that.
Being so "involved" with the gameboy color I watched many repair and modding video's to learn what is available. Then I also got a second one for parts and a gameboy pocket to complete my collection. I think it got a little out of hand....
(ignore the two DSi's in the top right...this is cropped from a bigger picture that included my DS'es and 2/3DS'es but those are not important here.)
Yep...it's a lot depending on your point of view I guess. I don't have every single variation or color scheme...or boxed version. I just got them when they were cheap-ish and over the years this is my collection. (although the DMG is borrowed for the picture and is not actually mine...because mine is in storage with a broken screen. I was a kid once to you know)
But the main point of this whole post was actually to show this image:
This is a "16 levels of grey" resized version of the menu screen from BatteryCheck. Still to many "colors" for the limited GB/GBC hardware but I just wanted to see what it might look like. I think I have to split up the "menu screen" into the "logo", "batteryman" and "background" to separate the colors. I need to go down to 3-4 per section! Maybe I just leave the background all white, black or the blueish green that is common in the first level.
It's not perfect...but overal for a first impression I still think it looks kind of cool! And yes...I know the resolution is "Way to small" but I have plans for it to downscale them into more common sizes for the tiny resolution. When that is "complete" I have a better starting point to go from when "upgrading" to the GBA at a later date. In more technical terms: the tile's are 32x32 pixels by default and I want to make this 16x16 and in turn resize all the sprites by 50% also. This is going to take a lot of time and effort to "look good" but the first run will just be quick-and-dirty.
One "feature" I definitely can't do on the GB/GBC is unpack and resize on the hardware! Even if the EverDrive GB (which I don't have, yet) would allow writing to the SD card it would be terribly slow! The GBA EverDrive does support writing but I have not tried it yet. We will see where it al leads and if it comes to it I will just ask the owners again. Last time they said something in the lines of "distribute in anyway you like" but make sure it's clear we are not responsible for anything.
The limited hardware is a big challenge...but if I can make it run smooth on a GameBoy Color it will run smooth on ANYTHING! Right? And no this is not a "deviation" from my ultimate goal with this...as I have always planned to eventually go all the way to the sega MegaDrive/Genesis! And while it's slightly more powerfull and capable than a GBC many limitations are the same I think
Thanks for reading.
One thing I did to my yellow GBC is transplant it's internals into a new shell with an IPS screen. The mod is not complete...and I do not like the color scheme I chose...but it works! And now I can actually SEE the games I am playing!But this post was not meant to be about the GBC mod per se....but it's part of the reason my head was spinning in this direction. Working on BatteryCheck for the last few years was fun for the most part...and challenging for 90% of the way! I am not complaining it's difficult because it's mostly my own fault! It's not even related (I think) to the many consoles my game engine can run on...or at least...not entirely.
On the consoles I have worked on the most (Wii,GC, 3DS and PS2) there is more than enough RAM and CPU resources to do things in awkward ways...and leaving out optimizations. Although the PS2 and it's complex architecture had me rethink a couple of design choices already. The first version that booted up into the game was running at 5-10 FPS!!!! There were also issues with colors but those are not related to the speed. Having found the issue....I think it was the math function "floor()"...or something. At least something that was working fine on nearly every other console except for the PS2! I still don't think it's solved completely but FPS is at least in the 30-50's I think when running on real hardware. But that was a while ago since I last tried that.
Being so "involved" with the gameboy color I watched many repair and modding video's to learn what is available. Then I also got a second one for parts and a gameboy pocket to complete my collection. I think it got a little out of hand....
(ignore the two DSi's in the top right...this is cropped from a bigger picture that included my DS'es and 2/3DS'es but those are not important here.
)Yep...it's a lot depending on your point of view I guess. I don't have every single variation or color scheme...or boxed version. I just got them when they were cheap-ish and over the years this is my collection. (although the DMG is borrowed for the picture and is not actually mine...because mine is in storage with a broken screen. I was a kid once to you know
)But the main point of this whole post was actually to show this image:
This is a "16 levels of grey" resized version of the menu screen from BatteryCheck. Still to many "colors" for the limited GB/GBC hardware but I just wanted to see what it might look like. I think I have to split up the "menu screen" into the "logo", "batteryman" and "background" to separate the colors. I need to go down to 3-4 per section! Maybe I just leave the background all white, black or the blueish green that is common in the first level.
It's not perfect...but overal for a first impression I still think it looks kind of cool! And yes...I know the resolution is "Way to small" but I have plans for it to downscale them into more common sizes for the tiny resolution. When that is "complete" I have a better starting point to go from when "upgrading" to the GBA at a later date. In more technical terms: the tile's are 32x32 pixels by default and I want to make this 16x16 and in turn resize all the sprites by 50% also. This is going to take a lot of time and effort to "look good" but the first run will just be quick-and-dirty.
One "feature" I definitely can't do on the GB/GBC is unpack and resize on the hardware! Even if the EverDrive GB (which I don't have, yet) would allow writing to the SD card it would be terribly slow! The GBA EverDrive does support writing but I have not tried it yet. We will see where it al leads and if it comes to it I will just ask the owners again. Last time they said something in the lines of "distribute in anyway you like" but make sure it's clear we are not responsible for anything.
The limited hardware is a big challenge...but if I can make it run smooth on a GameBoy Color it will run smooth on ANYTHING! Right?
And no this is not a "deviation" from my ultimate goal with this...as I have always planned to eventually go all the way to the sega MegaDrive/Genesis! And while it's slightly more powerfull and capable than a GBC many limitations are the same I thinkThanks for reading.
