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Homebrew Game & Watch Games Make Debut

Posted by simoniker on from the highly-addictive dept.

Kojote writes "The latest PDRoms Coding Competition has just finished. The idea was to write a homebrew Game & Watch-style freeware game for handhelds or consoles, and there were a total of 24 freely downloadable submissions. In detail, there were 10 Game Boy Advance entries, 8 GP32 entries, 3 Gameboy Color entries, 1 Genesis/Megadrive entry and 1 Neo Geo Pocket Color entry. The winning entries were headed by Beer Belly Bill (GBA) by Metalvotze. If you don't have real hardware to test the entries, you can use emulators such as VisualBoy Advance (GBA/GBC) and GeePee32 (GP32). Have fun!"

17 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Well by arieswind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When it gets right down to it, games that are made are often better than some of the other games put out, even by some retail gaming companies. I've seen some damn impressive work on handhelds done by just someone or a gorup of people who program for fun in their spare time.. If only there was a way to get some of their works published on the actual carts..

    1. Re:Well by arieswind · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I meant that fan made games are better than some of the games that are out there made by actual companies, because I know a lot of people who would disregard a game solely because it wasnt made by a real company

    2. Re:Well by Anonymovs+Covvard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      because I know a lot of people who would disregard a game solely because it wasnt made by a real company.

      And before you say "no, that's not what I meant", that is what you said.

      No, that isn't what he said. He said wasn't made by a real company. So they would get the latest id release, and would balk at something from "Jimz Game Tome", because it wasn't made by a real company.

  2. Not to insult but... by b0r0din · · Score: 2, Interesting

    none of them look particularly interesting. Maybe the winner, but some of them look like those old Tiger handheld games.

    It's cool to see an interest in homebrew games, I guess I'm not all that impressed by what I saw. Maybe they play better, too.

    I'll hold off judgement until I try one out, though.

    1. Re:Not to insult but... by ralphart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the interesting thing here is NOT that the games may or may not be as good as a "commercial" release, so much as people are not content to be passive consumers of entertainment. I taught painting for years, and though not all of my students were great painters, at least they were willing to engage in a creative act. And so it is with homebrew games. I think it is great people are writing their own games, good, bad or indifferent.

    2. Re:Not to insult but... by mike260 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The point of homebrew games is that you can't compete on production-values, so you'd better compete on gameplay. Although there are, of course, exceptions.

    3. Re:Not to insult but... by hattig · · Score: 3, Informative

      but some of them look like those old Tiger handheld games.

      That was the whole *point* of the competition! Hence the title of the article, Game & Watch Games ...

      I remember I used to have a Tomy caveman game ... you had to collect the eggs from the dinosaur without dying, avoiding the pterodactyls, lava, and the dinosaurs feiry breath.

      Hmmm ... maybe that wasn't a dinosaur.

    4. Re:Not to insult but... by SiW · · Score: 3, Informative

      Who the heck modded this up? The whole point of the contest wasn't to say "look at the best homebrew games we can make on the GBA/GP32/whatever" but to create a game with the same feel as an old Game & Watch game.

      If you want to find more technically impressive homegrown GBA games, check out http://www.gbadev.org/ periodically. They'll usually link to the biggest new games, and you can almost guarantee that the author will have posted some tests or early releases to the Demos section too. You'll see a lot of clones/ports of old games, but some of them are well executed, particularly the Barbarian and Nebulus ports.

  3. screenshot doesnt work by lucas+teh+geek · · Score: 3, Informative

    need to copy the url and paste it into a new window. i guess they dont like external referals

    --
    TIAEAE!
  4. BitTorrent by gspr · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is a torrent of the 24 submissions in a single zip file (as downloadable from http://www.pdroms.de/pdrc2_5-submissions.php), just in case the site goes to a warmer place.

  5. VBA by mboverload · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I found Visual Boy Advance a year ago and have been using it ever since. It does foliters so you can make games kinda look like they were meant for the computer and the resizing works very well. I love how you can press space and it willl speed the game up 1000%. Very useful in walking around Poke-Land and in battles.

    Anyway, VBA is the pwnage and I encorage anyone to get it.

  6. Re:Interessting name by platypibri · · Score: 3, Funny

    We need a new mod catagory. "Icky." Although on /. the debate is open as to if that's plus or minus 1.

    --
    Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
  7. Re:Woot! for Tetris and Snake by BigRedPimp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The whole point of the compo was to see who can make a good Game & Watch-styled game and not who can make the Next Best Thing(tm). Its all about seeing what you can do with what limitations are thrown at you. Developers have been doing that for a long time.

    Let he who cast the first flame try to accomplish better with said limitations.

  8. Porting to GBA by cat_jesus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It would probably be a big boon to linux if we could port some linux games over to the GBA. I'm thinking games like frozen bubble would catch on like wildfire.

    Not only that but porting games like tux racer and armagtron to the Xbox or PS2 could help get some higher visibility for linux as well.

    1. Re:Porting to GBA by hiroshi912681 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Funny thing is, the public domain clone of "Bust a Move" is better than the commercial releases. It's uses the same sprites and puzzles of the original Neo Geo arcade version. I don't know why the commercial releases insist on using such small bubbles... you can't see them!

  9. Specifically by tepples · · Score: 2

    If you want to find more technically impressive homegrown GBA games, check out http://www.gbadev.org/ periodically.

    Specifically, <plug>check out Tetanus On Drugs.</plug>

  10. DDR for GBA? by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anybody want to see a GBA version of Dance Dance Revolution, Dance With Intensity, StepMania, or Pydance? Reply if you want me to continue working on what I have so far.