Game Boy Advance Development

I created several GBA mini-games years back, all of which can be played either on a GBA emulator, or downloaded to a flash cartridge and run on an actual GBA. These games are primarily testbeds for trying out ideas I had...I haven't spent a lot of time tuning the gameplay of these games, and most of the art and media work is (gasp... wheeze...) programer art. On the other hand, I had a lot of fun putting them together!

Star Shot! My first attempt at programming on the Game Boy Advance became Starshot! That original version is here (with complete source code), as well various updates of the game. Version 5.0 of Starshot adds a second playfield, filled with buildings that are damaged by crashing ships, and version 6.0 adds back in the old shield weapon and improves the look and behavior of the missiles

As a side note, years later I took this game idea and prototyped it for the iPhone... it became the beginnings of Nova Rift (an on-line multiplayer shooter).

Blod-Runner, staring Dude My second attempt at a GBA mini-game is a shameless copy of the classic game "Loderunner." Here you can find a first pass at the game (complete with source code), as well as a more advanced version with some new levels and features.

Dork Tower Mini-RPG My latest and biggest GBA mini-game. Its (most of) an RPG game, themed around my favorite comic: Dork Tower!

Gameboy Advance Technical Links

GBA Dev - lots of GBA development news and resources... home-brew demos (some with source code), tools, and docs.

Jeff Frohwein's Technical Info Page - a page with tons of GBA news and links to GameBoy and GameBoy Advance resources.

GBA Emu - another GBA news site with a message board.

Mappy - a GBA Emulator - the best debugging emulator for the GBA out there. As long as you plan to do homebrew (non-commercial) stuff, it is even free! You can see (graphically) the contents of VRAM, do disassembly debugging, and even limited source level debugging. The current version runs a bit slow, and the source level debugger is still buggy, but the debugging capabilities more than make up for it.

You can send me mail at opus@opusgames.com