Hardware may not always age well, and there are certainly those who would argue that such is undeniably the case with Nintendo’s brick-shaped four-color gem, the GameBoy. But who cares what they think? It’s still an awesome handheld gaming system, so what better way to celebrate it than with the eighth annual GBJam?
So, what’s GBJam all about? Well, straight from its itch.io page, “GBJam is about making gameboy games.” Yeah. Couldn’t have said it better myself. While you are allowed to scale the viewport, the original aspect ratio must be kept, meaning you are not restricted to a game rendered in 160 by 144 pixels as long as you keep that little bit in mind. Aside from that, eh, the rules aren’t overly complex. Still recommend giving them a read, though. Just to avoid ending up a rulebreaker with an invalid submission, as no one likes wasting time – game dev folks even less so! Oh, and you’re encouraged to use GameBoy style sound/music. In fact, please do, for that proper authentic experience. Pretty please?
Following the original specification, with a few fun additions, participants have two weekends to create a game.
What, dates? Ah yes, GBJam 8 will begin on August 29th, 2020 at 5:00 AM, ending on September, 7th 2020 at 4:59 AM.
If you’re feeling social, GBJam is on both Discord and Twitter. Now get to making lovely GameBoy-ish games. Go on. You know you want to.
