game — a game boy advance game

Currently under development, with very few current updates here. See my blog for updates, with it mirrored on gemini (gemini://tilde.team/~nytpu/blog/) and gopher (gopher://tilde.team:70/1/~nytpu/blog), with all game-related posts under the heading making-a-gba-game.

I will update this README when more progress is made.

building

I'm preparing for the future here, by writing everything I know now, but this may change later as I work on the code

dependencies

You can follow the instructions to install DevKitARM and that should provide you with all of the unusual or nonstandard tools you need. However, I'll enumerate the specific tools you need if you want to install them individually:

• Proper environment variables set up for $DEVKITPRO and $DEVKITARM pointing towards the correct install locations
• grit — for converting exported maps or tilesets to .h and .c files for use in the game
• portlibs installed to $DEVKITPRO/portlibs
• libtonc installed to $DEVKITPRO/libtonc
• Working installations of all arm-none-eabi- tools
• ...seriously, just install DevKitARM because everything weird is installed, and I'm not sure if I even listed everything needed here
• sed — used in the makefiles
• make — used to make the darn thing
• Aseprite — optional, for editing the sprites
• mgba — optional, used for debugging and testing

Note: the instructions don't really work yet because I have literally no code for the game, but right now it will range from not working to displaying 3 beautifully colored RGB pixels

Clone the repo and checkout the most recent release:

git clone https://tildegit.org/nytpu/game.git
cd game
git checkout $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)
make

You should get game.gba spat out in the project root. You can then run that on your flashcart or in an emulator and it should just work™.

special thanks to:

• cearn for his wonderful tonclib as well as his very in-depth and useful tonc tutorial. Without these tools and references, I would have been totally unable to make anything like this.
• DevKitPro for their amazing DevKitARM toolchain, complete with a custom libc and gcc, without which I wouldn't have even thought of attempting anything with the GBA.

copyright

I'm not worried about Nintendo doing anything because they only bring action against people who pirate their games or who make fan games with their IP, like Pokémon fan games (I'll leave my defense of fair use for another time), not omebrew devs making original games. However, if Nintendo sees any legal issues with this game, please contact me at nytpu@tilde.team before contacting tildegit and I will take down this repository or take any other action requested.

This project, including artwork, sound, etc. is dual-licensed under the Unlicense and the MIT License, and you can use the project under the terms of either license. For more details, see COPYING.