So, I tried to stick as close as possible to GB limitations as I could. That means a 160x144p resolution (Upscaled to 800x600) with a four colour palette.

I actually used Game Maker Studio 1.4 but I did end up using some of the techniques from GB Studio, such as backgrounds that were premade and then simply putting tiles or solid collisions on top of those backgrounds.

Pro-tip; Anything you can premake rather than having to code you probably should. At least in the early phase.

I've noted this before but simply making menus takes so much of your dev time, it's actually a criticism of mine with Game Maker that there aren't really any premade buttons or menu options. I do want the option to make my own, but unless you're grabbing something from the marketplace, it's highly unlikely that it won't simply be easier or faster to just make your own.

Textboxes are a known hurdle of mine, and there are certain... Quirks to using them. I made the mistake of using a font which doesn't have letters of the same size; ie each letter or symbol doesn't occupy a set number of pixels.

Now aesthetically it's much better to use a font that isn't so stiff or rigid but from a programming standpoint, you can save yourself a lot of headache. I did try and pick a font that the gameboy could reasonably render, so something small and pixelated without a lot of anti-aliasing, but there's probably a better choice out there somewhere.

I ended up using the four colours GB Studio takes, but there's probably a more accurate gameboy palette out there.

I also did cheat a little bit and use a full four frame walk cycle rather than a two or 3 frame cycle that most gameboy games use. I've never known if that was a processing or a space limitation, but there's only a certain amount of charm to it, and as an animator, the lack of those frames just bug me.

Musically I actually stayed faithful, with all but one track. Three sound channels with one noise channel is how I composed them, translated into three instruments with a choice of Sinewave, Sawtooth and Triangle, plus a drum track. Only the town exterior song really abuses overlapping notes in any given instrument track, Mike's Song and Delivery Blues use arpeggios to set up a chord progression, while Town Exterior plays full on chords.

Although my drum tracks totally fucking cheat, I'm sure I could reasonably translate the rhythm into a noise channel track if I used Famitracker or something.

These limitations never really were too much of a hindrance, I'd say a lot of creativity was born from those limitations. I managed to get a lot of character out of 16x16 sprites with only 4 colours and I managed to learn a lot that I think I could use going forward in other projects.

Do I recommend these limitations? Yes, please, if you ever make a game of your own, work like this at least once. I think we can make a lot of unbelievably interesting and wonderful games if we work like this.

But not for every project.

I think for the next one, I might not put these same restrictions on myself. But that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, cheers, hope whoever reads this finds this at least a tad interesting.

Have a good one,

RagnarockerBunny