awesome-gbdev/README.md

awesome-gbdev

A curated list of awesome GameBoy Development resources, tools, docs, related projects and open-source ROMs. Inspired by the awesome list thing.

Here you can find everything to get started and master the development of unofficial software for the original 1989 GameBoy.

Table of Contents

• Community
• Documentation
• Development Softwares and Tools
• Programming Tutorials
• [ROMs Disassembly] (#roms-disassembly)
• [Cartridges] (#cartridges)
• Related sites, posts and projects
• Contributing
• License
• Special Thanks

Community

• gbdev.gg8.se This is basically the home of the gbdev scene. The wiki has a lot of articles from previous sites, tutorials and other documents about a lot of topics.
• devrs.com/gb Jeff Frohwein’s page, this the main reference for everything. Almost everything is archived here: code examples and working programs(ASM and C), complete documentation and various tools.
• #gbdev on EFnet

Documentation

• GameBoy Programming Manual Official Game Boy hardware manual by Nintendo. Pretty much everything in the console is covered and explained in this manual. This should be your first and main resource to start understanding what game boy is.
• The Cycle-Accurate Game Boy Docs
• Pan Docs the single most comprehensive technical reference to GameBoy that is available to the public.
• DMG Schematics
• GB Instructions Gameboy Assembly Language Commands
• GB ASM Tips by GeeBee
• ASMotor Manual (RGBDS)
• GBDK libraries documentation
• gbdev FAQs must read by Jeff Frohwein
• GameBoy CPU InstructionSet Sheet (GCISheet)
• GameBoy CPU Manual Assembly Language Commands, Timings and Opcodes
• Assembly Language Programming Course Machine and assembly language programming concepts that illustrate basic principles and techniques. Application through study of the Z80 chip and Gameboy programming assignments (Center for Research in Arts, Technology, Education, and Learning CRATEL at Withicha State Universiy).
• Building a GameBoy emulator in JavaScript by Imran Nazar
• gbdev Sources a collection of homebrew and games with complete sources (in C and ASM).

Development Softwares and Tools

• rgbds The main gb devkit. Assembler and linker package, currently updated. This is your main tool to write code in ASM.
• The GameBoy Developer's Kit (GBDK) A set of tools that enable to develop programs for the Nintendo GameBoy system, either in C or in assembly. GBDK includes a set of libraries for the most common requirements and generates image files for use with a real GameBoy.
• BGB Powerful GameBoy emulator and debugger. Provides an accurate hardware emulation.
• Gameboy Tile Data Generator HTML5 / JS web application that will convert bitmap images to hexidecimal data appropriate for use in tile based graphical applications, specifically GB.
• rgbds_textmate Some syntax highlighting rules for coding in Z80 assembly as a Textmate language plugin. Works in Sublime Text 2 and 3. The syntax is particularly designed for RGBDS and Gameboy-specific Z80 instructions.
• Harry Mulder's GB Development Some sources and home of GameBoy Tile Designer and GameBoy Map Builder tools
• Gambatte Open-source, cross-platform and accurate emulator for gb/gbc

Programming Tutorials

asm

• ASMSchool In this page you can find: a set of lessons by Duo about coding in Assembly for GB/GBC (from the basics to the first program), 2 lessons about disassembling and some old articles (about asm programming) written by various coders.
• dev'rs ASM section a lot of working demos and sources
• assembly tutorial by David Pello Good document to actually learn to produce working asm code for gb. Brief explainations of many important topics. Many examples with commented source code. (spanish only)
• assembly tutorial by David Pello The english version by a cat
• Beginners Guide to Reverse Engineering GB
• Writing a Gameboy game in ASM - Intro to Binary and Hexadecimal
• Gameboy DMA transfer routines

gbdk

• 8-Bit Wonderland Well-written introductory document about how Game Boy works and how to start developing working code for it.
• GameBoy home of Flavor Some full games and sources
• How to Write a Simple Side Scrolling Game
• Just another simple tutorial

ROMs Disassembly

• Sonic 1
• Pokèmon Red/Blue
• Pokèmon Crystal

Cartridges

• AntonioND's docs corrected schematics and infos on cartridge header data Gekkio's Gameboy cartridge types
• Gekkio's cartridge analysis DMG-BEAN-02, MBC1, no MBC
• Gameboy Cartridges Schematics
• Reiner Ziegler's GameBoy page Commercial and homemades programmable cartridges and programming systems. Tutorials, wiring and schematics provided.
• MBC1+Ram+Battery cartridge Schematic by Jeff Frohwein
• MBC1 and MBC2 cartridges circuits and explaination on how these MBC actually bank switch and control RAM.
• GB Rom List Navigable table of every GB game released with details on their cartridges(RAM, ROM, PCB type,..)
• Game Boy cartridge PCB photos

Related sites, posts and projects

• fpgaboy Implementation Nintendo's GameBoy console on an FPGA
• php-terminal-gameboy-emulator A PHP Terminal GameBoy Emulator
• JavaScript GameBoy Color Emulator A GameBoy Color emulator that utilizes HTML5 canvas and JavaScript audio APIs to provide a full emulation of the console
• weplay Collaborative gameboy emulation powered 100% by JavaScript
• gbasm A JavaScript based compiler for Gameboy z80 assembly code
• Piglet A LUA driven AI that plays classic gameboy color games using experimentation. In active development.
• The GameBoy Project A work by 6 students of Fachhochschule Karlsruhe University. The document provides a study on the hardware and detailed constructional information for the realisation of three 8 bitbidirectional parallel ports.
• gbdk-n This project aims to update the gbdk libraries to be compatible with new versions of SDCC and provide helpers for building roms. WIP
• Wiz by Andrew G. Crowell A high-level assembly language for writing homebrew on retro console platforms (Game Boy, NES, Atari 2600, and more). WIP
• Mooneye-gb Work-In-Progress emulator made in Rust. The main goals of this project are accuracy and documentation. Existing emulators are very accurate but are not documented very clearly, so they are not that good references for emulator developers. This project is meant to document as clearly as possible why certain behaviour is emulated in a certain way. This also means writing a lot of test ROMs to figure out corner cases and precise behaviour on real hardware.
• Gatesboy* non-gaming purposes applications development.
• RealBoy blog Articles about the GB hardware and an interesting analysis of the start up phase (bootstrap).
• pdroms.de Gameboy releases.
• Gameboy Demospotting A collection of demos.
• Nintendo's fake logos Every cartdrige has to show the authentic logo to be considered valid and be runned, but obviously some companies managed to exploit the check system.
• GBDK Developers Active blog about everything related to the scene. Features insights and interviews.

Contributing

Make an individual pull request for each suggestion and be sure to include a clear title and a link to your suggested resource. See also the Contribution guidelines.

License

See LICENSE for more information.

Special Thanks

Jeff Frohwein, Pascal Felber, KOOPa, Pan of Anthrox, GABY, Marat Fayzullin, Paul Robson, Martin Korth, BOWSER, neviksti, NoCash, Nitro2k01, Duo, Chris Antonellis, Michael Hope, Beware, lord_nigh and everyone in #gbdev IRC Your hard work and dedication made this possible.