A collection of three spectacularly absurd Gameboy Color games that show the power of the little handheld decades later
This is one game that I personally gravitated towards. Incub8 Games puts out some classic Gameboy stuff, through both ROMs and cartridges. This latest is a collection of three unique horror games, all done with modern software but made to work on an actual Gameboy Color. It is incredibly wild what the developers have been able to accomplish, because no way would these games have ever been thought could be possible when the Gameboy launched with Tetris or Mario Land.
The three games all manage to create atmosphere and mystery in this little screen. Opossum Country is a sort of visual novel, with very little gameplay in it. Decline is similar, in which we’re an old detective, on the verge of retirement who has to solve a murder. It plays with a lot of ageist thoughts on top of the governmental Polybius machine, mind control nonsense. It’s a really neat story that has choices that you can make and get different answers. It’s kind of fascinating, and uses some neat visual tricks where the game gets more corrupted as we go along. Specimen 134 is definitely more of a traditional game, complete with a save feature. It’s more full-featured of an experience, with a traditional start, middle and finish.
People are doing amazing stuff with old hardware like the Gameboy Color. All three of these are great games, short experiences, that show how limitations are only really self-imposed and can lead to some cool ideas. They’re all running on the original hardware; there are no tricks, just an understanding of what it can do. It’s absolutely worth checking out, if not for just to see how they’ve accomplished this product.
This game is based on a ROM sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live for November 12, 2024. Images and video courtesy Publisher.
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