Michael Towns
Click image to play game.
Earlier this year in July, and the same weekend as AVCon 2019, Retrospekt posted up an article for the early version of a Game Boy game based on both the convention itself as well as the annual retro gaming museum Retrospekt coordinates and runs.
It had bugs, a couple of errors and a glitch or two, but the response from players was overwhelmingly positive. For that, first of all, I thank you. Secondly, the reception gave me the motivation to finish it off so, once again, thank you. Completing the project took longer than anticipated due to a few factors; one of which being I burnt myself out a tad due to crunching hard to get that version ‘complete’ in a couple days ready for the convention. I took a break from it until early November and paced myself more. This made the experience more enjoyable and resulted in getting more done, but with fewer mistakes being made along the journey as well.
One of the other factors that increased development time was the unexpected roadblocks along the way. These are always to be anticipated when trying to make a game, but they still crept up at inopportune moments from time to time. I’ve learnt a lot from this process, as well as improving my skills undertaking development with GBStudio (the development tool I used to create the game). Needless to say, I’m happy to announce that the game is now complete and ready to be unleashed!
Click image to play game
Here’s the blurb for the game:
Retrospekt, the retro gaming hub of South Australia, bring to you this virtual tour through the annual AVCon Adelaide and Video Games Festival’s 2019 event.Â
A mysterious fellow in a coat with a huge ego won’t leave you alone, but you don’t care as you’re enjoying the atmosphere of the convention. That is ‘til you’re whisked away to another dimension. Or pushing ducks towards a hairy monster. Or having to stand in line.It’s all worth it though as you make your way towards the final goal; the Retrospekt Gaming Museum.
Take a trip through gaming history and learn along the way as you experience this pixelated recreation of the Retro Gaming Museum that Retrospekt has curated many times over the last decade at various events, including annually at AVCon.
As we said in the original article:
“The Retrospekt Retro Gaming Museum: The Game – AVCon 2019 Version is a recreation of not only the AVCon convention, but also a kind of simulation of the Retrospekt Retro Gaming Museum. It’s a nice way to experience the fun of AVCon and our retro gaming area, especially if you were unable to attend on the weekend.
All the consoles and computers you can find at the event are in the game with information sheets containing trivia for each console/computer. There’s plenty to do, many people to speak to and lots of lil things to experience. Oh, there’s even a final boss to beat…
Made with GB Studio, a recently released Game Boy game creation tool, it’s not only available to play online right now on PC, Mac, Linux, and mobile (with included Game Boy style touch screen button controls), but if you download the Game Boy ROM file you can play it on an emulator or on an actual Game Boy (if you have an appropriate flash cartridge). ”
What this sucka looks like after being flashed to a physical Game Boy cartridge.
In relation to the many people you can speak to as mentioned above, you’ll find AVCon guests from the events history in the game, along with familiar faces related to AVCon from past to present. There’s even some guests from other related nerdy type conventions, and even some GB Studio types within.
And a LOT of other people turned into sprites, a whole lot. Nearly 160 humans have been converted into pixelated characters, each with dialog. There are even some animals in there too.
There’s a large amount of what you’d find at AVCon 2019 here, compacted down to Game Boy size. There are over forty rooms to explore, and nearly thirty classic consoles and computers in the Retro Gaming area. Each console includes fact sheets so you can read to learn a bit more about your favourites old school machines.
Click to play game.
If everything I’ve written about sounds like something you’d like to try, click the image above to give the game a go. You can download the Game Boy ROM or play it on your browser, on computer or mobile (with cool integrated Game Boy touch controls when playing on phones and tablets). And, with a bunch of tinkering, it’s even playable on the Nintendo Switch. Sort of. It does play, but not too well and very very slowly. It was still worth the effort to see it running on the Switch though.
I hope you enjoy playing the game, whether you’ve attended AVCon before or if playing the game is your first time attending…in Game Boy game form! The hard work was worth it, and thanks for playing. We’d love to hear your feedback.
Oh, and something extra as I wrap this up. While I was writing the closing stages of this post a new updated version of the GB Studio software was released with a bunch of nifty new features. Check them out in the video below.
I’m in the brainstorming stages for an expanded sequel AVCon 2020 Retrospekt Retro Museum follow up. The release of GB Studio 1.2.0 happened at a perfect time. Next year’s version might even have a nice splash of colour!