Gameboy Development Forum

drludos · 2017-10-20 18:15:10

Hi everyone!

You may remember my homebrew game Sheep It Up! that I started and shared on this forum this summer.
I continued working on this game to improve it a lot, and I'm now proud to announce that the final version has just been released on an actual Gameboy Cartridge !

It's an arcade game where a sheep has to climb up by hanging himself to flying velcro straps. The concept is simple, but the game rapidly gets quite challenging! How high can you climb without falling down?

The game cartridge is produced WITHOUT ANY SACRIFICE: the cart and rom pcb is produced and manufactured by Catskull Games, while the shell and protective case are aftermarket ones. There is also a cute sticker I designed myself . The cartridge will run on any GB compatible model: DMG, MGB, GBC, GBA, GBA SP, and even the Super Game Boy.

We tried to keep the price reasonable, so everyone can enjoy it: 15$ (+shipping).

As you can imagine, creating my own GB game is me achieving one of my chilhood dreams, and the Gameboy (DMG) was first console ever. But it's not a selfish act, I really hope other GB enthusiasts will enjoy the game too!

Also, I want to thank you a lot for your help, many people on this forum were very helpful to me in the process of making this game, you are a wonderful community!

For those of you who are interested, you can buy the game here:
https://catskullgames.com/sheep-it-up

Edit: The ROM is now freely available online from here:
https://drludos.itch.io/sheep-it-up

Last edited by drludos (2018-04-04 21:22:50)

drludos · 2017-12-08 09:25:21

Hi everyone!

Most of you won't learn anything with it, but for the GBdev beginners (like me), I've wrote a "making of" article about Sheep It Up, which covers some (simplified) aspect of how a GB works (I mention the stuffs that took me some time to figure out, such as palettes and tile-based restrictions):

You can read the article here:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DoctorL … 07/311143/

Last edited by drludos (2017-12-08 09:25:43)

tbsp · 2017-12-08 15:09:37

Great article! Very helpful animated gifs as well!

You make Game Boy development in the 90s sound much worse than it was though. It wasn't so bad in the late 90s!

GBDK was around in 1998. The last versions of GBTD and GBMB were released in 1999. No$GMB was around in the late 90s, and although it wasn't as good as BGB for development, it was something. There were also BUNG flashcarts, which were reasonably priced and worked very well.

This is not to downplay the improvements in the last 18 years, but many of the tools used today haven't changed very much since the late 90s.

Congratulations on fulfilling your childhood dream with Sheep it Up!

drludos · 2017-12-08 18:22:40

Hi, thanks for the feedback!

I must confess I'm a total newbie to the GB world, so sorry if I over-exagerated the harshness of the 90's dev. But I was not referring to late 90's dev, but rather to the early 90's era, when professionals studios created their first commercial games. For example, have you seen the "drawing on graph paper / using a 16x16 LED hand scanner / coloring manually onscreen" process Nintendo used for creating graphics in the late 80: http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/FC__ … mariozelda

They were still using this process in 89 on NES (for SMB3), so I think it was also used for the production of the early GB games.

But you are totally right that, besides BGB and the Krikzz cards, the most useful tools for amateur GBDEV are actually already 20 years old (and still working great today!). But do you know if there were also some "homebrew produced carts" in the late 90's / early 2000's?

tbsp · 2017-12-08 18:34:56

Yeah, the early 90s were certainly different than the late 90s. I've seen the old graph paper process before. It's wonderful. I'm sure it was used for early GB games as well.

The earliest GB-ish homebrew produced cart I can remember is this one: http://2004mbit.gbadev.org/ Although I suspect there were ones earlier than that, including for GB (not GBA).

drludos · 2017-12-08 18:41:10

Woaw, it's a really nice homebrew! (I'm impressed they have made it in 2004!).

If you find any earlier homebrew GB game cart, please share it, I'm really curious to see how they look / what games were produced.

drludos · 2018-02-13 11:57:05

Hi again!

I took me way longer than expected, but I finally manage to write down the second (and last) part of the "Making Of" article about Sheep It Up! I talk about the audio part, making cartridges (thanks Catskull!) and also a more personal feedback over the whole project:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DoctorL … 13/314554/

I hope you'll enjoy it!

drludos · 2018-04-04 21:23:52

I've just released the ROM of the cartridge version of the game online for free.
You can download it from ere:
https://drludos.itch.io/sheep-it-up

Enjoy!

Mills · 2018-04-09 05:42:39

drludos wrote:
I've just released the ROM of the cartridge version of the game online for free.
You can download it from ere:
https://drludos.itch.io/sheep-it-up

Enjoy!

Thanks a lot!

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#1 2017-10-20 18:15:10

Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#2 2017-12-08 09:25:21

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#3 2017-12-08 15:09:37

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#4 2017-12-08 18:22:40

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#5 2017-12-08 18:34:56

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#6 2017-12-08 18:41:10

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#7 2018-02-13 11:57:05

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#8 2018-04-04 21:23:52

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

#9 2018-04-09 05:42:39

Re: Sheep it Up! released on cartridge

drludos wrote:

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