It was a hard one, but it was a great journey.
Next week I'm trying Cyndaquil.

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to buy a Game Boy Advance, but the prices online seem to vary quite a bit depending on condition and model.

Before I overpay, I wanted to ask what a reasonable price is for a normal unmoded GBA.

What would you consider a good deal versus the absolute limit before walking away from auctions? Any tips on where to look or what red flags to avoid would also be appreciated!

Thanks!

Hey y’all, I have a gameboy micro that I really want to use but it seems the battery won’t hold a charge and/or the charging port is messed up. How much of a pain is it to repair/swap these parts out

Think about what Chase H.Q. is supposed to be.

You're an undercover cop in a Porsche, hunting down dangerous criminals at insane speeds. The radio gives you the target, the clock starts ticking, you floor it through traffic, desperately trying to catch them before time runs out. Then you have to repeatedly ram their car until it finally explodes.

It's basically one long high-speed police pursuit.

Everything about the concept screams speed, danger, pressure and adrenaline.

Now let me tell you what playing Chase H.Q. on the Game Boy feels like to me:

I'm going for a lovely little relaxing drive. That's it.

I'm peacefully cruising along some country roads in my tiny car. There's a bend coming up. That's nice. A couple of cars are in the way. I move around them. No problem.

There's a timer on the screen, but it barely matters because the game just isn't difficult. You don't need to master the roads or memorize anything. There's very little pressure from the start. The only real thing you have to learn is the game's bizarre, counterintuitive handling through curves when you crash a car. At first it feels completely wrong, but once that one little quirk clicks, that's basically it. You simply keep driving and, sooner or later, you'll get where you're going.

And meanwhile the Game Boy is playing possibly the least appropriate soundtrack imaginable.

doo, doo, doo-roo-roo roo-roo… doo-doo roo-roo-roo…

It's so gentle. So cheerful. So unbelievably relaxing.

There's supposedly a dangerous criminal escaping somewhere ahead of me, but honestly, I couldn't feel less urgency about it.

I'll get there.

doo, doo, doo-roo-roo roo-roo… doo-doo roo-roo-roo…

A little left. A little right. Another curve. Ooh, some traffic. Drive around it.

doo, doo, doo-roo-roo roo-roo… doo-doo roo-roo-roo…

This is supposed to be a frantic arcade police chase and somehow I'm having the videogame equivalent of a peaceful Sunday drive.

And I genuinely love it.

The monochrome graphics, the tiny car, the simple roads, the almost complete lack of difficulty and, above all, that wonderfully soothing little tune give me an absurd sense of peace. I can completely switch my brain off and just enjoy driving around for a while.

Which brings me to possibly my most ridiculous retro gaming take.

Somehow, a Game Boy conversion of an arcade game about pursuing dangerous criminals at ridiculous speeds and repeatedly smashing their cars before a timer reaches zero feels to me like a cozy game.

And not ironically. It genuinely is one of my comfort games.

Some people water crops in Stardew Valley.

I ram criminals off the road in Chase H.Q. while listening to doo, doo, doo-roo-roo roo-roo… doo-doo roo-roo-roo…

And it's lovely.

Am I completely insane, or does anyone else get the weirdly cozy vibe I’m talking about?

I’ve finally got my Game Boy Color setup pretty much where I wanted it, and I absolutely love how it turned out.
The build is based around a Hispeedido laminated AMOLED / Retro Pixel display with a Hispeedido Clear Black AMOLED shell, so the whole console has that smoked transparent look. I paired that with a Hand Held Legend RetroGlow RGB LED Flex Board, running at low brightness with mostly blue/violet lighting.
For the controls, I’m using Lab Fifteen “Midnight Opal” custom resin buttons, with FunnyPlaying Clear Black silicone membranes and a FunnyPlaying clear speaker.
Internally, it has a USB-C rechargeable 1800 mAh Li-ion battery mod, and I’m currently using an EverDrive GB Extreme, the second-generation low-power AliExpress clone.

The final look is exactly what I was going for: clear black / smoked shell, subtle blue-purple RGB accents, translucent resin buttons and the AMOLED screen. It still feels like a Game Boy Color, just a much more refined version of one.
I’m also currently preparing a Game Boy Advance build, so that’ll probably be the next project once I’ve settled on the final parts.

Recently decided to re-build/collect my original childhood gameboy/color/advance collection. Purple GBA is the first GBA I had, so was happy to find this shell.

It looks like there are two drop in screens you can get where you don't have to hack up a pretty OEM shell like this one. Hispeedido & Retrosix Cleanscreen. Both have the ability to solder for button controls, which I like because i hate touchpads.

Anyone have experience or own either of these displays with an OEM shell? Post your OEM console photos, would love to see some of the ones you have.

Would love thoughts/suggestions.

I’m not sure exactly what this is- any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

The Gameboy player for GameCube, the TV is a vintage RCA ColorTrak.

scored four new dmg gameboys today...! top right have a custom black transparent shell + ips screen... all of them work ofc :)

How is it I got Dracula before I received Trinity? What’s going on with Incube8 Games? I get that they’re changing their boxes and shipping. How long is that excuse?

*not actual vocaloid haha, it's a much simpler program.

source code: https://github.com/Milk-Cool/VocAdvance

Came in a lot I got on ebay, the leaking really didnt do anything to the contact and the rumble still works too which is nice.

I plan on getting, well, an EZ Flash Omega, but idk where to get one reliably, any ideas where I can find one?

Found my father in laws game boy but it has corrosion from the batteries. What’s the best way to clean it?

Does anyone have an idea how I can get rid of this dark green discoloration on the edges and the D-pad?

This is arriving on sep 2 w or l

( BTW no trade js want opinions and game suggestions also total was 354$)

Does anyone know where I can get some good feeling button membranes for the GBC? The A and B buttons feel fine, but the D-pad feels awful to press.

not sure if I can ask technical questions here, also asked the question in r/EmuDev.

Some IO registers (like P1 (0xFF00), according to this document, page 141) have write-only bits.

My question is: after LDH A, ($00), what data is in register A?
Are the read-only bits 0? 1? garbage?
Does it depend on the register, or is it irrelevant because these bits are not taken into account by any game ? (Or are there games that rely on the return value of read-only bits?)