GB Studio
A downloadable tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux
GB Studio is a quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for your favourite handheld video game system.
Please support on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/gbstudiodev 🙏❤️
[Update] GB Studio 4.1.3 now available!
I wasn't planning on having another release so soon but 4.1.2 had a few too many issues that needed fixing.
This version fixes the issue where build errors weren't appearing correctly making it very difficult to diagnose why your project wouldn't run, also if you kept seeing "Replace Script?" popups when copy/pasting those shouldn't appear when there are no script changes anymore!
The changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/v4.1.3/CHANGELOG.md
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
[Update] GB Studio 4.1.2 now available!
Before starting on the next round of features, here's a small but important bug fix release. The main fixes is issues where large projects were causing the application to freeze during builds as well fixing the inconsistent pauses that were sometimes being seen as text appeared in dialogue boxes.
The changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/v4.1.2/CHANGELOG.md
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
[Update] GB Studio 4.1.1 now available!
This is a small bug fix release to catch a few issues found in 4.1.0, mostly for anyone who was having issues calling scripts from GBVM. It also includes an up to date Spanish translation thanks to doomer6699!
The changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/v4.1.1/CHANGELOG.md
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
[Update] GB Studio 4.1.0 now available!
This release is a big quality of life update! There’s so many improvements I can’t list them all here!
With this release your project files are getting an upgrade. The first time you save your project in 4.1.0 it will be split into multiple files within a new “project” folder. Instead of everything being in a single “.gbsproj” file, each resource (such as actors, triggers, and scenes) will have its own dedicated file. This update will make it much easier to track changes in your version control system, and makes it easier to work in teams.
You can now create reusable actor and trigger “prefabs”! Perfect for making common elements like enemies or collectables. Design them once, and reuse them as many times as needed. Plus, when you update a prefab, all instances of it across your project will automatically update too.
Dialogue boxes can now have customised layouts! Set whether text should appear at the top or bottom of the screen, if a frame should be drawn, and set specific conditions for when the text box should close. To manage these new options, there’s a new “Presets” feature, which allows you to define multiple layouts and even set a default one. The presets feature has been enabled for Projectiles too!
Version 4.1.0 also introduces the ability to run scripts on new threads, enabling you to have multiple things happening simultaneously. So no need for workarounds, like repurposing actor update scripts anymore!
Sorry for the wall of text! There’s much more than just these changes though, the full changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#410---2024-09-02
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
[Update] GB Studio 4.0.2 now available!
It's only been a week since the last bug fix release but I fixed a few more little issues and didn't want you to have to wait! If you were unable to use random numbers without getting errors this new update should help, and if your project was taking a long time to open I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised with this new version (I've had one very large test project go from taking over 1 minute to open to now be less than 5 seconds!)
Full changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#402---2024-07-29
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
[Update] GB Studio 4.0.1 now available!
I hope you've all been enjoying using GB Studio 4! Since release a few issues had been found and today's release fixes a bunch of them!
Game performance has been improved (should mostly be similar or better than 3.2.1 again!), Japanese users have lots of UI fixes especially around text input, issues with actors references inside scripts have been fixed and more.
Full changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#401---2024-07-22
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
[Update] GB Studio 4 now available!
It’s been a really long time since the last update, but GB Studio 4 is here, and it’s worth the wait!
GB Studio 4 introduces a new debugger, allowing you to inspect and pause your scripts, change values of variables on the fly and gain insight into where video memory is being used.
There’s also a new “Color Only” mode, allowing you to double the amount of memory available for sprite and background data. Then there’s automatic palettes, allowing you to supply color background .pngs directly. There’s support for replacing background tiles, for organising your scenes into folders, for running natively on Apple Silicon, loads of quality of life improvements and so much more.
The full changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/v4.0.0/CHANGELOG.md
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues
You can support the ongoing development of GB Studio and get access to early releases with Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/gbstudiodev
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GB Studio is a visual game builder with no programming knowledge required allowing you to make real Game Boy ROMs in minutes. You can run the games on any emulator or you can run them on your Game Boy if you've got a flash cart!
Full documentation is available at https://www.gbstudio.dev/.
It's open source too!
Can't wait to see what you make!
- Chris
Download
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Development log
- GB Studio 4.1.3 now available!86 days ago
- GB Studio 4.1.2 now available!93 days ago
- GB Studio 4.1.1 now available!98 days ago
- GB Studio 4.1.0 now available!Sep 02, 2024
- GB Studio 4.0.2 now available!Jul 29, 2024
- GB Studio 4.0.1 now available!Jul 22, 2024
- GB Studio 4 now available!Jun 19, 2024
Comments
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I accidentally trashed all of the .gbsres files in my project! Fortunately, I was able to restore them. I thought I'd let you know that could happen.
Hey, I love working on GBstudios, but I keep running into slight inconveniences. The main 2 things I can think of is the lack of bouncing for any actor but the player, and not being able to lock the camera to another actor besides the player.
I still enjoy using GBstudios, these issues aren't major but they still are issues
Please mobile version
please help
I can't figure out how to do this, it keeps giving me this error "Error: Error invoking remote method 'get-documents-path': Error: Failed to get 'documents' path" and I've downloaded it multiple times and I can't get in to work.
what one should I download for chromebook
Linux Debian/Ubuntu (if you have a Linux for Chromebook)
Hello! for me the GB Studio wont open after I created the project and im confused on how to get it to open please help!
GBS4 brought me back. It´s such an amazing program and it brought me so much joy (and pain) in the last two years. Everytime I thought GBS couldn´t get better, a banger update comes along to prove me wrong. Now I just have to finish a game. =)
Hello, I just recently downloaded updated GB studio to 4.1.3 and now every time I try to run a game, an error pops up:
Error: EPERM: operation not permitted, unlink 'C:\(...)\_gbstools\gbdk\libexec\sdcc\cc1'
This didn't happen before I updated it and it says the same thing on every project I have.
Is there any way to fix this? Thanks.
i have like almost the same problem
I made a couple sales on my first GB Studio game, and thought it was only fair that came back to pay for my copy of GB Studio.
Thank you Chris!
Are you looking to expand to make GBA games?
I don't know. The Game Boy Advance is a bit more—how do I say it?—advanced than the original Game Boy and the Game Boy Color.
Nice pun
im copying this from a thread in gbjam 12 (it's urgent):
basically im tryna use some GBVM in GB Studio to save my sanity from 20 different camera move events. however... the documentation says the 1st argument to vm_camera_move_to is a single argument (IDX)... for x AND y.
...what???
ive tried searching for similar commands, yet there seems to be NOTHING related to this with an example (what is this documentation bro)
how am i meant to pass 2 arguments in 1??
help
Try putting a Camera Move To event in your game and then running it in debug mode. When you pause it, you can see the GBVM hidden under the "blocks" of code.
So I have a question that I can’t seem to find a proper answer for. I searched it up and got a lot of conflicting results, so I wanted to ask, are we allowed to sell any of the games we make in GB Studio or is this for more personal games? I know that we can put them up for free and all, but what about selling them?
Yes, you can do whatever you want with the games you make :-) Some people sell them here on Itch.io, I’ve seen some on Steam and there’s even some on the Nintendo Switch!!
Now I've made a change to my music file, and the build is being canceled whenever I try to run or export it. This wasn't happening before in version 4.1.2, but now I can't run the game. I've tried clearing the cache and everything.
I switched back to 4.1.1 and realized why my game kept being canceled. It didn't show me the error until I switched back to 4.1.1.
The problem was that there was no background assigned to one of my scenes. I've posted the issue on GitHub.
Thanks Levi! I've just released 4.1.3 which includes a few more bug fixes and make sure this error appears correctly again :-) The error message now also includes a link that you click to jump to the scene that has the missing background
make a version for brick game iam from argentinaa
hola soy Nahu soy un desarrollador Uruguayo de 12 años con bastantes conocimientos en tecnologia, y te vengo a explicar el porque no se podria hacer tu idea.
El brick game no tiene entrada para memoria o "ROMs (como quieras llamarle) o sea, si lograras de alguna manera crear un juego, no lo podria correr
Ademas hay muy poca informacion (casi nula) sobre el brick game lo que le resultaria un problema a alguien que quisiera hacer tu idea.
(Igualmante voy a tratar de hacer algo para el brick game, voy a intentar).
gracias, a si que es imposible porque la informacion del brick game es escasa y el tamaño de la rom es casi nulo, entiendo, pero podria ser una replica modificable, como mario maker 2 que no usa la rom de smw, si no un juego creado desde cero y podrias crear minijuegos con cubitos y sin una rom del brick game, a si que de esa forma es posible pero no real (gb studio si es real xddd incluso funciona en emuladores de game boy)
ok voy a tratar
very goooooooooooooooooooood, thanks for add gooooooooooodextremeeeeeeemememm mooodes, game boy color and gb printer, thanks you, but make more simple the goombas and koopas ai, i use gb studio and i make mario games and more platformer games, thaaaaaaaaaankyouuuuuuuuy iam from Argentina
I can't believe how far this project has come,
yes, very required, tag chris malgtby
I hope you will make a version to make GBA games
yes, maybe a OTHER F%%KING MODE OF GB STUDIO WITH OTHER RESOLUTION AND MORE RAM, ROM AND PROCESSOR
Why is there a delay between parts of a multi-part dialogue event now?
There shouldn't be any change with multi-part dialogue events with this update. Do you have an example project that's working differently between 4.1 and previous versions? If so could you share at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues Thanks
Hi Levi, I believe the issue you were seeing was this one https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues/1571 which should now be fixed in version 4.1.2 :-)
Yes, that was it! Thanks for getting that fixed.
new update sounds soo peak!
I've given my characters personality with their own text sound.
Hi Chris. Am trying to get this booting up on Macbook Pro 14" 2021 M1, running macOS Ventura. V 4.0.2 Apple Silicon is not opening and becomes unresponsive!
I may have been a bit ambitious with all the programs I had running... all working now! Cheers, mate
Ah perfect! I actually do all the development for GB Studio on a 2020 M1 Mac Mini running Ventura so was pretty sure it should have been working!
upgrade to windows 10 bruh.__. (humor do not ban me)
cAN RUN ON GAMEBOY?
maybe using flasher catridges and game boy advance sp 101 for retroilumination and retrocompatibility
bro I did it on a Gameboy with a flash Cambridge for. Wow. Now I can have new games lol
I just downloaded this recently to toy around in it and I'm immediately impressed. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to create such a tool all while making it fluent and easy to understand for the user!
Thanks! I definitely try to make the app as easy to use as I can, it’s a challenge for sure and I still think there’s a long way to go but I’m glad you appreciate the effort :-)
We need to get that monochrome gb to stop lagging and it needs to run fully OK?
The original Game Boy unfortunately doesn't run as fast as the Game Boy Color. You may need to remove some scripts or actors to get it to run the way you want it to.
DevChild in a video says of the gb has minor potence and gbc more potence
Thank you very much for keeping this updated - I was surprised when I finally opened the setup file again after over a year to find-out there was an update just less than a month ago. ;) ~KC
Thank you for creating GB Studio.
I wonder if in a future update you could have tile mirroring for GBC games. It could help to save VRAM space.
Will the bew 4.0 version run okay on an older Mac… say 2015 model
You could launch GB Studio for android just like Godot was launched for android?
I don't own anything that can run Android so it's unlikely, sorry.
I am interested in making a web browser based version but it would be a large project that I can't commit to at the moment.
dooooooooooooont make android, for android make other engine style roblox, game creator or julians editor
how do you even use this?
Do you have a specific thing about GB Studio you're confused about, or are you just confused on how to run and utilize the software in general?
using the software. (making games)
I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but without specifics I just have to explain all the basics. I recommend, if you don't have an artist handy and you need to make your own assets, getting an art software that is good for pixel art (Aseprite is what I use). You can also check check out the Community Assets repository. You can just go into your project folder once it's created and put .png files into the appropriate places in your project's "assets" folder.
I'm assuming you can run the installer and find the program. Once it's open, There are three templates you can choose from. If you don't want to repurpose their prebuilt example games then I suggest choosing the blank template. Change the project name to whatever you want and click "Create Project." The Studio points you to a "+" sign in the top left of the UI. Click that and then click the empty space in the middle, that will create your first scene.
After that it's kind of up to you. GB Studio is very user friendly and does a lot for you automagically. For more functionality than just having collision, unresponsive NPCs, and a moving player character in a white void, you'll need to use programming. GB Studio uses drag & drop blocks, no language knowledge really required. There's even a handy dandy search bar so if they have it, you can find it pretty quickly.
Checking the docs for GB Studio would be a good start if you need specific explainers for particular functions/aspects for the program, it's here: https://www.gbstudio.dev/docs/.
GB Studio Lab has some tutorials I found useful for more advanced stuff you'll need to learn actual scripting language for, it's not too bad though. I believe you can also make custom plugins in Typescript and assembly language, though don't quote me on that.
For even more you can check out projects and templates others have done that you can download directly and open in the Studio. I just completed a basic Blackjack minigame that could help you (if you can make sense of my spaghetticode) and it's on my page here on itch.io, it's free unless you feel like donating. If you need help with programming, I'm sure I can answer, but the internet is full of people much smarter than me.
Hope some of this is helpful :)
i know how to open programs and more but im talking about the software its self and also thx for following me!
That's still very unclear but I hope at least some of what I said was helpful.
search tutorials bruh.__.
Hi Levi, do you mind sharing a screenshot of the script you’re using to do the increment + wrap around? If you’ve not tried already the official GB Studio Discord is a great place to chat with other devs to solve problems like this :-)
I just figured it out. For some reason, there was an extra script in my code that I had put in there by mistake. It's fixed now.
Hi, Chris, make one of NDS
I think you should make one for NDS C_bot, I believe in you! :-)
I thought about it but my programming knowledge is still very limited, I don't know how to make software, only games.
my lenovo ideapad 320 (this be called potato, lenovo stop of making longer names): explodes****
This morning, I tried running my project, and I got bombarded with a bunch of errors saying that some globals were undefined. No matter what I did, nothing fixed it. To make sure I wasn't crazy, I made a fresh new project and didn't alter it at all. Same exact batch of errors.
Like, I don't know what to do, there's so much crap happening.
Hi L & R Buttons, that's very strange, could you maybe try clicking "Build Options" and selecting "Empty Build Cache" from the menu, and trying to build again? I'm wondering if it's compiled a file incorrectly and is stuck using a cached version of that file for some reason.
The other thing you could try is going into your temporary folder (which you can find in the application preferences)
Please let me know if either of these methods fix the issue for you as it will help me track down what could have happened to prevent the problem for others in the future.
Thanks for the help. Yeah, turns out all I had to do was clear the cache.
Perfect, thanks for confirming! I'm going to try updating the app to clear the cache automatically if a build fails like this, that way it would have failed the first time still but would have starting working the next rebuild.
Oh, and I don't know if you're open to suggestions, but for the game I'm making, I want to be able to craft items from stuff in the player's inventory. I could probably find a way to do it myself, but I'd appreciate if there was a function built in for simplicity's sake.
I'm surprised you don't have a build yet for the raspberry pi...
Hi Gerold55, I would definitely like to, I even bought a Raspberry Pi specifically for this. Unfortunately I’m being held up by something outside of my control at the moment. You can follow the progress here https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues/1406
Hi, Chris. Can you help me with something?
When I run my project, I get this error...
No such file or directory
error: can't open build/rom/game.gb:
Warnings:
- No such file or directory
- error: can't open build/rom/game.gb:
That folder should be created automatically when exporting a ROM file, but if you get that error, maybe you should try creating the folder yourself.
Which path to create the folder build/rom/game.gb: ?
after the update i created a new project and was having fun. After some hours, an error occured on the debug console. I tried to discover what the problem was. I discovered it was a scene. I click on that scene and my GBstudio window goes white, i saved bc i was worried i would lose all my work. I close GBstudio. I re-open GBstudio, click on my project and it's closing itself. Fix your thing GBstudio
the error on the debug console was
TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'script')
Hi SuperOddone, that's very strange. Would you be happy sharing your project file with me? I could have a look what happened and see if I can fix the project so it opens again (and update the app to prevent the problem happening again). If you email it to my first name DOT my last name @ gmail.com (c***s.m****y@gmail.com) I'll see what I can do!
ok thanks
Is this made by a team of people or just 1 person
I'm the creator and main developer, and made the very first version by myself, the project is open source though so anyone can volunteer to improve it. There's been 55 contributors to the project so far! For example Pau who among other things wrote the entire music editor, and Toxa who was instrumental in the engine rewrite introducing GBVM that happened in v3.0.0.
If you ever want to help improve the application the code is all available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio
Ok