8 Bitty Games
Blarble 1290
Blarble 1290 is an interactive fiction game for the original Game Boy and Game Boy Printer. It uses the Printer to print out parts of the story (and is required for play). It is the fifth of my "8 Bitty Games" series.
Photo by Nora Khan
Download the ROM below
About
"8 Bitty Games" is a series of small games developed for the original Game Boy system.
Blarble 1290 is an interactive fiction sci-fi story about humanity's relation to machines.
This game uses the Game Boy Printer to print out parts of the story, and is necessary for gameplay. Unfortunately this game cannot be played in the browser, but you can download the ROM by clicking the link above and play it in an emulator (though for best experience you should play it on the real hardware if able). See below for instructions on emulating the GB Printer.
Blarble 1290 was made using the Game Boy Development Kit and the Game Boy Tile/Map Designer, and can be played on any Game Boy emulator or flashed onto a Game Boy cartridge.
How To Play
Use the D-pad and A button to select dialogue options when available. Try to find all the endings!
This game requires a GB Printer, and therefore cannot be played in browser, but can be emulated.
How to Emulate the GB Printer
The VBA emulator can emulate the Game Boy Printer. When starting the emulator, in the Options>Game Boy menu, make sure all three options in the GB printer section are checked.
Every time the printer would print an image, a .png will appear in the folder where you downloaded the game. Prints take about 1.5 second per line to print, so please be patient when waiting for longer passages. If at any time the game gets stuck on the printing screen (30+ seconds), try either closing the emulator and restarting, or restart the game with "Gather a full page before printing" unchecked (This seems to be an emulator issue, and not a game issue, sorry!).
If you uncheck "Gather a full page before printing", it'll start printing out every line including line feeds as individual images, which is cumbersome but will fix the stuck problem.
By default, the emulator should automatically connect with the virtual printer. If you ever need to "disconnect" the printer for any reason, go to Tools>Cheats>enable cheats, then Tools>Cheats>List cheats, add a new cheat, call it "Printer Toggle", and in the codes section, type "0100B7C0", and close the dialog box. That should make the emulator "disconnect" the printer (this is unreliable and might not always work, sorry).
In the future I will be looking into alternate solutions to emulating the printer, but for now try these or find original hardware to play on if you can.
Download
You can download the ROM files below to play in a Game Boy emulator or flash onto a cartridge. The games are available via itch.io. Even though the games are free, please consider leaving a tip on the download page.
This is just a personal project, so all purchases and donations help fund more games! Recommended donation is $2.50 if you found any of the games enjoyable :). You can also subscribe to my Patreon page if you'd like to keep updated on the next games in the series! Thanks!
Special Thanks
Special thanks to:
- Andy Selby (for additional testing)
- Pamela Montalvo