Donkey Kong - Monkey Business on Super GameBoy - Advent Countdown - Day 23

Channel:

Grey Fox

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623

Published on December 23, 2021 8:56:45 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpcD3E2BSbI

Game:

Me && MORY (2023)

Duration: 17:16

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I hope you are all healthy and safe wherever you are in the World right now and whatever challenges you are facing.

I thought I'd do a countdown to Christmas 2022 with a GameBoy Cartridge themed advent calendar. I'd hoped to make the videos a little more slick but this is a rough and ready proof of concept really to see if anyone wants to countdown to Xmas with 24 different GameBoy games - one each day!

The footage is genuine cartridges running on a SNES via the Super GameBoy. As a Xmas gift feel free to use the footage in your own videos (just give credit or link to my channel)

This is Donkey Kong - sometimes referred to as Donkey Kong 94. It was designed and used to heavily promote the Super GameBoy & to show what it was capable of. It does make very clever use of the system adding additional sounds using the SNES soundchip & cleverly using the different palettes etc to create the illusion of far more colour.

Examples are easiest to see in the number of static screens between levels. The Super GameBoy could apply a different 4 colour palette to any 8x8 pixel grid on the screen. By cleverly designing these screens and arranging the grids crefully they could create really colourful splash screens that would still work on the monochrome GameBoy.

The game itself is fab - the 1st 4 levels trick you into thinking it will be a straight port of Miyamoto's Donkey Kong Arcade game but after the 4th level it kicks into a whole different game featuring more puzzle platformer type elements and is the first time Mario performs many of the signature moves that would become more commonplace in Mario 64.

The Super GameBoy has always fascinated me and fans of my channel will know I love it when portable games can be played on the big screen! It still has the limitation of the GameBoy in that 4 shades can be used as the games need to be compatible and playable on the console - however some clever palette switching and game design means you can show more colours on screen by defining different palettes for different areas of the screen.


I play it here through the Super GameBoy in order to show the game a little clearer. For some reason my capture card always seems to struggle with the SNES (and therefore the Super GameBoy) not sure why as everything else pretty much works fine through it.

I'm also thinking of doing a series of videos on specially enhanced Super GameBoy compatible games - including the very clever game and programming designed to maximise the use of colour while remaining compatible with the original monochrome handheld, multiplayer modes, enhanced sound and even a hidden game. Let me know if you'd like to see this sort of thing.

As always if you enjoy this video let me know. As always this is running on original hardware in this case a SNES & Super GameBoy peripheral (one day I'll get a GBA Consoliser or Analogue Pocket!!!!) I do have my old GBA De Advance which was a mod to allow GBA games on TV so perhaps I'll use that to capture games too? Also let me know if there are particular games or systems you'd like to see.

As always this is uploaded under the Fair Use Policy - no money is being made from this video.

Stay strong, stay safe and stay healthy - Grey Fox

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