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.
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.
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 :-)
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.
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)
If you open that folder it will contain "_gbsbuild", "_gbstools", and "_gbscache". Try deleting all three of these folders, restarting GB Studio and trying to build again.
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.
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.
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****[email protected]) I'll see what I can do!
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.
The newest version gives me this error whenever I try to run or export my game, and I don't know how to fix it.
Error: Compiling failed with error "Error: Script was not stack neutral! Stack shrank by 1". {"scene":"Final Boss","scriptType":"actor","actor":"Boss"}
Hi Levi, is there any chance you can share an image of the script where you were seeing this problem? The rnd function shouldn't have been causing this problem so I'd like to understand so I can fix it :-) The plan is to eventually remove "Math Functions" (with a migration so you won't need to do anything)
2023-11-22 15:28:29> RegistryService: TryGetRegKey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration\ProductReleaseIds exists. Data - ProPlus2019Retail"
and goes on and on about apps like Teams not being installed, when they are. Regardless of how strange this is, it's stranger to find that upon running the installer, it absolutely nuked my GB Studio folder. Everything I had is gone.
Thanks, I can verify the portable version works fine. Unfortunately, all my work, reference shots and design documents are gone since I had everything inside the folder -_-
It's fine, don't worry. I usually have backups but have been so neck-deep into work lately I didn't remember doing one before installing the new version (I'm a simple guy; I see GB Studio updates, I download and install). I'm not concerned in regards to project files, since most of what I had were placeholders to test movement routines and collisions. The issue is really the references since they were largely my own (bitmap mockups, etc) and while I can resume this at any time, it'll be double work for that. Oh well.
In any case, not trying to be a downer. GB Studio is amazing, please keep up the great work.
Hi! I don't have anything that runs Chrome OS sorry :-( I've heard Chrome OS lets you run Linux applications though, maybe those versions can work for you?
There's a bug in my game I can't seem to fix. I've got a bunch of actors in one scene that are supposed to be hidden when the scene is entered, but they don't disappear until after the screen fades in. Also, one of the actors doesn't appear when it should.
Never mind, I got it fixed. I just disabled automatic fade-in for that scene and added a manual fade-in event. It may have also helped that I cleared the build cache.
Thanks for raising this, I've just been looking into it. It appears to just be false positives luckily.
I rescanned the exact same zip file and it's now gone down to 2 reports, but from completely different vendors than before (the vendors that previously flagged it now say it's fine).
For some reason, the button to add a new script is gone on my GB Studio. I tried to reinstall and that did not help. I thought it might be my project, so I created a new one and the button is missing there too.
Has anyone seen this before? I couldn't find anything when searching for a solution.
Adding to this - I just tried to delete a script to see if I hit some kind of limit (highly unlikely as I only have three scripts). Now I only have two because I can't recreate the one I deleted.
I would love to see something like Game Boy Studio, but for creating games for Windows with greater music and graphics options. I really like the ease of use to make something like a Zelda game, but the PC is my platform of choice. If you know of something like that--or have plans to make something like that, please let me know. GBS is awesome, by the way.
You have Pico8 , PQ93 and TIC-80 just with "Game Boy" alike... To move on to other genres you have tons of options , from GoDot, to RPG Maker, and even trying to use one of those obscure engines (there's one for making zelda games and other one for making warcraft 1 and 2 type games)
So this isn't quite what you're looking for, but there are a couple of ways you can turn a GBS-made game into essentially a Windows executable:
Once your ROM is exported, bundle it with an emulator then create a .bat file to immediately launch the ROM (I've been bundling my GBS games with SameBoy this way)
I first made a "Rom" folder within the SameBoy directory
(Obviously) I put my ROM in it
I made a .bat file (which, if you're not familiar, is as easy as creating a .txt file then changing the file extension to .bat) containing the following code: @echo off start sameboy_winsdl_v0.16.2\sameboy.exe ".\sameboy_winsdl_v0.16.2\Rom\[YourGameName].gb"
When you run the .bat, the emulator will launch straight into your game.
There's also a tool called Bubble Wrap, although I haven't tried that one out myself yet.
Excuse me, I have a doubt when trying to use the portable version in Windows 10, Windows Defender blocks it because it detects it as a potential risk to the system. Is this application safe to use?
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Thank you for creating GB Studio.
I wonder if in a future update you could have tile mirroring for GBC games.
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.
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 :)
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.
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****[email protected]) 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
I installed the Ubuntu/debian version, but I don't know how to open it, can someone explain me how to open it?
Hi FamilyCastleCo1, the Ubuntu install instructions can be found here https://www.gbstudio.dev/docs/installation#ubuntu--debian-based-linux If you've managed to install, I think you'll just need to run `gb-studio` in a terminal to open the app
Thank you!
The sounds in my game are messing up the stereo effects in my music and making it sound bad. Is there any way to fix that?
The newest version gives me this error whenever I try to run or export my game, and I don't know how to fix it.
Error: Compiling failed with error "Error: Script was not stack neutral! Stack shrank by 1". {"scene":"Final Boss","scriptType":"actor","actor":"Boss"}Wait, I got it! It's got something to do with the new rnd function. That's why my game won't compile. I need to use the Math Functions event instead.
Hi Levi, is there any chance you can share an image of the script where you were seeing this problem? The rnd function shouldn't have been causing this problem so I'd like to understand so I can fix it :-) The plan is to eventually remove "Math Functions" (with a migration so you won't need to do anything)
Here's the script that's been causing the problem. It worked fine until I upgraded to 4.0.1.
Thanks Levi, I've figured out what was wrong and fixed this in 4.0.2 released today :-) Thanks for raising this
The Win 64-bit GB installer gave me a prompt saying there was an error during instalation and provided a log. The log begins with:
"2023-11-22 15:28:29> Program: Starting Squirrel Updater: --install . --checkInstall --source=PROPLUS --silent --exeName=Teams.exe
2023-11-22 15:28:29> RegistryService: TryGetRegKey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration\ProductReleaseIds exists. Data - ProPlus2019Retail"
and goes on and on about apps like Teams not being installed, when they are. Regardless of how strange this is, it's stranger to find that upon running the installer, it absolutely nuked my GB Studio folder. Everything I had is gone.
Hmm, I think it might be related to this issue with Squirrel & Teams, unfortunately it’s not anything I’m able to control https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/issues/1853 I think you may need to use the No Installer version instead
Thanks, I can verify the portable version works fine. Unfortunately, all my work, reference shots and design documents are gone since I had everything inside the folder -_-
Oof, and you've got no backups? I'm really sorry to hear that, I wish there was something I could do.
I'd highly recommend getting a Github account and setting up version control for your projects.
It's fine, don't worry. I usually have backups but have been so neck-deep into work lately I didn't remember doing one before installing the new version (I'm a simple guy; I see GB Studio updates, I download and install). I'm not concerned in regards to project files, since most of what I had were placeholders to test movement routines and collisions. The issue is really the references since they were largely my own (bitmap mockups, etc) and while I can resume this at any time, it'll be double work for that. Oh well.
In any case, not trying to be a downer. GB Studio is amazing, please keep up the great work.
I've noticed that the left and right audio channels are switched when exporting a ROM file.
Hey Chris, Is possible to download GB Studio on Chorme OS instead of Windows?
Hi! I don't have anything that runs Chrome OS sorry :-( I've heard Chrome OS lets you run Linux applications though, maybe those versions can work for you?
提个建议，如果字符可以有16x16、18x18的和32X32的多种选择就好了，这样创建非拉丁文字的游戏显示效果会更好
Hi, Chris.
I'm working on a platforming fangame, but I'm hesitant to upgrade.
I currently have 3.1 & I was wondering if hauntology's "Platformer+" would be compatible with GBStudio 4.0?
It seems to be working alright for me.
I get an error Error: Error invoking remote method 'get-documents-path': Error: Failed to get 'documents' path
man I hope there is a chrome os version
When you pressed play, it took a long time to load than version 3.2, why is this happening?
A color only mode is exactly what I needed! Also thanks for GB Studio Chris :)
Yeah, but it's slowed down my game for some reason.
Same, maybe there’s still some kinks being worked out.
is a port on iOS
my game https://realjacek123.itch.io/first-game
It gave me a 404 error.
If you make a game in color-only mode, you should put a scene in your game that keeps the game from moving forward unless color mode is detected.
And I've found that scenes with automatic palettes may need a monochrome override if sprites are going to be displayed behind the background layer.
Sprite palettes are too limited. Think you can fix that in 3.2.2.?
No, that's due to the limitations of the Game Boy Color. You'll just have to either deal with them or work around them.
There's a way, which is overlaying 2 sprites on top of each other: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/comments/pntbwh/gameboy_color_sprite_limitation... Still not sure how you could do it in the GBStudio, but at least this could be a way to go about it
Yeah! The NES version of Mario is Missing! does that, and it's pretty easy to do in the sprite editor.
Just be aware that only ten 8x16 sprites can be displayed in one horizontal row.
Wow, Thanks!
There's a bug in my game I can't seem to fix. I've got a bunch of actors in one scene that are supposed to be hidden when the scene is entered, but they don't disappear until after the screen fades in. Also, one of the actors doesn't appear when it should.
Never mind, I got it fixed. I just disabled automatic fade-in for that scene and added a manual fade-in event. It may have also helped that I cleared the build cache.
Analized it with VirusTotal, and 6 antiviruses founded that it's an "
trojan.jaik"
yikes.
(https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/b4131a626f9ddb49eb1ef724fb913970c5794f79fe20... )
Thanks for raising this, I've just been looking into it. It appears to just be false positives luckily.
I rescanned the exact same zip file and it's now gone down to 2 reports, but from completely different vendors than before (the vendors that previously flagged it now say it's fine).
It seems that the issues are flagged from Squirrel (which is the library used on Windows for running the installer). Looking into it, looks like Squirrel sometimes gets flagged when it shouldn't https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/issues/1116
ok tysm
VirusTotal will false-positive on almost anything. It always false-positives on Godot games. It's not reliable.
yes, i know it's difficult but...
ANDROID VERSION PLEASE 🥺
yes, i know it's difficult but...
Maybe you can try winlator first, a solution for executing win programs on Android
i forgot ...
i'll try ExaGear thank you
hmm, perfect
Are there any plans to implement exporting to .exe or .aab? Would love to be able to re-release a game I built in GBS 1.0.0 on the Play store.
For some reason, the button to add a new script is gone on my GB Studio. I tried to reinstall and that did not help. I thought it might be my project, so I created a new one and the button is missing there too.
Has anyone seen this before? I couldn't find anything when searching for a solution.
Adding to this - I just tried to delete a script to see if I hit some kind of limit (highly unlikely as I only have three scripts). Now I only have two because I can't recreate the one I deleted.
Also confirmed the same thing happens in light mode
FIGURED IT OUT
Just make the side panel bigger - for some reason the button disappears at a certain size. All good now.
I would love to see something like Game Boy Studio, but for creating games for Windows with greater music and graphics options. I really like the ease of use to make something like a Zelda game, but the PC is my platform of choice. If you know of something like that--or have plans to make something like that, please let me know. GBS is awesome, by the way.
You have Pico8 , PQ93 and TIC-80 just with "Game Boy" alike...
To move on to other genres you have tons of options , from GoDot, to RPG Maker, and even trying to use one of those obscure engines (there's one for making zelda games and other one for making warcraft 1 and 2 type games)
They are not the same in terms of ease-of-use.
So this isn't quite what you're looking for, but there are a couple of ways you can turn a GBS-made game into essentially a Windows executable:
@echo off
start sameboy_winsdl_v0.16.2\sameboy.exe ".\sameboy_winsdl_v0.16.2\Rom\[YourGameName].gb"
Nice! Yeah that helps. I still hope for an expanded maker, but I appreciate the suggestion!
bruh it says GB not nes
Oh.
for me im on chromebook and am using linux and it doesnt work for me any suggestions on ow to deal with the problem I would love some help.
Are you using Linux terminal to it? Did you tried to use flatpak to install it?
Excuse me, I have a doubt when trying to use the portable version in Windows 10, Windows Defender blocks it because it detects it as a potential risk to the system. Is this application safe to use?
yes
thats when a program hasnt got a verified publisher attached to it, which normal people dont have because you have to get them from microsoft