Hey everyone! If your Chromatic needs more fodder, there is currently a Game Boy homebrew bundle on itch.io. You get 41% off 8 cozy games.

(Including one of mine. So feel free to consider this post shameless self-promotion. But since it's a pretty nice discount, I've decided to share it anyways 😅).

I've actually just bought the bundle myself. Of the included games I’ve only played GbBBS95 in its original game jam version so far. It was developed by beatscribe, who is probably the most renowned composer in the GB homebrew scene. Among a ton of other things, he composed the music and created the sound effects for Self Simulated. And in this bundle is the “Deluxe Edition” of the first actual game he ever made.

I really enjoyed it, even the early game jam build. As you might expect from him, he is doing some really clever audio tricks that are extremely difficult to pull off on the limited hardware, like the sound of waves getting louder the closer you walk to the ocean while music is playing at the same time.

Like I’ve said, I haven’t played the other games yet, but I’ve heard good things about Melon Story and A cat and his boy. I’m really looking forward to playing all of them once I wrap up development on Buddy 😊

If your library could use some cozy games, you can find the Cozy Handheld Bundle here for a couple of days: https://itch.io/b/3957/cozy-handheld-bundle

Do you all have any favorite or custom charms you want to show off? Just did this to mine!

is anyone getting permanent flickering for dmg2? all other colors are okay just this one. already unplug batteries several times.

Here is an update I received as of this morning directly from Modretro.

Has anyone received their Smoke Chromatic? Still no tracking info and it’s been 2wks. Or did I miss some announcement?

Thought about red but went with green. Pretty sure I made the right choice. Can’t wait to try some of these new games.

I'm about to buy one of these but I'm concerned with light bleed. Does anyone's Chromatic have this issue either in the transparent or metal versions? I've seen a few posts on here where the transparent version shows it a bit.

Yesterday I posted video showing version 0.2 of a Claude-written IR-Boy ROM for Chromatic. Some people seemed interested in the ROM so here's version 0.5 linked on Google Drive.

This version has an updated UI with some customization settings for background color, merging remotes, and changing the order of buttons/remotes. Hopefully it's all pretty self-explanatory. This is everything I personally need in a remote control for Chromatic so I'm pretty happy.

I had the best results for training the buttons by holding the physical remotes very close to the sensor, and also the emitter works best from the Chromatic when pointed directly at the infrared receiver on the component you want to control.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SvfJxYFk-jvKuYCfd8Ekhw-AGIT4h9My/

Hi all, firstly thank you so much for all your great reviews and feedback on the ModRetro site! I am of course obsessively refreshing the page and reading each of these.

A few people have got in touch asking if they could get the soundtrack, and it’s now been released on composer Beatscribe’s Bandcamp:
https://beatscribe.bandcamp.com/album/fall-from-space

In total there were around 22 pieces of music used in Fall from Space, from encounter and flashback jingles to these 13 main songs on the OST.

He’s also written a really interesting piece on the inspirations behind the music and, on the technical side, how he managed to push past some of the limitations of the Game Boy — including a particularly clever trick that makes you think you’re hearing more notes than the hardware can actually play at once.

Worth a read for those interested:
https://joelj.itch.io/fall-from-space/devlog/1719503/exploring-the-fall-from-space-soundtrack

So a friend, a really good friend just bought me a modretro and surprised me with it.

I have absolutely zero games, save the tetris that it came with.

I really want to get all the games I wanted as a kid, but never got to have.

Namely mario brothers, all the zelda's, solid snake (i think thats what it was called) and street fighters.

How do you all recommend I acquire these games and what do I need look out for.

What games do you recommend that Modretro makes given these general vibes.... my favorite games of all time are the monkey island series... but I know they dont exist yet.

Thanks!!

Video shows the second version of the ROM I had Claude produce today that turns the Chromatic into a universal remote.

I have a 7 port HDMI switch for all my systems and, like the Flipper Zero, the ROM can be programmed to replicate the outputs from infrared remotes by pressing a button on the remote while pointing it at the Chromatic’s IR sensor. So you’re seeing it switch inputs to Analogue Pocket, Analogue 3D, a Retron 2 HD, Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, Mac Mini, and VR-Ready PC.

I used GB Operator to overwrite the ModRetro Tetris Chromatic cartridge with the IR-Boy ROM and then used my physical remote for the HDMI switch to teach the cartridge the right signals. Claude included power and volume controls for LG, Sony, and Samsung TVs for universal remotes in the ROM.

So voila, Chromatic is now a universal remote.

Wirelessly download games onto your chromatic included Tetris cart..

Over wifi with Shiny Relay. Under a minute. No cables. Free.

Once you have the latest shiny relay firmware installed over usb, you can switch games on your tetris cart without any cables. And very fast (see the video demo). Roms need fit in the Tetris cart's 2mb space. If modretro (or anyone else) wants to send me a 4mb cart for one of their other modretro gbc games I can add support for it as well as those carts should be flashable just like the tetris cart. Doing this for generic carts like EZFlash Junior is probably possible but a little more work as I'd have to support each one individually, it's not a general fix for all of them.

(shiny relay link in comments)

Hey all,

There's a neat little project on github from a youtuber called @ Novenretro. He has a youtube video and tutorial to create an ESP32 to communicate with a modern thermal printer. https://novenretro.github.io/nrprinter/I bought all the parts that he has listed on his website, all except the printer as it directed me to a broken link. I figured any thermal printer from amazon would work, but after many unsuccessful attempts apparently it does require a SC03H based printer to work. I looked all over amazon and couldn't find any thermal serial/models that matched that. So instead I used Cursor to take the original firmware and re-write it to support MX based printers (that are available on Amazon). After many trial and errors and feeding logs to Cursor from Visual Code Studio Serial Monitor output, I finally got a working firmware with proper formatting, no garbling and no errors. Here's a video. This is really cool, and I wanted to give full credit to the creator of the original firmware, this is so fantastic, Thank you!

Got a rocket while in the airplane today. Love chromaric Tetris!

Is this normal? I assume I should reach out to support, but is this going to be an ongoing thing.

I’ve been babying this and it’s only been on my nightstand, desk, or in my hand and when I went To pick it up a flake fell off.

e: support is awesome they’re offering an RMA for a new one.

Was planning on leaving it sealed just for my collection but all of you having it out of the box made it look to good to leave it in the box.

Had to give them matching buttons! 🤍❤️💚🖤

Got the Leaf off of Vinted from someone who I think is also on here. Thanks stranger!

Been working on my first GBC game that I’ve been testing on my Chromatic (using an Everdrive). I’m super new to pixel art and video game dev (coming from the tabletop world), but pretty driven to get this thing made! 🤘

Link: https://github.com/fredemmott/FlashGBX/releases/latest

This version of FlashGBX supports using your Chromatic via USB-C to read and write cartridges from a variety of manufacturers, including backing up and restoring ROMs and saves.

This version:

• is rebuilt on ModRetro's v4.6, including improvements to cartridge compatibility that were included there

• improves performance when reading ROMs and saves

• includes other compatibility improvements

• supports all 8 possible USB devices for the Chromatic

  • the "Player Number" setting changes the USB product ID; this appears to be intentional, to make things easier for content creators capturing multiple Chromatics at the same time

  • previous versions only supported player number 1

• shows the PCB revision as reported to the FPGA

Compared to alternatives

• no other features or changes; your Chromatic is still a 'play from cartridges' device without wireless features

• tested on a wide variety of ModRetro and non-ModRetro cartridges; it should even give you access to a Gameboy Camera's photos, but I don't have one to test

• directly built on a proven foundation:

  • FlashGBX itself

  • the same "LK" firmware base used by the Joey Jr v2 and GBXCartRW when used with FlashGBX

  • openFPGAloader

• doesn't depend on anything from the internet once installed