The GameBoy Is A Crazy Feat of Engineering That Almost Didn’t See The Light Of Day ▉

Man this really took me back. I have very vivid memories of playing Super Mario Land at my grandmother’s house when I was a kid. I probably played more Tetris on my Gameboy than anything else.

It’s always crazy to me how these old school developers were able to not just find a way but make the hardware do things it wasn’t supposed to do while squeezing every last bit of performance out of it. It’s also crazy how close to death some of these projects got until that one crazy idea was found that gave them the way forward.

I love these hard engineering stories, especially when it comes to games. Games, and by extension game developers, typically push hardware far beyond it’s limits. They refuse to accept the limitations of the time, often pushing boundaries and moving everyone forward with them.

If you’re interested, I highly recommend Fabian Sanglard’s THE BOOK OF CP-SYSTEM, Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom Game Engine Black Books. Absolutely worth the read if you’re curious about how these classic games got made.

I also recommend the Ars Technica War Stories playlist on YouTube as well.

> ▍