Fantastically Ridiculous Hack Puts Four Cartridges on One Game Boy

The relative simplicity of the Game Boy consoles (at the very least in comparison with trendy portables) means they’re now infinitely hackable and customizable, however one modder has provide you with a Game Boy Color improve for avid gamers bored with continually swapping cartridges. It’s both sensible and ridiculous.

If you realize what to search for and don’t thoughts wading into legally grey waters, there are already many options on the market for avid gamers seeking to remedy the largest draw back of the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. The handhelds themselves may need been very moveable, however the recreation cartridges weren’t, and even carrying only a handful of them was typically a ache.

Instead of choosing a customized cartridge that may maintain hundreds of ROMs on a tiny reminiscence card, YouTube’s Solderking opted to hack collectively a multi-game answer that also makes use of authentic Game Boy and GBC recreation cartridges.

Built from three stacked customized PCBs that may rotate like a Ferris Wheel, the contraption is basically an over-engineered bridge, with hand-soldered wire extensions that join the metallic contacts inside a Game Boy cartridge with the contacts within the cartridge slot on the again of the Game Boy Color. Turning the wheel of carts requires the bodily connection to be separated after which re-attached, which suggests it is a guide answer with no scorching swapping capabilities. You can’t pause a recreation and give up to a important menu to pick one thing else: you must fully energy down the Game Boy Color earlier than each recreation swap.

Surprisingly, the Game Boy Color continues to be very a lot playable even with the added weight of 4 recreation cartridges hanging off the again, whereas the rotating adapter sits far sufficient means that the hand held stays very comfy to carry. It’s a testomony to how resilient and adaptable the Game Boy’s {hardware} is for one thing like this to work, even when all that customized {hardware} appears something however sturdy.