A Game Boy finds new life as a cool gaming controller for an Android smart phone.
Nintendo discontinued the Game Boy back in 1999. Surprisingly, that hasn’t stopped people from tinkering with a fourteen-year-old piece of gaming hardware. Chiptune bands use the handheld as a synthesizer for rockin’ tunes – and if you’re hacker alias alpinedelta, a nifty gamepad for your Android-powered device.
Like many smart phone carrying gamers, alpinedelta wanted to play his favorite retro games on the go, but doing so the way nature intended: using actual buttons. Touch-controls are all well and good for your Angry Birds and what not, but when it comes to playing games originally made with physical inputs in mind, well…
Picture using a slippery eel to manage precision-demanding Mario and that’s about as apt an description to the entire ordeal. Certainly leagues behind the “just so right” feel of an early 1990s Nintendo-designed gaming system, which makes alpinedelta’s choice to gut an actual Game Boy as the base of his invention, a wise one.
There’s more to this unique gamepad than just that though, there’s also parts of a Nintendo Wii Remote, a Galaxy Nexus case, and the “Wii Controller IME” App off the Google Play store to work its programming magic and allow the Game Boy controller to use the Android touch keyboard as an input.
So far alpinedelta has managed to get a SNES emulator to run using the Game Boy Android gamepad, but he does mention that it could be used with any other console, minus the ones that require more than two buttons, of course. Potential candidates like the NES, Sega Game Gear, and the Master System for example.
Check it out in action!
VIDEO TO ADD [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIPLcj3y7gA]
Over at alpinedelta’s gallery on Instructables.com you can step-by-step images of this creation and find out about other projects he’s worked on. Some pretty great stuff, too. I’m not sure if its up to the quality of aplinedelta’s gadgets, but when it comes to covering geeky news like the top 5 best tablets launched at CES 2013 or an awesome luggage tracker, I think we do a dang fine job.
