When it comes to developing Game Boy games in 2024, Chris Maltby's GB Studio is often many people's first port of call, thanks to its easy-to-use interface and compatibility with a range of platforms including Windows, Mac, and Linux. But what if you could use it to create NES games?
Well, that's a question that one individual named Michel Iwaniec has recently gone out of their way to answer, releasing a "heavily hacked" fork of GB Studio's toolset called "BB Studio" that switches the target platform from the Game Boy/Game Boy Color to its "big brother" (hence the new name).
The tool came to our attention earlier today thanks to a social media post from the NES and Game Boy developer Matt Hughson, and is described on its GitHub page as "a quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for your favourite video game system". It essentially allows you to create a game with a 256x240 resolution image, rather than the 160x144 that was standard for Game Boy and Game Boy Color projects.
It is currently available in early alpha ("with all the bugs and warts that entails") and is slightly limited in regards to its compatibility and what it can do.
So far, for instance, the creator is only available with Windows-x64 and Linux-x64, and because it takes advantage of a custom NES mapper, the games you produce can only be played using an Everdrive N8 Pro (using the bbstudio.rbf provided in the build tools) or a customized version of the Mesen emulator for PC.
No sound effects are currently supported either, but you can add music using the FamiStudio sound engine.
Again, though, this is just an early alpha, so the tools and compatibility are expected to improve over time, as development continues.
You can find out more information here.