Simply ingenious: Modern RPG hit lands on the Game Boy

An ambitious fan has managed to port the celebrated role-playing game Disco Elysium to the Game Boy – at least partially. How exactly he did it, he explains in detail on his blog.

Disco Elysium: Fan brings the RPG hit to the Game Boy

With Disco Elysium, developer ZA / UM landed a real surprise hit in 2019. The old school RPG was loved by both critics and gamers as well secured a brilliant score of 91 points on Metacritic. After the success on the PC, ports for the Nintendo Switch, the PS4 and the Xbox One followed – but before that, the game was released for a platform that probably no one expected: the Nintendo Game Boy.

As a reminder – this is what Disco Elysium really looks like:

The game can now also be enjoyed on the small handheld console from 1989 – at least partially. The UI designer Colin Brannan’s fan project has so far only included the introduction to the game, but tries as best it can to to keep the most important game elements of the original.

On his blog, Brannan explains how he does the Game Boy implementation structured, and gives an insight into the individual phases of development. A few screenshots give you a first impression of the Game Boy version of the role-playing game:

(Source: Colin Brannan)

Game Boy porting also works on PC and mobile phones

Brannan presents the result as free download on the Itch.io platform. Users can choose to play the game directly via the browser on their cell phone or PC, but they can also download the ROM and run it in an appropriate emulator.

In addition to Disco Elysium, many other good games were released last year. We have listed the best of them for you:

What makes the port so special, however, is that it not only looks like a game that could run on the Game Boy, it actually can played on the original Nintendo hardware. The ROM only has to be installed on a flashable cartridge for the handheld – then nothing stands in the way of the crazy nostalgia trip of the extra class.