Kip’s! Grimoire is an adventure platformer demo for the Nintendo Game Boy I wrote during November 2018 to present at the Florida Polytechnic Fall 2018 Game Expo. The game features a witch named Kip who must collect magical grimoires to obtain new abilities and explore. Kip’s! Grimoire runs on original Game Boy hardware and was written in C using GBDK and the ZGB engine framework.
Developing this demo was a really fantastic exploration into other mediums for video game design beyond PCs. I didn’t quite finish everything I initially intended, and the development of the game was often fraught with all sorts of hardware misunderstandings on my part, but I really enjoyed the whole experience on the whole going through and applying my skills.
Gameplay
Collect the magical grimoires to obtain new abilities and explore!
-
Move right and left with the D-Pad, use B to attack, and A to jump
-
The first grimoire unlocks a fireball attack! Hold B to charge your staff and release a bolt of fire!
-
The second grimoire unlocks the double jump! Mobility up!
-
The third grimoire unlocks a magical flask to throw at enemies! Press Up and B together to toss a flask into the air!
-
The fourth grimoire gives Kip her broomstick back! Fly in any direction and attack with A and B!
Development
Kip’s! Grimoire is inspired by both Zelda and Castlevania. Originally, my goal was to design a short of Metroidvania for the Game Boy, but time constraints, difficulties linking levels together, and the overall limited memory constraints of the Game Boy kind of pushed that out of what I could finish in time.
In development, I utilized the following tools:
Kip’s! Grimoire can be played/downloaded on GameJolt. It can either be played in browser using GameJolt’s built in Game Boy emulator, a desktop emulator, or by downloading the ROM and using a flash cartridge on real hardware!
Related Projects
Kip’s! Grimoire is an adventure platformer demo for the Nintendo Game Boy I wrote during November 2018 to present at the Florida Polytechnic Fall 2018 Game Expo. The game features a witch named Kip who must collect magical grimoires to obtain new abilities and explore. Kip’s! Grimoire runs on original Game Boy hardware and was written in C using GBDK and the ZGB engine framework.
Developing this demo was a really fantastic exploration into other mediums for video game design beyond PCs. I didn’t quite finish everything I initially intended, and the development of the game was often fraught with all sorts of hardware misunderstandings on my part, but I really enjoyed the whole experience on the whole going through and applying my skills.
Gameplay
Collect the magical grimoires to obtain new abilities and explore!
-
Move right and left with the D-Pad, use B to attack, and A to jump
-
The first grimoire unlocks a fireball attack! Hold B to charge your staff and release a bolt of fire!
-
The second grimoire unlocks the double jump! Mobility up!
-
The third grimoire unlocks a magical flask to throw at enemies! Press Up and B together to toss a flask into the air!
-
The fourth grimoire gives Kip her broomstick back! Fly in any direction and attack with A and B!
Development
Kip’s! Grimoire is inspired by both Zelda and Castlevania. Originally, my goal was to design a short of Metroidvania for the Game Boy, but time constraints, difficulties linking levels together, and the overall limited memory constraints of the Game Boy kind of pushed that out of what I could finish in time.
In development, I utilized the following tools:
Kip’s! Grimoire can be played/downloaded on GameJolt. It can either be played in browser using GameJolt’s built in Game Boy emulator, a desktop emulator, or by downloading the ROM and using a flash cartridge on real hardware!