This week has mostly been a depressing affair for the gaming industry, what with Sony killing off physical PlayStation Discs and Microsoft laying off over 3,200 roles at Xbox.
We could all use some levity after this string of bad news, so we’re going to do that by marveling at the creative ingenuity of YouTuber ‘Game of Tobi’.
For you see, this clever tinkerer has managed to get a version of the legendary Minecraft running on two iconic portable consoles that helped pave the way for gaming handhelds as we know them today: the Game Boy Color from 1998 and the original Game Boy from 1989.
This fan-made game “3D Minecraft” isn’t a lower-resolution port of Minecraft. It’s a unique creation where the player can play on a flat map or a full 3D-generated world. Like in regular Minecraft, you can place blocks, explore the world, and even build.
Granted, the graphics, frame rate, and gameplay are limited compared to the real thing, especially when running on the original Game Boy, as it has no colors other than black and white. Yet the fact that this creator managed to get Minecraft working on a 1998 gaming handheld and an even older one from 1989 is nothing short of technical wizardry.
This isn’t the first time ‘Game of Tobi’ got a modern game to work on retro hardware, as they made working versions of Minecraft on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS in the past that more closely resemble and play like regular Minecraft (complete with Survival Mode!).
In addition, they also made a Nintendo DS version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a Nintendo 3DS version of Super Mario Odyssey, and more.
Personally, I like seeing people using their technical know-how to make games we love playable on platforms we wouldn’t expect (look no further than DOOM being playable on Notepad.exe or even a pregnancy test), and these Game Boy ports of Minecraft are no exception.
It just makes you wonder what the gaming world would’ve looked like if Minecraft had been made in the 1990s instead of 2011, and whether it would’ve been as successful back then, when gaming was still niche.
Plus, having a physical, offline version of Minecraft that isn’t beholden to online servers to keep it running sounds like a pretty good idea, especially in this day and age, when online games can be delisted at any time, at the whim of a corporation, for whatever reason.
Either way, Game of Tobi has my YouTube subscription for this invention, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they make next (here’s hoping they make Minecraft playable on the Nintendo Virtual Boy just for the sheer, eye-bleeding hilarity of seeing the Nether rendered entirely in the system’s Red and Black color scheme).
What do you think of ‘Game of Tobi’s’ Game Boy Color and Game Boy versions of Minecraft? Would you like to play an offline version of Minecraft on older hardware for the nostalgic novelty?
If you have any thoughts, please let us know through the poll, the comments section, or our Reddit page.
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