Posts tagged with "games"

How to Load Your Game Boy Games Onto the iPhone to Play in the Delta Emulator

So, you’ve probably seen the (totally justified) hype surrounding the Delta emulator’s launch on the App Store and downloaded it because, why not, it’s free. You may have also recalled that, like a lot of people, you have a box of old Game Boy cartridges stored somewhere that are gathering dust. Or, like me, maybe you spent way too much money on second-hand videogame sites during the COVID lockdown. Regardless of your Game Boy cartridge origin story, today I’m going to show you a simple way to breathe new life into those games by bringing them, along with your save files, to your iPhone.

The GB Operator. Source: Epilogue.

The GB Operator. Source: Epilogue.

The easiest way I’ve found to pull the game files from a Game Boy, Game Boy Color, or Game Boy Advance cartridge is with a little USB-C accessory called the GB Operator by Epilogue, or as I like to call it the Game Boy Toaster. That’s because the device looks like a top-loading transparent toaster that takes game cartridges instead of bread. If you have a big collection of game cartridges, the GB Operator is a great investment at $50 because it allows you to both play and back up your games using a Mac.

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Emulators Will Change the App Store Forever→

Delta for iOS.

Delta for iOS.

Writing at his personal blog, Brendon Bigley explains why the Delta emulator launching on the App Store is a big deal for retrogaming fans who also love native iOS apps:

AltStore for me (and many) was just a way to get access to Delta, which is the best emulator on iOS by a pretty shocking margin. While there are admittedly more feature-rich apps like RetroArch out there, no other app feels made for iPhone in the way Delta does. With a slick iOS-friendly user interface, custom themes and designs to reskin your experience, and the ability to grab game files from iCloud, Delta always represented what’s possible what a talented app developer could do if the App Store was even slightly more open. It’s in this possibility space where I likely never switch to Android again.

I posted this on Threads and Mastodon, but I was able to start playing old save files from my own copies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Pokémon Ruby in 30 seconds thanks to Delta.

Years ago, one of my (many) lockdown projects involved ripping my own Game Boy Advance game collection using a GB Operator. I did that and saved all my games and associated save files in iCloud Drive, thinking they’d be useful someday. Today, because Delta is a great iOS citizen that integrates with the Files picker, I just had to select multiple .gba files in iCloud Drive to add them to Delta. Then, since Delta also supports context menus, I long-pressed each game to import my own save files, previously ripped by the GB Operator. And that’s how I can now continue playing games from 20 years ago…on my iPhone. And those are just two aspects of the all-encompassing Delta experience, which includes Dropbox sync, controller support, haptic feedback, and lots more.

Brendon also wraps up the story with a question I’m pondering myself:

How does Nintendo react to the news that despite their desire to fight game preservation at all costs, people are nonetheless still enjoying the very games that built their business in the first place?

I’ll never get over the fact that Nintendo turned the glorious Virtual Console into a subscription service that is randomly updated and not available on mobile devices at all. I’m curious to see if Nintendo will have any sort of response to emulators on iOS; personally, I know that Delta is going to be my new default for all Game Boy/DS emulation needs going forward.

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The Delta Videogame Emulator Launches on the App Store

Delta, the videogame emulator for a long list of Nintendo systems, is now available worldwide. In the US and many other countries, you’ll find it in Apple’s App Store, while in the EU, it is part of the AltStore alternative marketplace.

I’ve been using Delta for years. The app was available using a clever system that took advantage of an Apple Mail plugin and developer account to allow it to be side-loaded onto iPhones. It wasn’t the most convenient way to use the app, but it worked, and legions of classic videogame aficionados flocked to it for its excellent performance and design.

Today, however, anyone can download Delta from the App Store for free, load their game files, and play their favorite NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, SNES, N64, and Nintendo DS games on the iPhone. Delta has been in development for years, so the experience of playing your old games on it is superb, incorporating native features like haptic feedback and quality-of-life enhancements like the ability to save a game’s state, fast forward, and use cheat codes. Delta also supports controller skins, local multiplayer, and syncing of save state, save data, and more.

Delta is the Nintendo emulation standard bearer on iOS. I expect we’ll see other emulators that work with the same games, as we did briefly last week, but Delta is going to be a tough app to beat.

AppStories, Episode 379 – A Classic Mac Pick 2→

This week on AppStories, we return with a classic Pick 2 episode focused on the Mac.

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A Classic Mac Pick 2

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On AppStories+, we talk about Apple’s decision to allow game emulators and game streaming services on the iPhone worldwide.

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MacStories Unwind: It’s All Been Leading up to This→

This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico has reached the pinnacle of handheld gaming with a setup that he’s been working toward for years.

This episode is sponsored by:

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Unplugged

A Federico Videogame Surprise

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Monument Valley at 10: The Story of the Most Meticulous Puzzle Game Ever Created→

Earlier this week, I linked to The Ringer’s profile of Monument Valley on its 10th anniversary, which focused on what’s become of mobile gaming since the game’s release. Today, I have another story about Monument Valley that focuses on the game’s origins and beautiful design.

Jonathan Bell’s article for Wallpaper explores the Monument Valley team’s approach and influences:

The end result had a pixel-perfect axonometric aesthetic that not only went hard on its references to Dutch master artist and printmaker Maurits Cornelis Escher, but also dug deep into classic video game design, going right back to early arcade machines and 8-bit titles. Each of the ten levels is like a piece of fine furniture, built with invisible dovetail joints and inlaid with marquetry, stuffed with secret compartments and little design flourishes. Gray cites the world of theatre and stage design, as well as graphics, as important keystones in the way the levels were constructed. ‘Ken would always talk about flower arranging, and how you frame a silhouette of a level on the screen,’ he says

I love this anecdote about the game’s last minute naming:

The small team was so laser-focused on delivering the best game they could that the name wasn’t even considered until the very end. ‘Right before launch we were going to be interviewed by Edge magazine – the morning of that day we hadn’t picked the name.’ Monument Valley was chosen as being familiar, yet unusual, implying a sense of mystery, grandeur and travel.

Monument Valley is one of the most important indie games ever published on the App Store, so it’s great to see its backstory told in detail by Bell. Be sure to check out the full story, which includes photos of early design sketches of the game’s interface and characters.

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Apple Amends App Review Guidelines to Permit Game Emulators and Make Other Changes

Yesterday, Apple announced an update to its App Review Guidelines in a brief post on its developer site. The changes to sections 3.1.1(a) and 4.7 of the guidelines, which apply globally to all apps distributed through Apple’s App Store, address three items:

  • game emulators,
  • super apps, and
  • linking to the web from inside music streaming apps to make purchases outside the App Store

Historically, game emulators were forbidden from the App Store. As a result, an emulator like Delta, which can play games released for Nintendo systems through the N64, could only be used on iPhones through a clever combination of developer tools and a Mail plug-in. In contrast, there are plenty of emulators on the Google Play store for Android users to download.

Revised section 4.7 of the App Review guidelines specifically allows retro gaming emulators:

Mini apps, mini games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins, and game emulators

Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins. Additionally, retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games.

Presumably, this will allow Delta and other emulators onto the App Store, so they can be used to play game files stored on iPhones.

The change to section 4.7 also says that “mini apps and mini games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins” of the sort found in apps like WeChat must be created with HTML 5, a clarification of the language previously used.

Finally, section 3.1.1(a) of the App Review Guidelines allows music streaming services to link out to the web from their apps so customers can make purchases outside the App Store. The change addresses the anti-steering provisions for which Apple was fined $2 billion by the EU, and Apple has said it will appeal.

MacStories Unwind: I Don’t Believe This Website→

This week on MacStories Unwind, cicadas invade Italian TV, John tries an espresso soda, Dragon’s Dogma II, The Creator, and what’s next in our media queues.

  • Show Notes

Unplugged

Picks

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Ten Years Later, ‘Monument Valley’ Is a Monument to Mobile Gaming’s Bygone Era→

Lewis Gordan, writing for The Ringer, looks back at the 10 years since Monument Valley was released and wonders what has become of premium mobile games:

With such gigantic success, Monument Valley should have become a blueprint for indies on mobile (and it did, for the small cohort of artful titles such as Alto’s Adventure and Old Man’s Journey that followed soon after it). But as the years wore on, it became clear that the game was really more of an aberration. Premium mobile games, that is, those that you pay for, eventually turned into an endangered species, crowded out by free-to-play “forever game” behemoths such as Clash Royale and, most recently, Monopoly Go! (the latter of which is partly bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and spent an eye-watering sum of nearly $500 million on marketing and user acquisition alone). A binary, then (and thus a battle), presents itself, pitting the art game that values people’s time against the commercial product that seeks to exploit it with ever-increasing, capitalistic intensity. “In 2014, it was just the beginning of that battle,” says Orland. “We didn’t have a clear winner.”

Gordon argues that Monument Valley’s release marked a high water mark and the beginning of the end of artful mobile games. As he recounts, the game was profitable within a week, but just six months later, users were leaving one-star reviews for a $1.99 expansion pack to a game that was only $3.99 to begin with. Gamers had been trained by the Candy Crush Sagas of the world to expect endless free updates.

Adriaan de Jongh, who Federico and I interviewed on AppStories years ago, points to the 2017 redesign of the App Store as another factor in the decline of premium titles:

Before, says de Jongh, Apple “featured” a couple of titles per week, promoting them to anyone across the entire globe who opened the App Store. It was the “single biggest marketing beat” for Hidden Folks, helping the game earn just more than $50,000 on its very first day. Then, with the redesign, the opportunity practically vanished. iPhone users had to navigate to a different tab to see new games. In de Jongh’s view, this was a fundamental and ultimately fatal layer of friction.

Gordon’s story is worth reading in its entirety because it’s one of the best tours of the business of selling iPhone games that I’ve read. At the same time, though, I think Gordon paints a bleaker picture than is justified. There’s no denying that the iPhone gaming universe has changed a lot from the days when games like Monument Valley, Alto’s Adventure, and Hidden Folks were first released. However, it’s also too soon to declare the end of premium iPhone gaming. Few of those titles may break into the top paid games category these days, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t innovative, artistic games being released on the App Store. You need to work a little harder, cutting through the jungle of free-to-play games to find them, but they’re there.

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