A trio of Swiss LEGO fans are launching a Kickstarter campaign that promises to turn your LEGO Game Boy into a working, playable console.
72046 Game Boy only arrived on shelves at the beginning of October, but modders including Natalie the Nerd have already been hard at work turning it into a functional console. Now hoping to bring a playable LEGO Game Boy to the masses is Substance Labs, whose BrickBoy kit is designed to upgrade the official LEGO set with the power of a real Game Boy console.
While the Kickstarter campaign isn’t live just yet – it's due to launch on October 28 – the team do already have working prototypes of their design, which you can check out in the video below. Their aim is apparently to keep things as simple as possible, with no complex coding or soldering required: all you need to do is swap in the screen, control board, buttons mechanism and cartridge.
This isn’t a Game Boy quite as you remember it, in that you can’t swap in physical game cartridges to play your favourite titles. Instead, the creators have packed an emulator into the hardware that can run Game Boy ROMs. Exactly what’s driving it all has not been disclosed, nor are there any technical specifications listed on the Kickstarter page.
Substance Labs also hasn’t revealed how much you can expect to pay to upgrade your copy of 72046 Game Boy, but there will be three different BrickBoy kits available at launch. The barebones essential kit includes a simple grayscale screen and requires two AAA batteries, while the gamer kit adds a customisable backlight, rechargeable battery, Bluetooth audio and the ability to play Game Boy Color and Advance titles.
The Collector’s Edition, meanwhile, seems to be geared around turning your working LEGO Game Boy into a display model. An ‘exposition mode’ will allow for continuous display, so you can keep the screen on while it’s on your shelf, and there’s a USB port and power supply so you don’t have to worry about draining the batteries. None of these kits include the LEGO set itself.
While Substance Labs’ campaign is the first to hit Kickstarter (even if it isn’t live yet), it probably won’t be the last to offer upgrade kits for 72046 Game Boy. Watch this space.
72046 Game Boy is available now at LEGO.com and through third-party retailers. You can also find it in our LEGO deals of the week…
Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO using our affiliate links. Thanks!
Comments
Be the first to comment!