Eli Lipsitz's FPGA-based Game Boy clone, Game Bub, has hit crowdfunding and is already well on its way to achieving its target.
Powered by the Artix XC7A100T FPGA, the Game Bub runs physical Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges, and supports original accessories, like link cables and the Game Boy Camera.
Furthermore, it has built-in rumble, real-time clock, accelerometer, and gyroscope, and even offers HDMI-out via an optional $60 dock. You can also load up ROMs and homebrew apps via MicroSD card, and a built-in cartridge multitool allows you to back up (and restore) saves from your games.
The biggest selling point is the open-source nature of the system, as Lipsitz explains:
Game Bub is more than just an FPGA Game Boy emulator. It’s fully open source and fully hackable, so you can use it as a portable, self-contained AMD Artix 7 FPGA development platform. Game Bub is not locked down in any way: custom software gets unrestricted access to all on-board hardware.
The Artix XC7A100T FPGA is super powerful, allowing for numerous possibilities. As a point of comparison, the Game Boy Advance FPGA core consumes less than a third of its logic resources!
Game Bub is built with future extensibility in mind, with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, extra memory, peripherals, and a PMOD expansion slot for custom accessories. Batteries are included, literally and figuratively! Develop your own FPGA game cores, or use it to build other interactive FPGA experiences with its suite of I/O, peripherals, and features.
The system will be manufactured by Soldered Electronics in Croatia, something that will enable Lipsitz to minimise the "price volatility" caused by tariffs.
Game Bub has already raised over $62,000 of its $100,000 funding goal, with 22 days left on the clock. It starts at $249, with the campaign-exclusive transparent purple model costing $299.
Its big rivals in this space are the Analogue Pocket, ModRetro Chromatic and FunnyPlaying FPGA Game Boy. You can see how it compares to those devices in the table below.
