An in-development emulator has been revealed which "ports" existing Game Boy games to the GBA, taking advantage of the additional screen space, colours and resolution.
It's the work of renowned Game Boy game enhancer Iván Delgado (@toruzz), who reveals he dropped the first hint about the emulator six years ago.
"I've hinted at it so much there's no point in keeping it under wraps any longer," says Delgado, who has colourised Game Boy games in the past and is also currently working on a colourised version of The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls.
He adds:
"For the longest time, I've been working on a way to port GB games to the GBA. What I ended up building is a modified GB>GBA emulator that targets a fantasy console instead - I call it the GB Bridge.
GB Bridge is basically a GBC with a different memory map, a bigger screen, and extra inputs. The real trick is that I use special registers to trigger native GBA routines from the emulator - meaning that, while very hard to pull off, I can push things as much as I want."
The developer has shown off a series of GIFs that demonstrate what could be possible with this emulator.
"What I've posted are mockups of the end goal, but I've tested key parts and they are feasible. I'm currently working on Super Mario Land. Like most of my stuff this is long-term, so please don't expect releases anytime soon. That said, I hope I gave you something cool to look forward to."