Game Boy mods are still in fashion. If a few weeks ago we saw that someone had managed to mine bitcoin using the processor of a Game Boy , now a hacker has managed to add online game to the Tetris version of the console, and can play with other players with a cable, a Game Boy and a Raspberry Pi.
Tetris competitions were one of the first in video game history. One of the latest iterations of this title came with Nintendo‘s Tetris 99, which is a Tetris Battle Royale in which you compete against 98 other people. However, there are those who prefer to play the classic title on the first consoles where it was available, and a modder has gone a step further thanks to the Game Link connector on the console.
Play online with the 1989 Game Boy
This cable, which was nothing more than a FireWire 400, was first released for the original Game Boy, and it allowed to play a few multiplayer games, such as F-1 Race, which also allowed even four players to play with the Four Player Adapter. And apparently it could be used for much more.
The Stacksmashing user uses that cable connected to a Raspberry Pi Pico and this one goes to the Internet. With this solution, two or more people can play with each other from anywhere in the world using the Game Boy. In addition, it also works with other Game Boy consoles, including the Game Boy Color , Game Boy Pocket , Game Boy Advance and Advance SP , against which it can be played as if it were a multiplatform game .
Can be played in real time with other consoles
To accomplish such a feat, the user had to reverse engineer the cable to see how it worked. Once he knew it, he created a software solution to manage communications that included a Python server and a WebUSB frontend . With this, he manages to fool the Game Boy into believing that two players are playing connected by cable, but in reality there may be many more. In addition, other players can see your screen in real time to see how you progress in the game.
In the Tetris game, a console acts as the host, generating 256 random pieces. These 256 pieces are sent to the other connected console so that the two users play with the same pieces and thus be able to determine which of the two obtains the highest score. In this case, it is possible to connect dozens of people and do, effectively, a kind of Battle Royale until only one remains, since it is the server that generates the pieces.
