Back in February of this year, I reported that a German designer 'The Lesser The Besser' had been working on the Key Boy, a Game Boy-inspired Keyboard shell that turns a normal keyboard into a nostalgic, button-mashing monster. Now, he's back with two new designs that accompany his keyboard perfectly in the form of Game Boy mice, and they look so good I want to reach into my screen and grab them!
Both designs feature details that pay homage to the original DMG, as well as being the same colour as the iconic handheld; check out the speaker grill indents on the mouse below, for example.
Like the Key Boy, the buttons used on the mouse are made from the same materials as the buttons used on the Game Boy too - you'll actually feel like you're hitting the Select Button or rubbing your finger on the A button when moving the scroll wheel.
While the more ergonomic-looking mouse on the left of the cover photo of this article and the video above looks comfortable and like it could have come straight out of Nintendo HQ, the second design that looks like the back of a Game Boy complete with cartridge is my definite favourite. Yes, the select button wouldn't be on the back of the console, but it looks just like someone has repurposed a Game Boy into a mouse and encapsulated the spirit of the Game Boy modding community. Plus, the grip lines are perfect too.
The Lesser The Besser currently offers the files to 3D print these mice at home, meaning if you have a 3D Printer and order a mouse kit from Bambu Lab, then you can watch your creation come to life right before your very eyes.
Check out our interview with The Lesser The Besser below to find out more about the creation of these mice and the Key Boy Keyboard!
Interview With The Lesser The Besser On Creating The Game Boy Mouse
Retro Dodo: How long have you been creating and designing products for, and when did you start to move into the retro space?
TLTB: I’ve been designing products for over 15 years now. I just went to a small class reunion at my old University, the very German-named' Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, where we realised that it had been almost 20 years since we started our studies there together. I’m also the co-founder and design director of a small knife brand called veark and have been doing that for almost 7 years now.
TLTB: The retro space came hand-in-hand with starting a YouTube channel about design and 3D printing. I didn’t see it that much as being about retro, but more about design icons, which I guess are closely linked to one another. My intention to start the YouTube channel was to bring ideas to life that maybe were not really viable as a real product, but perhaps could work as forms of entertainment. And one of these ideas was: how would a keyboard in the style of the OG Game Boy look?
Retro Dodo: You've built the Game Boy Keyboard and now designed two Game Boy mice - the Game Boy must have meant a lot to you growing up. What are your fondest memories of the handheld and retro gaming in general?
TLTB: Yeah, the original Game Boy was my first contact with video games, or rather the first personal gaming console that I owned. I remember begging my parents forever to get me one – they were quite strict on TV and video games, so that was a tough negotiation. I don’t remember how and why, but we settled on a certain date, and I do remember having that date noted in a calendar where I would cross out every day until that date.
TLTB: That must have been in 1990, a year after the Game Boy had come to Germany. I was 8 or 9 years old then and enjoyed playing that thing so much. What was happening on that tiny screen was close to magic for childhood me. And I still have that exact Game Boy. It’s the one you see in the videos. (Unfortunately, I recently broke the screen when I wanted to install a backlight mod … but I have an IPS panel to replace it already, and I’m playing my old games on a new FPGA with a bigger, better screen)
Retro Dodo: Talk to me about the design process for a project like this - what made you pick these two different designs?
TLTB: Usually, when you do design projects, you’ll try to go broad first, collect ideas and directions, and then narrow them down. When I first started sketching, I tried two distinct directions: bricks and wedges. I also continued to develop both as volume mock-ups in CAD, but then ditched the brick and went for the wedge and developed that into the final version. I liked it, and it matched the keyboard, but I thought it was almost too perfect. It lacked fun and quirkiness. So I went back to the brick and developed that as well. I thought that since they will be 3d printed and there’s no tooling cost, why not make both?
Retro Dodo: How long does it take to turn a concept into a physical product, and what does the design process look like?
TLTB: Sketching is extremely important to develop ideas in your head. Don’t go into CAD too early! Drawing is thinking! It’s like writing down an idea, but in a different language. Once you do jump into CAD, though, with 3D printing these days, you can speed up a process like this quite a lot. Holding the objects in your hands helps you figure out the design way better than just looking at a screen. It also helps that I’m making all the decisions myself. In the real world there will be so many people involved that you have to work with, which slows development down a lot.
TLTB: If this were a product you could pick up from shelves, you’d be looking at a year of development until it comes to market. In this case, the project took 3 months. But, I also had to let the project rest again and again, since I injured my back, and that cut down a lot on my time. My plan was to be done in a month, and I hope I can pick that pace back up now. For a more streamlined project, you can check out the 3 part series of the Gameboy keyboard design. There you can follow me along and see the development from the first sketch to the finished design. Contrary to what I said earlier, I didn’t sketch very much on that project, to be honest. But the keyboard was a lot more straightforward since it was driven by the layout of the keys of an existing Logitech keyboard.
Retro Dodo: You offer these designs to users so that they can 3D print them at home. How easy is it for a complete beginner to create these pieces and get them up and running, and what extra parts do they need?
TLTB: Since the Gameboy keyboard was a huge effort to print and assemble even for me, I didn’t feel comfortable giving these files to anyone to build themselves. So I wanted the mice to be super accessible even for beginners. That goal made the project even more ambitious and took even longer. But the idea was that anyone could teleport this to their house via 3D printing and print it without any hassle. The main body of each mouse has built-in supports to make printing super easy. All you need is a wireless mouse kit that a company called Bambu Lab is selling online.
Retro Dodo: Are there any plans to sell fully-built units in the future to go toe-to-toe with the likes of 8BitDo?
TLTB: I would totally be up for that as well. I know from my professional experience that it can be really tough to find companies to produce outside designs. They usually have their roadmaps planned quite some time in advance of course. But you will be the first to know if it does happen eventually.
Retro Dodo: What other products do you have planned for the future?
TLTB: Since I learned so much about designing mice now, I announced “Mouse Madness” on my channel. The idea is that I will be designing more mice in different design styles over the coming months. I have some ideas already, but I’m also open to suggestions.
TLTB: And if mice aren’t your thing, don't worry. I will also be designing some sunglasses, grips, and handlebars for bicycles, and lots of other stuff. I have the crazy idea of designing a model kit car of a 1980s Toyota MR2 as an off-road rally vehicle, among many others. Before I started my YouTube channel, I made a list to make sure I wouldn’t run out of ideas - that was my main worry. I made a list from all the ideas I had collected in my phone over the last few years and stopped when I had 52 ideas … I thought, cool - I can make a video every week then for a year. Turns out ideas aren’t the problem. It’s time. I think I have had at least 50 new ideas for projects since, but time is the limiting factor here. My plan is now to release one new video a month to keep a good balance between quality and quantity!
