We’ve all been dreaming about a resurgence of the classic Game Boy DMG for some time now, but with Nintendo choosing to bring titles to the Nintendo Switch Online service, our hopes of holding a small Game Boy seem very slim.
Instead, we turn to devices like the Analogue Pocket to play our old games and look to crafty modders to bring us exciting handhelds that we never thought possible.
Enter Elliot Coll, the finder of what we’re dubbing the smallest DMG on the planet with this unofficial Game Boy Mini, brought to life with the power of Raspberry Pi! We’re thinking we need to get one of these to put with our Funkey and then try to collect the whole Miniature Nintendo-themed set!
While Elliot hasn’t made this particular Game Boy, he has discovered it while searching through AliExpress, which in itself is no short feat. I’ve just come from searching through the site for some handhelds for another news piece and have seen some questionable things that will unfortunately be in my brain for a long while…
Ever the explorer, Coll has delved into the device that literally sits in the palm of his hand and discovered what, upon closer inspection, appears to be the Raspberry Pi RP2040, the same setup that comes with the ReBoi modding kit we covered early this year.
If you know your Raspberry Pi gear, then you’ll already know that the RP2040 is perfect for powering retro games devices and far surpasses the speeds that the original DMG could pump out. Is it too much power for this pint-sized portable gamer, however?
Well, all signs point to it working pretty well!
All Your ROMs In One Tiny Package
Obviously, there’s no way a normal Game Boy game could fit inside this thing; the cartridges are around the same size as the actual console, which means you’d need some serious wizardry to make them kick into action.
Where the game cart would go in a normal DMG is where you’ll find a tiny cartridge with a Micro SD slot to load up existing ROMs. And, while Elliot’s list of ROMs looks a little tough to read without having a magnifying glass or extremely good eyesight when displayed on the screen below, the games themselves look easy enough to follow from what we’ve seen… even though admittedly the screen is incredibly close to the camera!
Elliot puts this unofficial Game Boy Mini through its paces with Donkey Kong, Wario Blast, Tetris DX, and Link’s Awakening, learning which buttons bring up menus on the fly due to the lack of any kind of instruction booklet for the device.
It sounds great too and appears to have saving functions, making it a one-stop-shop for gamers on the go with tiny pockets.
While this will never replace the might of the Game Boy DMG or prove any kind of threat to Nintendo in any way, it’s a nice little piece that would undoubtedly be fun to pull out at parties or to have as a little ode to Nitnendo’s iconic machine.
And to be honest, the fact that devices this small can do so much still surprises me. Raspberry Pi devices always make me feel like a kid in a candy store, and I’m hoping we can get our hands on one of these to test very soon.
Elliot paid close to $90 for this little device, which even considering how fun this thing is is quite a lot of cash. Still, if you hold the DMG in the highest regard, then this could be a great addition to your collection.
Maybe you could teach your hamster to play some Zelda!
