If you read through that interview, you know that I conducted it over a year ago. I conducted this one, which focuses on the GameBoy Color-compatible Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe, far more recently--just a couple of days ago, in fact.
Speaking of which, you can learn more about--and back a boxed release of--this colorized and otherwise enhanced version of Tangram Games' flagship title via the Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe Kickstarter that ends on May 4.
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| Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe title screen |
The Gay Gamer: What prompted you to make a deluxe version of Tobu Tobu Girl? Also, when did you make the decision to go this route and when did you get started on it?
Simon: We had been toying around with this idea all the way back when the game was early in development but never went beyond some some colored mock-ups. Tobu Tobu Girl was our first GameBoy project, so we already had our hands full making it work on the DMG.
It wasn't until First Press Games approached us in late 2018 suggesting a "deluxe" version to go with the physical release that we actually started working on it. The (non-GameBoy) game we were working on at the time was not really working out, so this seemed like a nice distraction. As much as we like the original grayscale version, the DMG screen is not very suited for the fast gameplay of Tobu Tobu Girl, so we always felt like the game was best played on a GameBoy Color or Advance anyway. That seemed like a good reason to make a proper colored version.
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| Early Tobu Tobu Girl color mock-up |
The Gay Gamer: Is Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe simply a colorized version of the original game, or is there more to this project than that?
Simon: Besides the obvious addition of colors, a lot of the in-game graphics have been overhauled, both in the grayscale and color versions.
We are also working on some larger additions to the game that we unfortunately can’t reveal too much about yet since some of it is tied to the Kickstarter stretch goals. But we promise there will be some really cool new features regardless of whether any of the stretch goals are met.
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| Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe "Clouds" stage |
The Gay Gamer: Have you encountered any problems or issues while turning the original game into Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe? If so, can you talk about a few of them and how you overcame them?
Lukas: While at first glance it might have seemed pretty straightforward colorizing the four-shade graphics of the original game, it did come with its share of challenges. Since no (eight-by-eight-pixel) tile can consist of more than four different colors, and no more than eight unique four-color palettes can be present at any time, I had to rework a lot of the tile-based assets from the original.
Especially the score tally screen illustrations were heavily altered to fit the color restrictions, as you would have a tile consisting of the background color, outline, skin, skin shade, jacket, and the shading on the jacket. In the grayscale version, these are just four colors, whereas in the color version I would often end up having tiles like these with five or six different colors.
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| Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe "Space" stage |
Another problem was the issue of choosing colors that would present well on the GameBoy Color screen. The RGB colors do not translate to the GameBoy Color screen like they would on a standard monitor and generally look more washed-out. Although most emulators have ways of emulating this effect, none of them really seemed to emulate it that closely, so this led to a lot of trial and error.
Simon: On the programming side, this process has mostly been fairly simple. Most of the effort went into writing and rewriting tools for getting the assets into the game. All the new assets increased the amount of data in the game quite a bit, so we had to restructure the ROM’s layout to make everything fit nicely. This hasn’t been a major issue though, since cartridges for the physical release--and any decent flash carts--have way more memory available than we’d ever need.
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| Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe "Dream" stage |
The Gay Gamer: Tobu Tobu Girl was made to the original GameBoy's specifications. Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe is being made to the GameBoy Color's specifications. Surely this means your next project will be Tobu Tobu Girl Advance, made to the specifications of the GameBoy Advance? Seriously, though, do you ever see yourselves making a proper sequel to Tobu Tobu Girl?
Simon: For now, I doubt we will ever make a sequel. We have already put more time and energy into Tobu Tobu Girl than we ever planned to, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we’re ready to do something else. Overall, we are also pretty happy with the final design: each enemy serves a specific purpose and I think the game allows a decent amount of player expression with only a few core mechanics. If we would ever decide to make a sequel, it would be because we wanted to make a fundamentally different game.
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| Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe menu screen |
The Gay Gamer: Can we ever expect to see Tobu Tobu Girl or Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe for sale on the Nintendo Switch (or even the 3DS) eShop? If so, when? And if not, why?
Simon: While that would be pretty cool, it is highly unlikely. I don’t think Nintendo would ever allow any emulated games on the eShop. And even if that was the case, I hear getting games certified for consoles is also huge pain. We are making games for fun, not for profit, so we would rather put that energy into making something new.
See also: the Tobu Tobu Girl review I wrote for Hardcore Gaming 101
