You know I cant believe it took me this long to do this, but I was recommended a documentary on the development of the Tomb Raider franchise, and wow. Eidos absolutely tortured these people after they basically single-handedly saved the publisher from bankruptcy.

• Made Core crunch brutally to put out TR1 by Christmas of 1996 after the game rightfully built massive hype from its E3 showing
• Focused on so much crass tits-and-ass marketing for TR1 that the two original co-creators of the character/franchise quit Core in disgust after they objected to Eidos and then were told to sit down and shut up and make games and leave marketing to the publisher
• Members of Core were legitimately ashamed to bring up in public that they'd helped make one of the most innovative 3D exploration games of all time because average people thought it was "a porn game made for children"
• Made Core crunch again even harder to get TR2 out by Christmas of 1997 only a year later, forcing them to totally do away with the lonely tomb exploration vibe of the first game and go for linear cramped maps in modern man-made spaces so Lara could drive vehicles and shoot a hundred guys with guns, even though combat is literally the weakest part of the formula and Lara's creator specifically didn't want her killing people carelessly
• Told Core they'd have more than a year to put out TR3 if they first worked on a small TR2 expansion (referred to as "Tomb Raider 2.5"), saw the incredible progress they'd made on upgrading the TR2 engine, then boosted the marketing of 2.5 to FULL SEQUEL TOMB RAIDER 3 without even telling them. They found out days later from reading a press release. At the very least, Eidos promised them more creative freedom going forward so the series could be about exploring ancient structures again. It was still forced to release around Christmas of 1998
• Made them work simultaneously on TR3 and TR4 so TR4 could be out a year later, in 1999. The team was so burnt out on Lara Croft that they wrote the game ending in Lara's canonical death in secret so that Eidos would look stupid if they made more TR games
• Made them make TR5 anyway telling the team to write themselves out of the narrative hole they'd dug. Core basically made TR5 in spite. They hate-developed this tired, rehash of a TR game while another team was working on the disaster that would end up as Angel of Darkness on the PS2
• TR5 and TR6 being two flops in a row made them sell Core, which was shut down unceremoniously shortly after

Knowing all this has really clarified in my mind why I TR2 has always been my least favorite one. I almost can't believe it's such a good game in spite of that. Through all this hardship they still managed to put out four of my most cherished childhood games.

Publishers really ain't shit. A poison to the health of the industry and people who actually make the games we play, then, now, and forever.

more of my gameboy link cable noodle! people keep liking him, i keep thinking of him, i need to draw him. the natural order of things. X3

its been link 10 months since the last drawing... i had to make him LOOOONGER. also gave him more of a mane behind his ears that then blends into the ridge mane along his back!

trying out a new funny messy brush and drew this with my mouse because i need to learn to just accept imperfections and draw more :3

you're spoiling them!!

hey chat, i've been thinking of making a couple long-form posts here and wanted to put something together for my gameboy camera setup, i got a new cable that does some neat stuff and figured now would be as good a time as any to write out a bunch of info.

the whole setup

i've been gathering a handful of items and upgrading my gameboy camera items over the past while, mostly since the pandemic started and it seemed that the popularity and interest really exploded. there is a great dedicated group of individuals who have researched and assembled projects to really take things to the next level.

one of the newest ones i have received, i knew of for a while and had tried getting to work in the past, but failed and didn't end up pursuing it further. someone mentioned having the same thing ready to go and willing to sell, so i purchased it off of them and realized it completed what i'm calling the "gameboy camera of theseus" set

the console

i was able to preorder an analogue pocket handheld when they were first announced, had it delivered very early on, and have been using it as my main gameboy camera device for a while now. it's a great device and lends itself very easily to the workflow that i've created for backing up and processing images. not much else to say, it's completely stock and all i've done is purchase a different handheld to use instead of the gameboy or any other console from nintendo.

the cartridge

apart from just buying a different console, this has been one of the greatest innovations to gameboy camera photography. the community has been able to completely redesign the cartridge experience with a new shell that allows for c/cs mount lenses, a custom flash pcb, and even a third-party camera app with increased functionality above what is on the original cartridge.

this specific cartridge is the 2bittoy, designed by community member and instagram user 2bitboy. the shell itself allows for a ring and filter to be installed in front of the sensor and have interchangeable lenses. this is possible to be used with a stock cartridge pcb, with no modifications.

the pcb is a custom design to enable different rom files to be flashed. notably, there was intended to be a hello kitty variation of the gameboy camera, which was never released. the rom file however does exist, and due to the creation of this flash pcb, was able to be used on real hardware (likely outside of nintendo's own testing) for the first time recently. another notable upgrade includes non-volatile memory, so the images can be stored without relying on a battery. it uses the same sensor as the original gameboy camera, and a couple pcb components need to be borrowed. it was designed by community member hdr.

the new camera software was designed by community member toxa/un_toxa. they continue to work with other users in the discord to improve and add functionality to the software, such as different methods of auto-balancing exposure to different sections of the image, or the one i was really interested in was 'auto-exposure bracketing' where the user can press one button to start a series of images in quick succession that adjust the exposure value, which after some post-processing to average the images together, will produce a 'high-dynamic range' image similar to what phones or other higher end cameras do today. having this functionality creates images in the end that are not exactly within the capability of the gameboy camera, but have the same resolution and capture the same sort of aesthetic.

the printer

this has been my most recent replacement piece that i have received, there is now a cable that was designed to interpret the print commands from the gameboy camera and essentially translate them into the commands for a modern point-of-sale receipt printer. i had purchased a kit for this a while back but it requires a level of soldering skill which i frankly do not have the time or equipment to attain, and had someone else attempt putting the kit together. some part of the assembly went wrong and my kit was fried. i ended up finding out around the same time that the prints with this were only completely black and white, which is even less color depth than expected with the four shades capable from the gameboy camera.

i found out recently that there was a custom firmware written for these to enable newer model printers to output in all four shades. this firmware was written by community member crizzlycruz, who is also on instagram as user 23kpixels. the kit itself was assembled by community member c0op3r, who allowed me to purchase it from them.

with the addition of the printer cable, i realized this finally replaced the majority of components such that next to nothing was remaining originally from nintendo. as mentioned the camera sensor, and the rom chip etc were borrowed from the cartridge itself, but the console, software, lens, and even image extraction have nothing associated with nintendo's original design.

the gameboy camera rules, hard

i want to make another post soon detailing my workflow and will include images at that time comparing the printer outputs and some of the images. of course none of this would be possible without the community discord server, and use of the online game boy camera gallery tool to store and manage images from community member herr_zatacke who is also on instagram as herr_gack.

please feel free to ask if you have any questions or anything i can help answer, i can also link you to the discord if you'd like to join and see all of the other great photos being posted and projects that others are still developing.