Repository: chrismaltby/gb-studio
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README.md
GB Studio
  
Copyright (c) 2019-2026 Chris Maltby, released under the MIT license.
Patreon: gbstudiodev
Twitter: @maltby
Reddit: /r/gbstudio
Discord: Join Chat
GB Studio is a quick and easy to use retro adventure game creator for Game Boy available for Mac, Linux and Windows.
For more information see the GB Studio site
GB Studio consists of an Electron game builder application and a C based game engine using GBDK.
Installation
Download a release for your operating system from the GB Studio Downloads page.
Or to run from source, clone this repo then:
- Install NodeJS (required version is given in .nvmrc)
cd gb-studio
corepack enable
yarn
npm run fetch-deps
npm start
After checking out a new version you may also need to fetch dependencies again to ensure you have the latest version of GBVM + GBDK etc.
cd gb-studio
npm run fetch-deps
GB Studio currently uses Node 21.7.1. If you have NVM installed you can use the included .nvmrc to switch to the supported Node version.
cd gb-studio
nvm use
GB Studio CLI
Install GB Studio from source as above then
npm run make:cli
yarn link
From any folder you can now run gb-studio-cli
$(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) -V
4.1.2
$(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) --help
Update the CLI
Pull the latest code and run make:cli again, yarn link is only needed for the first run.
npm run make:cli
CLI Examples
- Export Project
> $(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) export path/to/project.gbsproj out/Export GBDK project from gbsproj to out directory
- Export Data
> $(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) export -d path/to/project.gbsproj out/Export only src/data and include/data from gbsproj to out directory
- Make ROM
> $(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) make:rom path/to/project.gbsproj out/game.gbMake a ROM file from gbsproj
- Make Pocket
> $(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) make:pocket path/to/project.gbsproj out/game.pocketMake a Pocket file from gbsproj
- Make Web
> $(yarn bin gb-studio-cli) make:web path/to/project.gbsproj out/Make a Web build from gbsproj
Documentation
Note For Translators
If you'd like to help contribute new language localisations to GB Studio you can do so by submitting pull requests adding or updating the JSON files found here https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/tree/develop/src/lang
If you're looking to update an existing translation with content that is missing, there is a handy script that lists keys found in the English localisation that are not found and copies them to your localisation
npm run missing-translations lang
e.g. npm run missing-translations de
e.g. npm run missing-translations en-GB