GB Studio
A downloadable tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux
GB Studio is a quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for your favourite handheld video game system.
Please support on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/gbstudiodev 🙏❤️
[Update] GB Studio 4.2.2 now available!
This is another small bug fix release addressing a few issues found in 4.2.0 and 4.2.1.
If you noticed off-screen actors briefly appearing when a scene loads, or were unable to build your project after resizing a background image, please try this version.
Japanese users are strongly encouraged to upgrade, as this version also fixes an issue where projects could fail to save correctly when scenes contained certain Japanese characters.
Full changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md#422---2026-02-24
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issue
[Update] GB Studio 4.2.1 now available!
This is a very small bug fix release.
If you had trouble building on Windows and were seeing an EPERM error, please try out this version. If everything was working for you, there's no need to upgrade :-)
[Update] GB Studio 4.2.0 now available!
It's been over a year since the last major update but I hope it's been worth the wait!
GB Studio 4.2.0 includes over 180 changes, improvements, new features, and bug fixes, making it the biggest release so far.
Highlights include:
- A new Plugin Manager making it easier than ever to discover, install, and keep plugins up to date.
- A complete rewrite of the Platformer scene type, heavily based on Platformer Plus, with features like dashing, double jump, wall jumps, coyote time, fall-through platforms, and more.
- An improved Adventure scene type with more configuration, solid actors support and rounded corner tiles.
- Camera bounds and backtracking control, enabling features like preventing backward scrolling in platformers.
- Linux ARM support, so you can now run GB Studio on Raspberry Pi.
- Lots of game engine optimisations, reducing slowdown.
And so much more!
A massive thank you to everyone who contributed code, tested the betas, shared feedback, and supported GB Studio on Patreon!
Full changelog is available at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md#420---2026-02-13
If you spot any problems, please make sure to report an issue at https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issue
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GB Studio is a visual game builder with no programming knowledge required allowing you to make real Game Boy ROMs in minutes. You can run the games on any emulator or you can run them on your Game Boy if you've got a flash cart!
Full documentation is available at https://www.gbstudio.dev/.
It's open source too!
Can't wait to see what you make!
- Chris
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- GBS Music23 days ago
- GB Studio 4.2.2 now available!79 days ago
- GB Studio 4.2.0 now available!91 days ago
- GB Studio 4.2.0 Beta 3Feb 03, 2026
- GB Studio 4.2.0 Beta 2Jan 19, 2026
- GB Studio 4.2.0 BetaDec 18, 2025
- A Little UpdateFeb 06, 2025
Comments
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My GB Studio fangame went viral after some YouTube channel specializing in hacks and homebrews posted a playthrough! That is not something I was ready for.
Awesome, well done Levi! Is that your Yoshi game? I've just been playing it now, really cool!
Cool to experiment with! i am currently making a test/tech demo with it, which when i get the first stage done, i will try to redo the backgrounds and give the game a name, and then using all the code i will expand it and add in more stages! thanks for this amazing software!
Hi Chris - been a MASSIVE fan of GB Studio since day one, such an amazing (and huge) project! I've been developing a cool design partner app for GB Studio and would love it if you could maybe give some feedback. It's early stages, but pretty feature rich, and exports GB Studio projects - I call it GB Edit - gbedit.dev - thanks in advance!
What about base tempo into GB Studio like the one that uses on gb music and what about the bbr image that comes with
And also fix the bug because I saw the left edge when the player touches the edge it will not be able to see OK?
And there's something wrong with the actors because it will not work correctly.
Can you update to 4.2.3?
Are there terms of use somewhere I can't seem to find or is it just "use it!!! have fun!!!" ?
The software license is here :-) https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/blob/main/LICENSE but, yes, pretty much "use it!!! have fun!!!" + "you own everything you make"
Thank you lol forgot to check github, I was just checking out the website. You're the best
What about base tempo into GB Studio like the one that uses on gb music and what about the bbr image that comes with
Can you update to 4.2.3?
Also fix the bugs to it's GB Studio because there is something wrong with the actor's movements so, can you fix it for me?
Just wanted to drop by and say, love ya Chris!
❤️
good
how can i make it portable for usb drivers
one other issue i'm having is actors not animating if they don't move diagonally first. this didn't happen in 4.1
is there a fix for this too?
unsure if it's also a bug but trying to use the new left-right-only animation state doesn't flip the actor when moving a different direction, at least in adventure mode. could that be added as a fix in a new version? would halve the amount of animation data i need for this character. if so, i guess the expected outcome would be if it moves any amount left or right it will animate in that direction, but if it only moves up or down it will maintain the direction it was already facing? would be a huge deal for me if that's how it worked
So do I understand that you can make GBA games with GB Studio also? Or are you able to just port your GB and GBC games to GBA?
The Game Boy Advance is able to play GB and GBC games. That's all.
Although I did put an Easter egg in my game that changes one sprite depending on whether you're using a Game Boy Color or a Game Boy Advance.
Hi, could you maybe try clearing your build cache or setting a different temporary directory as shown in these screenshots? I've had a few similar reports recently and I'm wondering if there's something causing old cached versions of files to be used when they shouldn't.
Hopefully this works for you, I'm investigating what's going on and will have a fix released as soon as I can figure it out :-)
Appreciate the Linux ARM64 builds! Thank you! I could finally ditch MacOS totally on my M1 Macbook to tinker with one of my favorite pastimes: GB Studio!
Which Linux distro are you using on M1, is that Asahi? Considering trying something like that out on my M1 Mac Mini when I get my next desktop Mac :-)
Yes. Asahi Fedora with Gnome. Works great.
I noticed that if you edit an FX Hammer .sav file after adding it to your project, the .gbsres file associated with said .sav file won't automatically update to account for the number of sound effects. You have to go in there and manually type in the number of sound effects if you want them all to play correctly.
Thanks Levi, I hadn't seen this before but you're right. I've got a fix in place now which will be included in the next bug fix release :-)
Hi Levi, I think this should be fixed now in 4.2.2 :-)
Any chance Game Gear support could be added or maybe a seperate release such as a GG Studio?
I wanted to know if there are plans to add gravity for actors, since not being able to use it greatly limits the platform mode, for the movement of enemies and especially bosses. I was told that it is difficult to implement, but I am asking anyway, since this feature is almost essential for projects such as platform games
Good point. I made a Mario fangame with this engine, and I had to give it physics like Super Mario Land. It worked pretty well, but I couldn't really make enemies fall off ledges that way, and the boss movement was a little janky.
I’m happy to pay 10 EUR for this fantastic software.
a good engine to begin i like it
why does it track my location?
I’m not sure what you mean? It doesn’t track your location and should never ask permission to either. Where are you seeing this? Is this on Windows, Mac or Linux?
Windows, the taskbar says "Location in use by: GB Studio"
probably because it uses chromium, and as we know google loves collecting our data
...no.... you're not being tracked, this has nothing to do with tracking. You completely misunderstood what that meant on a basic level. This has nothing to do with google, or tracking your location in the world or anything. Your not being tracked, you're being weird.
So, when it says „Location in use by GB Studio,“ what would that mean, if not for what it says?
The installer asked me for location permissions, too. I denied them, but it definitely tried.
It doesn't. It's not tracking you. Your being paranoid and weird and you read what you saw wrong. You're not being tracked. Your computer is informing you where the program is located on your computer's files. There is no tracking. You're not being spied on.
The "Location in use by: GB Studio" on the bottom of my screen would say otherwise
Also, looking at your posts, they're almost all negative. Not a single positive thing comes out of your mouth. You've only said one non-negative thing as of making this comment.
Oddly enough, the posts you make are primarily you calling people stupid/paranoid for them saying that something has potentially malicious code in it.
Truly a fantastic engine
gaming
i have one suggestion even if it takes 100 years can you make a gba game maker
sure not... forget about it unless u rddy to pay Chris for it
Is there any way to make bullets fired in GB Studio have different trajectories, like the varied projectiles in Mega Man? Because it seems that bullets can only be made to move in straight lines.
There is a plug-in that allows you to emulate the behavior of Megaman-style bullets.
If you’re interested, here’s the link: https://nokotin.itch.io/custom-projectile-plugin
Thanks for the guidance.
I feel you, bud. I had to make the fireballs in my Mario fangame fly straight instead of bouncing along the ground.
The plugin mentioned by the brother above can effectively alleviate this issue.
Additionally, I'm not sure how to achieve the replacement of individual ordinary tiles in GBS. When I try to replace one, all identical tiles get replaced together. This forces me to resort to character sprites. However, the Game Boy's hardware should be capable of achieving such an effect. For example, in "Harvest Moon," using a hoe to till the land replaces each tile individually as it is tilled.
That might be covered in the next update. However, there is this trick I came up with in my game.
I started with a background that looked something like this:
Then I told the game to replace each tile used for "shocked Keeby" with a solid green tile when the scene started. Then I could put it back to the way it was when I was ready to show "shocked Keeby" again. Of course, I could have achieved this same effect using sprites, but I did it this way to make room for more sprites to appear in a row together. It ended up looking like this in the VRAM:
with shocked Keeby:
without shocked Keeby:
Maybe you could try something like that if you've got enough VRAM space.
I see, learned something new. That reverse thinking approach is so clever!
What if you make the music wobble or change tempo on update event
and also 256 color image on logo automatic only just like
At least 4.3.0
GBA next? Btw, pretttttyyy good for homebrew and making your own little nostalgic game company
this is amazing
is this open source, to be modded/have ad-ons?, this is amazing but it can be difficult to do some more specific/complicated things
I enjoyed making a fangame with this engine. Once the new update comes, I think I'll start a new project with my original characters.
Can you fix the animation state and swap titles because it might had an issue with that. I see a glitch!
Can you make a platformer mode where the player can swim?
I've made a platformer game where there's a short swimmable section. I just altered the physics to make everything slower and then attached a "Player Bounce" event to the jump button to make the player rise with every tap.
that's pretty clever.
i hate it👍
No one cares, we love it!
Your mom hate something too and that's you
How do you import backgrounds?
Import backgrounds? This game engine uses .png files for backgrounds. All you should have to do is put them in the assets/backgrounds folder.
Can I place issue here
I need help here some reason I was trying to building rom its showing me this error
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
and don't forget! I just played the gameboy color game called mickey's speedway because it has an fmv screen so, we need is a logo with background automatic colors so it can make an fmv bbr colors with that and one more thing, the super gameboy border needs to use as a change border plugins
I think we should start by being able to create backgrounds like they did for Bear in the Big Blue House. They were able to use more colors at once by changing the palettes every two scan lines.
Also, there's the DK Land trilogy, where the VRAM is updated every frame to allow for more complex sprite animation. These two functionalities should theoretically be added before attempting to utilize full-motion video, wouldn't you say?
There was a problem because you need to update because the actor state had some bug issues and needs to be fixed
I'm getting a weird error that doesn't let me compile games.
error message below
Preparando variables...
Preparando imágenes...
Preparando tilesets...
Preparando la interfaz...
Preparando sprites...
Preparando avatares...
Preparando emoticonos...
Preparando música...
Preparando fuentes...
Preparando escenas...
Preparación completa
Compilando eventos...
Eliminando carpeta _gbsbuild
Copiar motor predeterminado
Buscando motor local en assets/engine
Motor local no encontrado, utilizando motor predeterminado
Buscando plugins del motor en plugins/*/engine
Validando archivos de construcción...
Compilando: src\core\absolute.c
Compilando: src\core\actor.c
Compilando: src\core\bankdata.c
Compilando: src\core\bootstrap.s
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
Error: spawn cmd.exe ENOENT
-4058
Construcción cancelada
did you set the language to Spanish by any chance?