Zac Builds wanted a Game Boy Color that still looked like the 1998 handheld and behaved like something you would actually carry in 2026. His latest project walks through that job on a working donor board, the one part he treats as non-negotiable. Almost everything else can come from current reproduction kits, so a battered shell and a tired screen do not end the project.
Peter Knetter has spent years asking old machines to do a modern job. His series, YouTube in, treats a console or a dusty operating system as a whole production desk. A few days ago, he posted the one fans had been waiting on. ‘YouTube in Game Boy‘ documents his journey to make a YouTube video using only a Game Boy.
Nintendo shipped the original Game Boy in 1989 with a sound chip small enough to live on batteries for hours, and that same chip is now running a full drum machine. Drum Machina Go!, shortened to DMGo!, treats those four voices as a step sequencer you can carry in a coat pocket. Two of them are pulse waves, the square tones behind so many early game soundtracks. One is a programmable waveform. The last is noise, the hiss and crackle that usually stands in for explosions and static.
A Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Lil’ Gamer sits on store shelves looking every bit like a colorful, oversized Game Boy meant for tiny hands. Its screen is a printed sticker, its cartridge springs in and out for show, and its buttons trigger songs and light patterns that teach shapes and colors. Press the right sequence and it even plays Super Mario Bros. sound effects. Most parents hand it over and move on. One modder named KOUZEX looked at the same plastic shell and decided it should play actual Game Boy Color games instead.
Photo credit: PhyFawkes
PhyFawkes stared at a Steam Deck motherboard one day and wondered how small it could actually get. The answer now sits in a case that matches the original Game Boy’s footprint. Thirty-two millimeters thick. Same basic outline. Only SteamBoy holds modern PC hardware capable of running current games.
Photo credit: Crissa Graves
Crissa Graves has spent years making the old Game Boy Camera feel less like a novelty and more like something you might actually carry. Her latest prototype, the GBD-M2, takes that work further. It starts with a fully working Game Boy Pocket and turns the whole thing into a dedicated handheld camera with a removable camera module and interchangeable CS-mount lenses.
Chris Graue has a track record of pairing forgotten game hardware with actual camera gear. A Super Nintendo on a tripod came first. His latest project pushed the idea much harder by bolting a 1998 Game Boy Camera onto the 60-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. The camera carries a sensor that records only 128 pixels across and four shades of gray. Those numbers sound impossible for anything beyond a toy, yet the rig delivered a clear view of Jupiter that shows the planet’s banded atmosphere and the clean curve of its edge.
The idea of loading a comedy podcast onto the original 160 by 144 pixel screen of a Game Boy Color feels like a stretch even before any hardware enters the picture. The handheld dates back to 1998. It carries no wireless hardware, runs on an 8-bit processor, and originally shipped without a backlight. Still, Throaty Mumbo set out to make live YouTube playback happen on that exact platform and recorded the entire process.
Gamers who remember sliding cartridges into their old Game Boy Color will feel right at home when they pick up the PicoPal. Its clear plastic shell displays all of the internal components while maintaining the classic shape and button layout of old. The small LEDs illuminate the directional pad and action buttons with customizable brightness, making them ideal for late-night gaming sessions when all you want to do is keep playing. And a 2.6-inch screen front and center displays lovely crisp colors on games that used to seem tiny on vintage Game Boys.
Photo credit: Sebastian Staacks
Sebastian Staacks, a physicist and maker of interesting tech, has turned a retro relic into a wedding photo booth. His Game Boy Camera photo booth is a lo-fi delight for his cousin’s wedding. He’s built five photo booths for family events, including his own. For this one, he tapped into his cousin’s love of vintage gaming and chose the 1998 Game Boy Camera as the star. This DIY favorite features a 0.014-megapixel monochrome sensor that produces 128×112-pixel images.