Den of Snakes - Game Boy Four Player

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Den of Snakes

A four player snake game for the Game Boy using the DMG-07 Four Player Adapter. (Possibly the first homebrew one?)

System Requirements:

• Hardware: In order to play this game on hardware you need at least one Game Boy (preferably more!) and a Nintendo DMG-07 Four Player Adapter.
• Emulator TODO: GBE+? Double Cherry? (currently: both emulators can partially run the game but have issues at various points.)
• Mega Duck: For you rare souls who have made a link port adapter for your Mega Duck, you can link up and play against the Game Boys.

Is there a way to play without the 4 Player Adapter? Yes, choose the files named "..._localonly_NO4PLAYER...". But it's not as fun since there is only a single snake.

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Gameplay
Objective: Grab some friends and be the last snake alive!

Eating hearts grows your snake and deposits skulls. When a snake crashes into skulls or another snake then that snake/player dies and their snake is turned into skull bones. The game ends when only a single player is left alive, that player wins.

When only one player is connected to the DMG-07 then the objective is just to make as long a snake as possible.

Controls

• Move Snake: D-PAD
• Pause: START
  
• Start Game: START (on any connected console)

Tip: You can enter the Konami code on the title screen of any participating console and the game will run in an alternate Snafu-like gameplay mode (see Snafu for the Intellivision). (suggestion by amothermole)

Limitations: When two snakes try to move into the same square currently the snake with the lower DMG-07 port number will have (unfair) precedence and the other snake will die. This should be changed to both snakes dying. It requires some additional checking that is not yet performed.

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Source code
This game was built using GBDK-2020. The game source as well as serial link captures of the 4-player adapter protocol are available at the git repo.
https://github.com/bbbbbr/gbdk-gb-4-player

Thinking about making a game that uses the 4 Player adapter? You are welcome (and encouraged!) to use the source code in your project. The main source files of interest are 4_player_adpater.c and .h.

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Thanks & Credits

Many thanks to Shonumi for their original research and documentation on this device. It made implementing support tremendously easier.

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100% of donations go to support the itch.io platform. (details)