Back in the driver seat!

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It's been over a year since the original version of Joyride was released. A lot has changed in that time; I moved on to other games and even left GameBoy development for a time. During my hiatus, GB Studio 3.0 released! I occasionally would check in on it, but didn't have enough drive (pun intended) to return to the scene.

But a few weeks ago, I was going to see some friends - the first time since the pandemic began and I'd moved away from the cities. It'd been over two years since I'd seen many of them, and I wanted to have something to show them what I'd been working on. I threw a copy of Joyride! onto a cartridge and brought it to the barbeque.

Ultimately, I never ended up showing it off, but I did play some of it on my own. And I really like this game! It's probably the most fully realized game concept of my various gameboy projects. So that got me thinking: could I improve anything with 3.0? At the very least, could I get rid of the slowdown and flickering?

Turns out the answer was: I can do a whole lot more! Over the last two weeks, I've fully rebuilt Joyride from the ground up. It's a completely new game, and I'd argue a better one. There's virtually no slowdown on a standard system, there's more courses, cars, and better controls too. I'm really excited about this version, and I can't wait to share the final product. For now, here's a preview video of the gameplay, and a look at the one of the coolest things about 3.0: link cable support!

GAMEPLAY preview: