4 weeks ago
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is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
Today, the Lego Game Boy officially goes on sale. It’s surprisingly good. But in Australia, one woman has already created a more amazing version. Natalie the Nerd, the self-taught circuit board designer and Game Boy modder whose gorgeous transparent Game Boy we featured in August, is doing what Nintendo and Lego didn’t: make it playable.
Let me be clear: this is not an emulator. Natalie did not stuff a Raspberry Pi in here. It’s far more impressive than that. What you’re seeing are real Game Boy cartridges, running on real Game Boy chips, soldered to a real circuit board of Natalie’s own creation. Working buttons, too.
Image: Natalie the Nerd
To fit it into the Lego Game Boy, she had to create a complete Game Boy board smaller than a Game Boy cartridge itself — so she did. Adding “the smallest screen kit on the market” did require removing a few bricks, though, she tells The Verge.
Image: Natalie the Nerd
Image: Natalie the Nerd
Image: Natalie the Nerd
Image: Natalie the Nerd
It’s not complete — not just yet. The working buttons, for instance, aren’t yet mounted on a PCB; she tells The Verge they’ll fit on a custom 3D-printed Lego piece.
She’s already wired up USB-C for power:
Image: Natalie the Nerd
And here’s a look at the insides and where they live:
Image: Natalie the Nerd
Image: Natalie the Nerd
Now, to answer your obvious question: is this a one-off, or something you might be able to do yourself? The chances are good that you might if you’re skilled! Natalie sells aftermarket components for Game Boy modding, shares circuit board designs, and is planning to share this too. “I am going to release it once I am happy with it,” she writes on X.
Image: Natalie the Nerd
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