GBA Studio v4.4.6

Playable browser previews and complete GBA demo fixes.

GBA Studio v4.4.5

GBA Studio v4.4.5

GBA Studio v4.4.4

GBA Studio v4.4.4

This release delivers a complete native-GBA vertical slice: build Poachermon in GBA Studio, compile a real .gba ROM, run it in an emulator or on hardware, and try the same demo directly in the browser.

Play it now

• GBA Studio browser playground
• Launch Poachermon directly

Highlights

• Fleshed out Poachermon into a playable poacher-investigation and creature-rescue case with a briefing, witnesses, traps, suspects, evidence variables, conditionals and a case-closed scene.
• Added the GitHub Pages landing page and browser ROM player, including built-in validated demo ROMs and a local-ROM picker.
• Added scene-start scripts and actor script compilation for the native GBA target.
• Added animated actor frames, facing direction, movement, visibility and interaction behavior to the GBA runtime.
• Added actor-variable conditionals and compiler-to-engine contract validation.
• Pinned reproducible devkitARM builds and updated Studio to the merged GBA engine runtime.

Automated validation

• Studio unit tests and browser-player tests.
• 89 host-side engine unit tests and 11 integration tests.
• Real starter and Poachermon ROM builds in GitHub Actions.
• ROM header validation and an mGBA boot smoke test.
• Successful Windows, Linux and macOS packaging from the release tag.

Downloads

Installers and portable archives are attached for Windows, Linux, macOS Intel and macOS Apple Silicon.

Implementation: GBA Studio PR #17 and GBA engine PR #3

GBA Studio v4.4.3

GBA Studio v4.4.3

A playable milestone: the GBA VM now supports enough script events to build a
basic interactive game that boots and runs in mGBA.

New script event support (compiler → VM → runtime, all tested)

• If Joypad Input (EVENT_IF_INPUT) — branch on held buttons
• Actor Set Position / Move Relative — place and nudge actors
• Actor Set Direction — store facing (rendering of direction comes next)
• Actor Activate / Deactivate — show and hide actors
• Call Custom Event — reusable scripts inlined at compile time (recursion-guarded)
• Group and If Colour Supported — resolved at compile time

Already supported

Text, variables, math, random, if/else (variable comparisons), scene
switching, and trigger zones.

Isometric template

Ships with original CC0 isometric art: a village background and a
four-direction hero sprite.

Known gaps (next on the roadmap)

• Actors don't visibly turn/animate yet (single metasprite drawn)
• Dialogue choices (EVENT_CHOICE), save (SRAM), and audio are not yet implemented

See docs/GBA_EVENT_COMPATIBILITY.md for the full event-by-event status.

GBA Studio v4.4.2

GBA Studio v4.4.2

Changes

• New purple GBA-shaped application icon (Windows/macOS/Linux)
• Redesigned start-window (splash) logo: cleaner, centered purple GBA logo replacing the CSS-drawn device
• Rebuilt .gbsproj file-type icon (.ico) from the black cartridge artwork
• Isometric compile fix: scene-table entries are now cast to const gba_scene_def_t *, so isometric scenes compile without -Wincompatible-pointer-types. This release also bundles the engine with full gba_iso_scene_def_t support (the v4.4.0 installer predated it).

GBA Studio v4.4.1

GBA Studio v4.4.1

Changes

• Updated .gbsproj file icon to the new black GBA cartridge design

Previous release (v4.4.0)

• Full isometric game mode support (isometric scenes, actors with isoZ depth layer, iso sprite animation types, runtime renderer, movement controller)

v4.4.0 — Isometric Mode

What's new

Isometric game mode

GBA Studio 4.4.0 introduces full isometric scene support.

Scene editor

• New ISOMETRIC scene type — set it in the scene properties dropdown
• Diamond grid overlay rendered as an SVG layer over the background
• Actors and triggers placed using tile-grid coordinates (not screen pixels)
• Actors depth-sorted by tileX + tileY + isoZ so near tiles draw on top

Actor isoZ field

• Optional height layer on every actor (default 0 = ground)
• Positive values raise the actor visually and bump its draw-order key

Trigger editing

• Isometric triggers render as translucent orange SVG diamonds, one per covered tile

Compiler output

• Isometric scenes emit gba_iso_scene_def_t (extends gba_scene_def_t with iso_tile_w/iso_tile_h)
• Scene type id = 6
• Actor/trigger coordinates are tile-grid indices; compiler warns on out-of-bounds placements

Project migration

• Opening a pre-4.4.0 project automatically runs migration 420r3 → 431r1, adding isoZ: 0 to all existing actors

New Project Wizard

• New GBA Isometric Adventure template: 20×15 scene, player actor, NPC with dialogue, dialogue trigger zone, scene-exit trigger

Example project

• examples/isometric-adventure/ — same layout as the template, ready to open and compile

Documentation

• docs/ISOMETRIC_MODE.md — full user guide
• docs/ISOMETRIC_SCENE_FORMAT.md — C struct contract for runtime authors

Tests

• 15 new unit tests covering coordinate conversion, depth sorting, diamond points, and the isoZ migration

---

Coordinate model quick reference

screen_x = (tile_x - tile_y) * 16
screen_y = (tile_x + tile_y) *  8  −  iso_z * 16
depth_key = tile_x + tile_y + iso_z

GBA Studio v4.3.1

GBA Studio v4.3.1

v4.2.9

v4.2.9

v4.2.8

Release 4.2.8