What do you think?
Rate this book
Game Boy Modding: A Beginner's Guide to Game Boy Mods, Collecting, History, and More!
Complete beginner's guide to all aspects of modifying the classic Nintendo Game Boy.
Game Boy Modding teaches you how to purchase, refurbish, mod, and customize Nintendo handheld consoles. The consoles are widely available and the customizations are affordable, requiring only limited tools and know-how. Retro consoles are seeing a resurgence of popularity worldwide, and king among these throwback devices is the Nintendo Game Boy, which sold over 100 million units in its lifetime and introduced gamers to Mario and Pokemon. These consoles emanate pixelated 8-bit retro charm, but lack the modern technological enhancements that we take for granted in 2020. You'll learn basic soldering and hardware modification techniques; how to change speakers, buttons, and screen lenses; how to fix dead speakers and sticky buttons; and how to personalize your Game Boy to your heart's content.
Game Boy Modding teaches you how to purchase, refurbish, mod, and customize Nintendo handheld consoles. The consoles are widely available and the customizations are affordable, requiring only limited tools and know-how. Retro consoles are seeing a resurgence of popularity worldwide, and king among these throwback devices is the Nintendo Game Boy, which sold over 100 million units in its lifetime and introduced gamers to Mario and Pokemon. These consoles emanate pixelated 8-bit retro charm, but lack the modern technological enhancements that we take for granted in 2020. You'll learn basic soldering and hardware modification techniques; how to change speakers, buttons, and screen lenses; how to fix dead speakers and sticky buttons; and how to personalize your Game Boy to your heart's content.
256 pages, Paperback
Published May 26, 2020
5 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 4, 2023
pleasantly surprised that this book existed!! like thank u!!!! now im truly inspired to custom a game boy for myself if i do have enough resources one day 🎮
this book includes the know-hows & tips on how to purchase, refurbish, mod & customize nintendo game boys. i generally felt that its not quite easy to follow ((gotta have lots of patience & passionate about it??)) so kuddos to all modders out there and i truly appreciate your effort & hard work to keep my favourite childhood consoles & games alive. :')
at the end of day, i guess practice makes perfect and i love how this book emphasizes that sometimes things can go wrong but its important to take it as a learning experience rather than a mistake. it gives a great start for beginners as well and i learnt quite a lot of things especially on how to differentiate fake & original game cartridges! 🤯
this book includes the know-hows & tips on how to purchase, refurbish, mod & customize nintendo game boys. i generally felt that its not quite easy to follow ((gotta have lots of patience & passionate about it??)) so kuddos to all modders out there and i truly appreciate your effort & hard work to keep my favourite childhood consoles & games alive. :')
at the end of day, i guess practice makes perfect and i love how this book emphasizes that sometimes things can go wrong but its important to take it as a learning experience rather than a mistake. it gives a great start for beginners as well and i learnt quite a lot of things especially on how to differentiate fake & original game cartridges! 🤯
March 28, 2024
A great intro into the world of game boy modding. Well illustrated with clear instructions.
February 8, 2021
I read this book in an evening.
I consider reading one of my main hobbies, but another hobby of mine is gaming. Quick storytime - my first interaction with a Game Boy was actually in a dentist office. There was a basket of toys for kids waiting to get their teeth cleaned and I came across the original DMG and got to play Kirby's Dreamland every time I went. It's a fond memory and, honestly, it made going to the dentist as a kid a lot less scary. I finally got my own handheld when the Game Boy Advance (in that clear purplish "glacier" color) came in my Christmas stocking one year. Sadly, I had to sell it and my little game collection for far too little money in order to make a rent payment when I moved out for the first time. Only recently am I financially stable enough to be able to slowly re-collect my childhood games and more. When I first started searching for original consoles, I realized that modding was a possibility. I found a DMG that I re-shelled myself in a pretty glow-green, but I have interest in doing more complicated mods. Enter: this book.
This is a super fun way to learn more about the innards of a few different kinds of Game Boys and what you can do to not only preserve your model, but to give it a few extra perks. This book mostly talks about screen fixing or modding which, to me, is super cool and useful for what I'd like to do, but I find there is more to be desired. This book touts itself as a beginner's guide, but doesn't go into too great of detail into the steps. There are soldering steps, but I don't think this is a great source if you don't already know how to solder. The pictures are also all in black and white, which didn't work for some of the steps, most notably altering the Game Boy Advance shell for an IPS screen. The shell was too dark to see where the cuts and alterations were made. There was also a lack of in-depth audio modding. The largest disappointment was that there wasn't any modding tips for the Game Boy Advance SP or Micro, yet there were modding tips for the Pokemon Mini consoles, which are hard to find and aren't cheap. My last nitpick is that there was also a little on game cartridges, such as how to tell apart fakes and how to clean them, but not how to change the battery or resources to back up saves.
So, why am I not giving this a lower rating? Well, it still does have pretty useful information and it's an easy read. I definitely know more about screens than I anticipated going into this book. Since this is now my personal copy, if I need to, I can write in the margins more info when I use this to reference while modding. There is also an enjoyable short history of the Game Boy that was shown in a comic book style. I also liked the little stories of different peoples' experience with the Game Boy. It certainly brings some of that nostalgia like using the handheld for the first time and the joy that is felt while playing. What I would like this to become is a Game Boy Modding series. This is described as a beginner manual, but maybe an intermediate or advanced would have the later consoles or more complicated modding.
Do I recommend this? Well, yes if it's for the right person. This book is just right for my needs as a casual gamer and collector. It might be too lacking for someone who has more experience with modding themselves or who plans to do extensive modding as a business.
I consider reading one of my main hobbies, but another hobby of mine is gaming. Quick storytime - my first interaction with a Game Boy was actually in a dentist office. There was a basket of toys for kids waiting to get their teeth cleaned and I came across the original DMG and got to play Kirby's Dreamland every time I went. It's a fond memory and, honestly, it made going to the dentist as a kid a lot less scary. I finally got my own handheld when the Game Boy Advance (in that clear purplish "glacier" color) came in my Christmas stocking one year. Sadly, I had to sell it and my little game collection for far too little money in order to make a rent payment when I moved out for the first time. Only recently am I financially stable enough to be able to slowly re-collect my childhood games and more. When I first started searching for original consoles, I realized that modding was a possibility. I found a DMG that I re-shelled myself in a pretty glow-green, but I have interest in doing more complicated mods. Enter: this book.
This is a super fun way to learn more about the innards of a few different kinds of Game Boys and what you can do to not only preserve your model, but to give it a few extra perks. This book mostly talks about screen fixing or modding which, to me, is super cool and useful for what I'd like to do, but I find there is more to be desired. This book touts itself as a beginner's guide, but doesn't go into too great of detail into the steps. There are soldering steps, but I don't think this is a great source if you don't already know how to solder. The pictures are also all in black and white, which didn't work for some of the steps, most notably altering the Game Boy Advance shell for an IPS screen. The shell was too dark to see where the cuts and alterations were made. There was also a lack of in-depth audio modding. The largest disappointment was that there wasn't any modding tips for the Game Boy Advance SP or Micro, yet there were modding tips for the Pokemon Mini consoles, which are hard to find and aren't cheap. My last nitpick is that there was also a little on game cartridges, such as how to tell apart fakes and how to clean them, but not how to change the battery or resources to back up saves.
So, why am I not giving this a lower rating? Well, it still does have pretty useful information and it's an easy read. I definitely know more about screens than I anticipated going into this book. Since this is now my personal copy, if I need to, I can write in the margins more info when I use this to reference while modding. There is also an enjoyable short history of the Game Boy that was shown in a comic book style. I also liked the little stories of different peoples' experience with the Game Boy. It certainly brings some of that nostalgia like using the handheld for the first time and the joy that is felt while playing. What I would like this to become is a Game Boy Modding series. This is described as a beginner manual, but maybe an intermediate or advanced would have the later consoles or more complicated modding.
Do I recommend this? Well, yes if it's for the right person. This book is just right for my needs as a casual gamer and collector. It might be too lacking for someone who has more experience with modding themselves or who plans to do extensive modding as a business.
July 5, 2020
By the time I'd cracked into this particular tome I'd already had a few Gameboy Mods under my belt, so I wasn't going in looking for guidance as much as out of intrigue to see how the modding topic is treated and to check out some of the culture stuff around the modding scene. While most of the technical information on how to perform the mods is available freely on youtube, this book is a nice little intro to the world of Gameboy mods and what you can do with them and I did pick up a couple little tips.
Right off the bat, I loved the presentation. The book is done in a sort of comic book style that oozes charm and effort. The photographs are also quite clear, which is good. I greatly enjoyed the short history of the Gameboy included in the first part of the book; I'm familiar with Gunpei Yokoi's input and design theories but I wasn't familiar with Satoru Okada and the essay brought his involvement into focus.
After the intro, the book jumps straight into modding and maintenance, and I was intrigued to see how the book would handle the multitude of mods available since new kits are coming out all the time. The author wisely takes a sort of general approach to each type of mod, showing the usual steps and things to look for and some mods have pretty universal installation procedures, though I'd recommend supplementing the book by looking up installation videos for whatever your specific mod kit. One thing I did feel was a bit of a glaring omission is that the book doesn't mention anything about replacing capacitors, which is one of the easiest and also most effective repairs you can do on old electronics. Bad capacitors are frequently the cause of weak sound and while a hot air gun to properly remove SMD electrolytic caps will run you about 60 bucks, the procedure is easy and wouldn't have taken more than a couple pages. The book also doesn't mention anything about sound modifications such as amplifiers, but I think this is a good choice on the author's part as they don't always mix easily with backlights and are comparatively immature compared to the screen kits out there.
After the modding section, the book rounds things off with a little bit about the collecting scene, and this was a really nice little rundown of things to look for. There are also some modder profiles to give you an idea of some of the names in the Gameboy scene which I enjoyed as well.
Overall, this fun guide might not exactly be essential for getting into mods and you will need to supplement it with some outside info, but I think there's value in having a broad swath of good beginner info collected into one place, as getting into things can be a little overwhelming. A lot of effort clearly went into the book and it shows you the types of things you can get into with your Gameboy. I really liked the style and would love to see this author tackle some kind of strictly culture focused book around the retro scene, he clearly has a good feel for the movement.
Right off the bat, I loved the presentation. The book is done in a sort of comic book style that oozes charm and effort. The photographs are also quite clear, which is good. I greatly enjoyed the short history of the Gameboy included in the first part of the book; I'm familiar with Gunpei Yokoi's input and design theories but I wasn't familiar with Satoru Okada and the essay brought his involvement into focus.
After the intro, the book jumps straight into modding and maintenance, and I was intrigued to see how the book would handle the multitude of mods available since new kits are coming out all the time. The author wisely takes a sort of general approach to each type of mod, showing the usual steps and things to look for and some mods have pretty universal installation procedures, though I'd recommend supplementing the book by looking up installation videos for whatever your specific mod kit. One thing I did feel was a bit of a glaring omission is that the book doesn't mention anything about replacing capacitors, which is one of the easiest and also most effective repairs you can do on old electronics. Bad capacitors are frequently the cause of weak sound and while a hot air gun to properly remove SMD electrolytic caps will run you about 60 bucks, the procedure is easy and wouldn't have taken more than a couple pages. The book also doesn't mention anything about sound modifications such as amplifiers, but I think this is a good choice on the author's part as they don't always mix easily with backlights and are comparatively immature compared to the screen kits out there.
After the modding section, the book rounds things off with a little bit about the collecting scene, and this was a really nice little rundown of things to look for. There are also some modder profiles to give you an idea of some of the names in the Gameboy scene which I enjoyed as well.
Overall, this fun guide might not exactly be essential for getting into mods and you will need to supplement it with some outside info, but I think there's value in having a broad swath of good beginner info collected into one place, as getting into things can be a little overwhelming. A lot of effort clearly went into the book and it shows you the types of things you can get into with your Gameboy. I really liked the style and would love to see this author tackle some kind of strictly culture focused book around the retro scene, he clearly has a good feel for the movement.
September 2, 2021
I have always wanted to get into Gameboy modding as it was a console, I still love to this day. Mainly due to Pokemon.
This book is so detailed and will probably help me as I am in experienced and a beginner.
If this is something your into, pick up this book.
This book is so detailed and will probably help me as I am in experienced and a beginner.
If this is something your into, pick up this book.
September 9, 2020
Nice intro to the process of repair and upgrading the various models.
March 10, 2022
To bad the pictures were in black and white, it made it hard sometime to understand what was what. I'm a big fan of the Game Boy of 1989/1990 (US/EU), so the last chapters were not as interesting for me, but I loved the anecdotes
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews