KaiBoy - Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulator for KaiOS

[Luxferre]

Ladies and gentlemen,

As a New Year present, let me introduce the very first version of another emulator which is already far more functional than Kava.

This is KaiBoy, probably the first Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulator port for KaiOS.

It's a port of GameBoyCore engine for Firefox OS (which in turn was a port of jsGB engine) with KaiOS look-and-feel UI.

What works in version 0.0.1:

- ROMs are launchable and playable (didn't test much of them though).

What doesn't work yet (and why):

- Sound: the GameBoyCore engine relies on XAudioServer library which in turn relies on Flash (have to revamp sound output altogether);

- In-game save files: all functionality is there but have yet to hook it up with the UI;

- Emulation save states and machine pause: same thing;

- JioPhone 2 and other landscape-oriented KaiOS device support is rudimentary (keys are remapped but UI is not adapted).

Default controls for portrait layout (8110 4G and other non-QWERTY phones) are:

- D-Pad
- Start: Soft Right key
- Select: Soft Left key
- A: 9
- B: 8

Default controls for landscape layout are:

- D-Pad: W,A,S,D
- Start: Soft Middle key (Enter on desktop)
- Select: Q
- A: L
- B: K

Download KaiBoy 0.0.1 here: https://cloud.disroot.org/s/SoeH2ESCNaZLyDe

Further version updates will be announced in the same thread.

[Ivan]

Added to B-Hackers Store and notificated the news ;)

GREAT JOB!!!

[Ivan]

Thank you! There were months I try to play Super Mario xD

[Luxferre]

By the way, Up key is duplicated with D-Pad middle key because sometimes Up is hard to hit on 8110 in the middle of the game fast.

[Luxferre]

Thanks, and I also am not going to abandon this because I need to run Little Sound Dj and nanoloop on it, and they both require sound and save-states. :)

[Ivan]

Why thanks? You are the genious...all I can do is only let it know around ;)

You as Sylvain, Speeduploop and all the fantastic people involved in the BananaHackers Forum projects

Is me that must say thank you!

[Three]

@Luxferre, you are the KaiKing!

[Luxferre]

Version updated to 0.0.2: https://cloud.disroot.org/s/XCaj43paPHzPaKi/download

What's new:

- Sound! A bit laggy in the real device though. On the ROM start, the app now prompts to run it with sound or without.

- Machine pause/resume function hooked onto Call button.

Enjoy!

P.S. Ivan, could you please update the version in your store to this?

[Luxferre]

Version updated to 0.0.3: https://cloud.disroot.org/s/WFAaZRz3sGpLejn/download

Now we can use game save states! 3 slots per game are supported (via localStorage mechanism).

State control keys:

1, 2, 3 - save to slots 1/2/3

4, 5, 6 - load from slots 1/2/3

7 - delete the save states altogether for all games.

All state operations have pop up windows to confirm, so no accidental save/load/clear will occur.

Enjoy!

[Ivan]

great! i'll upload this at home this evening

[Peter Knight]

Hi

excellent emulator is there anyway we can get it full screen

not complaining i am loving it so far

thank you

[Luxferre]

Hi Peter, 

The original GB/GBC resolution is 160x144. It's kinda weird to even upscale it to 240x216 (which I had do do here) but how would it look at  267x240 (if upscaled to fullscreen, rotated right 90 degrees and centered) - it's scary to imagine. But what's even scarier is having to remap the controls for landscape layout, and let me tell you that it's a bit inconvenient on the 8110 in particular (border on one side, slider on another one). When I tried to emulate NES here I considered no options except this landscape layout you're proposing. So it is doable anyway but not on the short-term goal. Probably for version 0.1.0 or something like that.

[Peter Knight]

No worries mate

You are a star in my books I'm loving it
Thanks so much
Did you say you may do a NES

Any way thanks for taking me back

I love retro

It's great mate

[Luxferre]

Unfortunately, I'm not sure about NES. All NES engines I tried to port so far are too laggy on 8110, even without sound. I'm not sure why Z80 is easier to emulate than 6502.

For the next (0.0.4) update, I'll just try to make it handle the End key so that it doesn't exit without prompt or saving on accidental press, and then I'll also try to improve audio performance (it's quite essential for my eventual purposes like running LittleSoundDj).

[speeduploop]

Please... we shouldn't talk about ROMs (just google them) --> don't give anyone a reason to shut us down...

[Peter Knight]

Hi

mate how is the j2me emulator
coming along

Pete

[eram jan]

Ggg

On 1/4/19, 'Peter Knight' via comp.mobile.nokia.8110

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[Luxferre]

Updated to version 0.0.4: https://cloud.disroot.org/s/BKso5zfPMnfwKA4/download

Now displaying a confirmation window on Back key press do avoid accidental in-game exit.

[Hossain Mohammed Shoaib]

Thanks for giving us all.  

On Sun, Jan 6, 2019 at 11:58 PM Hossain Mohammed Shoaib <hossainmoha...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks giving us all.

On Sun, Jan 6, 2019 at 11:57 PM Luxferre <subor...@gmail.com> wrote:

Updated to version 0.0.4: https://cloud.disroot.org/s/BKso5zfPMnfwKA4/download

Now displaying a confirmation window on Back key press do avoid accidental in-game exit.

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[Sylvain D]

Thanks Luxferre!

I can already play a light version of nanoloop with your kaiboy!

Hope you can manage a nice version without sound glitches in the near future.

You're doing the best work!

[Luxferre]

Thanks, nice to see someone using it for apps!

Yep, my primary goal is to run LittleSoundDj and Operation C, so I have to get rid of the sound glitches somehow. :)

[Luxferre]

Thanks, nice to see someone using it for apps!

Yep, my primary goal is to run LittleSoundDj and Operation C, so I have to get rid of the sound glitches somehow. :)

On Sunday, January 6, 2019 at 10:53:30 PM UTC+2, Sylvain D wrote:

[Dhruv Sharma]

Hi,

Just wondering if it is possible to make a GBA emulator?

Thanks

[czbonfire]

Wow, thanks!!! My old love Pokémon Crystal works like a charm! But.... cannot save :'( 

(NS_ERROR_DOM_QUOTA_REACHED: Persistent storage maximum size reached). Maybe saving onto SD will be better?

Dne úterý 1. ledna 2019 16:08:37 UTC+1 Luxferre napsal(a):

[Lux Ferre]

Yep, it will be better. Next major version (0.0.5) will have this ability. But I cannot promise any estimates on it.

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[Jashan Grover]

bro thanx for such a best app.
this is the only app which loved most after rooting my jio phone .
waiting for next version !!!!

#can u make an offline archiver n extractor ?

[Bernardo Teixeira]

Hey there! Any news on the next kaiboy update? I keep getting the "NS_ERROR_DOM_QUOTA_REACHED" error...
Amazing job on the app thought! 

[Veera B]

this application cant scan files

[Veera B]

Anything that I can to try to scan the files

[Luxferre]

Finally announcing a new version. Instead of moving to 0.0.5, it jumped straight to the 0.1.0. :)

Download here: https://cloud.disroot.org/s/MnbdijaqXgnjKz2

Changes:

1. Finally saving the slots on the SD card instead of localStorage. I mean, not strictly on the SD card, but on the storage type you selected in system settings as primary. So, now, your primary MTP storage will contain the "kaiboy-saves" directory in its root. And also, the key 7 functionality to delete all saves of all games was removed, because now you can delete the slots from this "kaiboy-saves" directory in any way you need.

2. Audio output was optimized quite a bit (at least as far as I could get for now) along with frame scheduling. Still may have some hiccups, especially after loading the state (so don't try repeated loads too fast, or this may lead to engine crash) but general performance is now much better than it was.

[Luxferre]

(SHA256: d8cdcc11a8c40569b5d23d49c5aab7c9492e27d8f89cdb5cbbb95bb246f78c5f)

[Addictive EDM]

Hello Luxferre! Can you research to play GBA games on KaiBoy (GameBoy Simulator)?  I hope the new update will be released soon. Thank you very much, Luxferre!! Have a nice day!!

[F90m]

Please give me super mario game download url

[Fan of G.K]

On Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 9:23:43 PM UTC+5:30, F90m wrote:
> Please give me super mario game download url

Find your favorite 👌 .gbc games from here 👉 https://romsmode.com/roms/gameboy-color

[Matthew]

Thanks for the work on this,

There is a bug where if you back out of "run with sound", "exit Kaiboy?", "save" or "load" dialogue with backspace instead of softkeys it will crash or stay paused leaving you unable to exit.

I've managed to add volume control and change the controls so soft keys are a and b for one hand use (useless for games like mario, can't run and jump at same time, great for games like pokemon, can play with one thumb).

I am also trying to get it to work as a wrapper for a single rom like you can with Kava, any advise on how to accomplish this?

[Stefan Nissens]

Hi and thanks for amazing work!

One question though: when playing games with built-in game clock (e.g. Pokemon Gold), I noticed it's permanently stuck on the hour I set it for the first time.

So, as an effect, I'm having always 0:05 AM.

This is not critical, I just wonder what might have caused this.

[Stefan Nissens]

I fiddled with this issue again. It turns out that's it is not the clock that is not working, it's the save game feature. Saving through states works OK, but the game does not recognise if I choose a "save" option from menu and is unable to read it on initialisation.

So, in-game clock shows progress, but to the game code it's like I never saved a game.

Does anybody have an idea how to fix this?

[chabad360]

If anyone is to play games at a slightly faster speed, pressing a D-Pad key and one of the save state buttons at the same time (you don't actually have to save), seems to introduce a significant speed up.

[Luxferre]

The underlying GBC engine might not support this at all. I'll look into this sometime ahead.

[Teach down]

If kaiboy having a function like cheat entering for games like pokemon series then it will become more user friendly. I hope the fuction of cheating will be possible to port in kaiboy. Gameshark, codebreaker is example of the cheats that accepts pokemon series gbc rom.

[Dylan murzello]

How about running the application in full screen?

[Karim Maksoud]

I love Kaiboy (it works great!) but the sound does not seem to be working on my Energizer Energy E241s, Kaios 2.5.1.1. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, is there a fix?

Thanks!

[Cleridwen]

This is quite an amazing little emulator :D it might be somewhat basic in customizability and features, but it runs well on my 2720, and it's already pretty amazing to be able to play gb/gbc games on a Nokia flip phone, with little to no bugs and issues. Despite owning an actual smartphone, my fingers would always find their way to the physical buttons of the little phone I can so easily carry in any pocket, leave idle without worries, and just whip out any time for a bit of Tetris DX, or some occasional Zelda or Pokémon.

The thing is, I finally got myself a dedicated handheld emulator (Anbernic RG280V), and, not being able to transfer my progress, high scores and lifetime stats from many hours of playing those games (180k total lines cleared on Tetris), I'm left a little torn apart between using this new comfortable device with a better screen and buttons that don't hurt my fingers after more than 10 minutes (and which doesn't bug out and lock inputs if I press 3 or more buttons at once), and the little phone with all my progress stuck on it. 

I wish there was a way to somehow convert the save state files this emulator uses, to something more universally readable (or at least readable by Gambatte). I'm guessing the next step for me is to try to make sense of the original GameBoyCore.js to see what gets dumped into a save state and hopefully how to retrieve it, but this is all quite challenging, so, if anyone happens to have any hint towards reaching that goal, that would be very much appreciated!! :)

Cheers and thanks to penserbjorne and Luxferre for even making these experiences possible in the first place.