---
title: "Mara: Sh0rk of Justice: Version 1.0.0 Released"
date: 2020-12-28
tags:
 - gameboy
 - gbstudio
 - indiedev
---

# Mara: Sh0rk of Justice: Version 1.0.0 Released

Over the long weekend I found out about a program called [GB Studio](https://www.gbstudio.dev).
It's a simple drag-and-drop interface that you can use to make homebrew games for the
[Nintendo Game Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy). I was intrigued and I had
some time, so I set out to make a little top-down adventure game. After a few days of
tinkering I came up with an idea and created Mara: Sh0rk of Justice.

[You made a game about me? :D](conversation://Mara/hacker)

> Guide Mara through the spooky dungeon in order to find all of its secrets. Seek out
> the secrets of the spooks! Defeat the evil mage! Solve the puzzles! Find the items 
> of power! It's up you to save us all, Mara!

You can play it in an `<iframe>` on itch.io!

<iframe frameborder="0" src="https://itch.io/embed/866982?dark=true" width="552" height="167"><a href="https://withinstudios.itch.io/mara-sh0rk-justice">Mara: Sh0rk of Justice by Within</a></iframe>

## Things I Learned

Game development is hard. Even with tools that help you do it, there's a limit to how
much you can get done at once. Everything links together. You really need to test
things both in isolation and as a cohesive whole.

I cannot compose music to save my life. I used free-to-use music assets from the
[GB Studio Community Assets](https://github.com/DeerTears/GB-Studio-Community-Assets)
pack to make this game. I think I managed to get everything acceptable.

GB Studio is rather inflexible. It feels like it's there to really help you get
started from a template. Even though you can make the whole game from inside GB
Studio, I probably should have ejected the engine to source code so I could
customize some things like the jump button being weird in platforming sections.

Pixel art is an art of its own. I used a lot of free to use assets from itch.io for
the tileset and a few NPC's. The rest was created myself using
[Aseprite](https://www.aseprite.org). Getting Mara's walking animation to a point
that I thought was acceptable was a chore. I found a nice compromise though.

---

Overall I'm happy with the result as a whole. Try it out, see how you like it and
please do let me know what I can improve on for the future.
