Game Boy Competition 2025 Ranking

I’ve gotten really into Game Boy homebrew games this year, Runiestory, Goblin Dice and He Fucked the Girl Out of Me being me favourites, so I got excited when I saw the Game Boy Competition 2025 was happening. I haven’t played every entry but I gave a chance to 20 that caught my eye. There was definitely a range in quality but anyone who makes a game and releases it for free, just for the love of the craft is cool in my books. I really cherished my time with all of these games. That being said, let’s rank them from worst to best

20. Yasuke’s Vacation

This is the only game I played for the competition that I would call outright bad. It feels like it was more concerned with meeting the criteria for entering as many competitions as possible (Being entered into 3 different ones) rather than making a good game. I like the historical theming but that doesn’t amount to much when the game itself isn’t fun to play nor offers any interesting mechanics. The controls are slippery and the attacks are unresponsive. You’re supposed to be a fisherman but you feel more like a fish, flopping around for 10 minutes until the game is over

19. Peasant Republic

This doesn’t fare much better honestly… I feel like there is a fun deck builder RPG in here but it’s ruined by its difficulty curve. The first fight is easy, letting you get to grips with the game’s mechanics but then as soon as the second fight the training wheels are off. I just can’t get past the second battle. I must be missing something here but the game isn’t teaching me how to play it. I’m also not having enough fun to be motivated enough to keep smashing my head against the wall to learn the mechanics., especially with all these other games in the competition to get through

18. Neon Nova

This is more of a screensaver than an actual game. You just drive your car listening to some chip tune music. Well I say drive, really I mean steer left or right if you want to. I almost don’t want to count this but the art and music that is here goes really hard. You wouldn’t need much to make this a really fun game. The game’s description says that the dev has been thinking about turning this into a rhythm game and I think that would be great. Or an endless runner (driver). Just something to keep you occupied whilst you soak in these vibes

17. Game of Life Kuzushi

This one just confused me. It was very… nothing. It was a combination of Breakout and whatever Conway’s Game of Life is supposed to be… So I saw the title and thought it was referencing The Game of Life board game, one of my favourite board games. This game of life seems to be some confusing mathematical concept. Okay so this wasn’t what I was expecting but I’m not gonna write it off just based on that, so I try the game and it’s just Breakout but the pieces keep changing. This is just bad Breakout. I’m sorry but I’m going to have to move on

16. Luigi’s Mansion Gameboy Demake

I wasn’t a big fan of the original Luigi’s Mansion on the Gamecube when I played it as a kid. I’ve been meaning to give it another chance but I certainly didn’t expect the second chance to come in the form of a fan demake. Sadly I didn’t have much fun with this either. I just don’t think the combat is very satisfying here. There’s no audio feedback whatsoever so nothing you do feels impactful. You also have to get a lot closer to the enemies to suck them up then I’m really comfortable with so I ended up just walking into them a lot. There is a sound effect when you take damage so I ended up feeling frustrated when I got hit and feeling nothing at all when I attacked the ghosts. The area this demo gives you isn’t big enough for any real exploration so the combat is all the game really has to offer. That means the game wasn’t able to do much for me

15. Save Maurice

I got excited when I saw a mining game in the competition but Save Maurice didn’t quite scratch my yearning for the mines. You dig through the mines to find and save your uncle Maurice and that’s about it. You can collect lamps but there’s no reason to do so. You don’t get anything for collecting them, nor does it feel satisfying since they don’t even make a sound effect when you collect one. There’s no enemies or obstacles either… I suppose you can aim for a high score but that requires collecting as many lamps as possible, which as I’ve said doesn’t feel satisfying. You can try to beat the game as quickly as you can but that requires you to mash the A button until it falls off. The graphics and sound don’t exactly lend themselves to an atmospheric experience either. Honestly I’m just not really sure what the goal was here but at least it’s not frustrating

14. Ticket Check

I’m not too sure how I feel about this one. It’s super simple and short, only lasting a few minutes. You check people’s tickets on the train. I was hoping to be able to let people off even if they didn’t have a ticket. The train is going that way anyway and it’s nowhere close to being full. Instead I had to kill a bunch of ninjas(?) on the train. On the one hand I seriously don’t like this aesthetic. I feel like I’m a cop shooting down poor people. On the other hand I do think the combat is fun. That being said I think it’s just the default sword combat in GB Studio. I don’t actually know if this game was built in GB Studio but it feels like it does. Runiestory was built in GB Studio and it’s sword combat feels pretty identical to this. The difference being Runiestory had a lot more to it with it’s farming and relationships and dungeons. This is just checking a room to make sure everyone has bought a ticket and then in the next carriage you fight a room full of enemies, one boss and then the game is over. That boss isn’t very good either. He just unloads a bunch of bullets at you with no warning, that feel impossible to dodge. I beat him on my third attempt but it felt like luck honestly

13. The Elder Scrolls Travels: Morrowind

This is more of a proof of concept than an actual game but what is here I loved. You get to make your character and explore both the opening town of Seyda Neen and it’s largest city Vivec. I adore Morrowind and I actually lived in Vivec in my last playthrough so I had a great time soaking in the lovingly crafted pixel art and chip tunes recreations. Just getting to wander around for a little bit captures the relaxing energy that only the exploration in The Elder Scrolls has

12. Through the Woods and Back

This is an adorable little adventure game where you take the trek to your friend’s house for his birthday party! The art isn’t great or anything but it has a lot of heart to it and the music is surprisingly really catchy. They even make Happy Birthday to You into a bop! There’s not much to say about this game but it’s the sorta thing to brighten up a miserable day

11. Millennium Gun

This one is frustrating, both to play and to write about. Somehow this is the first game in the competition that I didn’t like but also the first one that I could see becoming a big indie hit. Millennium Gun starts off so strong. It’s a mix between Mega Man and Wario Land, two platformers that I love. When you fire your gun you get blasted in the opposite direction. The goal here is to master that mechanic to fly through the level as quickly as possible. Your health is also your time limit so you need to be zooming otherwise you won’t make it to the end of the level. This movement feels so satisfying once you get it right. I could totally see a platformer with movement mechanics like this becoming popular. The issue is the limitations of the Game Boy itself. The controls just don’t feel responsive enough for a game this fast and this challenging. The game’s punishing nature doesn’t help things here. There are no checkpoints so if you die (Which you will be doing a lot) you get sent back to the start of the level, even if you made it to the boss. Sadly unlike Mega Man the bosses aren’t great here. There’s just not enough conveyance as to whether you’re hurting the boss or whether you can jump or slam into them. Even worse the invincibility frames are wonky so enemies and hazards will just drain your health in an instant! It’s a cute aesthetic to have your health be money but it causes it to be very difficult to gauge how much health you have left. I wanted to love this game but I just don’t

10. Piranesian

Stuff like this is why I fell in love with Game Boy homebrew games in the first place. This is an adaptation of a novel. Well it might not strictly be an adaptation. The page’s description says that it is inspired by the novel Piranesi. Regardless, that’s just not the sort of thing you see a lot of in the games industry. As for the game itself, it’s fine… You solve puzzles to learn about Plato’s virtues. The puzzles are simple but satisfying. The exploration also never gets too overbearing. On it’s own this isn’t an amazing story or anything but it’s certainly the most interesting one in the competition and it has made me want to read Piranesi, which I imagine is the goal here

9. Sheep Split

This is a cute little game about herding sheep. It plays like that one mini game from Super Mario 64 DS where you separate red and black bob-ombs, except with cute little sheep. I don’t find the gameplay especially riveting but I can’t deny the great graphics and sound. This just fits the Game Boy so well. You could totally see this being released back in the 90s. I could imagine myself heading back to this every so often if I just need something to do for a few minutes. Perfect pick up and go arcadey fun

8. Cosmoctopus

This is another little arcade style game that I don’t really have much to say about. You’re just the titular Cosmoctopus and you fall from the sky and dodgy obstacles. I don’t think the game has an ending, I just kept going until I died. That level of mystery suits this game though considering how odd it is. The art and music are nonsensical but they’re both fantastic! I was never really sure what was going on when I played this but I was sure that I was having fun

7. Game Boy Hero II

This is one of the most technically impressive games in the whole collection. Guitar Hero and the rock music that accompanies it isn’t really my thing but I can’t deny how cool this game is. It has it’s own detailed custom sprite traces of photos of the band. Loving chip tune renditions of 19 different songs. There’s multiple game modes! Sitting alongside tech demos this is so fully featured. All that being said I just don’t especially like playing it. There’s no feedback when you hit or miss a note which makes the rhythm gameplay unsatisfying. To be fair with how much that is already going on I think that would be impossible for the Game Boy to handle but I’m looking at these game as how they are, not how they could be on stronger hardware. I’m sure any Guitar Hero fan or rock enthusiast would marvel at how impressive this game is but it’s not for me

6. Good Luck Baby

This sprite work is amazing and it is used for maximum cuteness. I love the Panda so much! As for what this game actually is, it’s a job simulator where you have to sell people train tickets and check their IDs. This is essentially what I was hoping for from Ticket Check. You can let people off with their expired IDs (Or just not notice they’re expired like I did). It’s got a really good balance of realistic work stress and cute aesthetics. I love cozy realist games like this. This sort of game has been done before, I’d be surprised if Papers, Please wasn’t an inspiration but this game crafts it’s own identity. Not just through how impressive the sprite work is for the Game Boy but through it’s cutesy aesthetic that is as far from Papers, Please as you can get. All that being said, the game gets a little too much for me. I just get confused having to remember so much information and I find it more frustrating than fun. The game is great though. It’s just a me thing

5. Dragonslayer

This boils the RPG fundamentals down to a satisfying core. The world is big, open and liberating. You get to explore, kill stuff and get stronger. All backed by catchy music and punchy sound effects (Although I think the sound comes from a premade package since a lot of the music is the same as Runiestory). The game even comes with a manual which is a nice touch. As for issues the game doesn’t do a great job of pointing you in the right direction, or any direction really, at the start. I found myself getting lost and killed even after reading said manual, although I suppose discovering everything for yourself is part of the fun. The mechanics are also made less satisfying than they could be by the limited UI. There’s no way to see your health unless you’re in battle and no way to see your level whatsoever. That being said, this is a great way to get a little RPG fix

4. Pocket Aquarium

This was super cute. It’s a pet sim/mini game collection where you play games with your fish. The games fluctuate in quality a bit but they’re all very cute and enjoyable. The Clownfish game has him performing an act at the circus and you need to press the buttons that appear on screen fast enough to help him juggle his clown balls. It’s simple like all of the minigames but engaging. The Blue Tang has you play hide and seek with her which is a little too simplistic but it’s still cute. Things start getting crazy with the Angelfish where you play a top down shooter. The final two fish are nocturnal so you can only play with them at nighttime, which is a nice touch. The Seahorse races in the Seahorse Derby which is cute and even a little challenging, as you have to time your cheers to give your fishy friend a boost at pivotal spots in the race. The final fish and minigame is the Pufferfish who you have to help platform through his pilgrimage. Unfortunately the game ends on a low note since this is the only minigame I didn’t enjoy. He just controls way too slippery, making the platforming where you die in just one hit too frustrating. The game also doesn’t really end. You just play the minigames to earn enough money to buy food for your fish and more fish to play more minigames. When you’ve played all of them you just kinda stop because there’s nothing else to do. A little congratulations cutscene when you’ve beaten all the minigames would have been a nice send off

3. God Destroyer 2

Metroidvania usually isn’t my genre. I just can’t stand the feeling of being lost and directionless even if for many that is the appeal of the genre. I still wanted to give this game a go though. It looked like it had a cool aesthetic and usually homebrew Game Boy games are small enough to stop games like this from getting too confusing for me. I’m not a fan of Zeldalikes for the same reasons but earlier this year I played Spooky House and still really enjoyed myself so I was hoping for a similar experience here. I ended up getting exactly what I wanted. This game does have a cool aesthetic. It is just Evangelion on the Game Boy but I love Evangelion and I doubt there’s anywhere else you can get an Eva metroidvania on the Game Boy. I loved how the mecha felt to control. It’s big and weighty and destructive. Getting to freely cycle between different weapon types with unlimited ammo made killing enemies feel great even if there wasn’t any real mechanical benefit to doing so. You do get money but the only things you can buy with that money are concept art and skins. The game definitely gets less fun when you have to leave the mech but I still enjoyed myself the whole time. The final boss being a genuinely tricky space shooter was very exciting. The exploration never became overbearing and this game just has a strong game feel

2. Zoryad

After God Destroyer 2 I wanted to give another Metroidvania a go. Zoryad was even better! It’s the most fully featured game in the competition, even more so than Game Boy Hero II. It technically isn’t finished, abruptly ending with a to be continued but it still took me multiple hours to beat whereas a lot of these games didn’t even take 15 minutes. It’s incredible how with just the Game Boy graphics and sound the dev was able to craft a genuinely strong atmosphere. He even uses the gameplay to help build that atmosphere and suspense! You die in one hit and move relatively slowly so you’re encouraged to scope out the enemies to see their movement patterns before you traverse through the screen. This is true of the bosses as well, where the dominant strategy is to begin by dodging their attacks and learning their patterns before going on the offensive yourself. It really makes you feel like you’re exploring an uncharted planet. So far I’m taking this sound like Metroid lite but something that differentiates this game from the inspiration it wears on its sleeves is the focus on platforming. For most of the game you don’t even have an attack. You just run past the enemies. This kinda feels like the opposite of Millenium Gun. That game was super ambitious, overly so for the system but this game tweaks the fundamentals to perfection. The graphics, sound and control are all perfect, my only complaint is the lack of an in-game map. For the majority of the game I was fine but by the end I knew where I wanted to go just not how to get there and I kept stumbling into areas I didn’t mean to revisit, which got frustrating. That being said the dev already has plans to include a map in an update and has shared a screenshot of it on the game page so make sure you take a look at that unlike me who didn’t realise it was there until after I finished the game

Mount Crymore

There aren’t many climbing games out there. There’s Grow Home and the Uncharted series but there’s still so much untapped potential here. Mount Crymore is the only 2D rock climbing game I’ve ever seen but more than that it’s the best game in the 2025 Game Boy Competition by far. I have to admit I’m a little biased. I did a bit of rock climbing myself back at uni so I definitely get a dopamine rush seeing the little coloured holds. This game captures the feeling of rock climbing though. It does this through its difficulty curve strangely enough. Obviously there’s the aspect of skill mastery as you keep at it. At first you’re not very good, you overshoot or undershoot a lot but as you keep practicing you gain confidence. Moreso than that is how the later levels condition you to play. The enemies become a lot more invasive in the second half and I found that the best way to deal with them is to quickly dart through the levels to get past them before they even have a chance to attack. The same is true of rock climbing in a lot of instances. It’s best to just trust your gut and go for it before your mind gets a chance to overthink. So yeah this is a really great rock climbing game but it’s also a great platformer with easy to grasp controls, gorgeous art and music and a really satisfying game feel

If you want to play any of these games (especially Mount Crymore) check them out using the links below

References:

Runiestory (GB, 2023)

Goblin Dice (GB, 2024)

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me (GB, 2022)

Yasuke’s Vacation (GB, 2025)

Peasant Republic (GB, 2025)

Neon Nova (GB, 2025)

Game of Life Kuzushi (GB, 2025)

Breakout (Arcade, 1976)

The Game of Life (1860)

Luigi’s Mansion Gameboy Demake (GB, 2025)