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We reported previously on the work of coder Iván Delgado, who built a souped-up Game Boy Color that he christened the “GB Bridge,” in order to help him with his plans to port Game Boy DMG games to the GBA. However, in a series of posts on his X account, Delgado has revealed that, while he is indeed still working on his fan ports of Game Boy games for the GBA, such as the GBA port of Super Mario Land on which he is currently working, he will now be employing AI to help to create them.
Delgado explained that, “a few weeks ago, as an experiment, I used AI to automate the disassembly+rewrite of the game, ensuring frame-perfect accuracy,” and, as he puts it, he: “can’t even put into words how much this simplifies a port like this, but to me working on the GB Bridge version seems almost stupid now.”
He also stated that: “Most importantly, I can now focus on the parts I enjoy most: manually crafting the pixelart, adding enhancements, and ultimately realizing my vision.”
The use of generative AI is certainly something of a controversial hot potato in the world of video games (and in the creative industries in general) these days. As we reported previously, Sega received a not inconsiderable amount of opprobrium when it revealed that generative AI had been deployed in the production of its forthcoming (and much anticipated) Crazy Taxi: World Tour.
What are your thoughts on the use of generative AI? Is it more acceptable for nuts-and-bolts coding wok than it is for generating ideas? And is it more acceptable when used in non-profit fan projects rather than when used by a big corporation such as Sega? The technology is still so new that navigating the ethics around it can be something of minefield. We know that many in the creative and tech industries are taking a hardline “AI equals bad” stance, and while that’s a perfectly understandable position, Iván Delgado’s rationale for using AI in this Game Boy to GBA ports also seems logical. Here at RetroNews, we prefer to present you with the facts of each situation to let you decide fir yourself. But one thing we do know for sure is that AI isn’t going to be going away…
