Game Boy Coding Adventure

3THE GAME BOY TOOLCHAIN

This chapter covers the basics of the RGBDS toolchain and the BGB emulator. You’ll start by writing a simple program that demonstrates some of the fundamental material introduced in the previous chapter.

Then, you’ll turn that program into a ROM with the RGBDS toolchain, an essential set of tools used for every program in this book. Finally, you’ll run that ROM in the BGB emulator, which you can use to test, debug, and inspect your running programs if you’re not using the actual hardware.

Writing a Game Boy Program

The first program you’ll write includes several concepts introduced in the previous chapter: assembly instructions, sections, and labels. I’ll explain each line here, and then we’ll inspect the execution in ...