Source: https://discord.com/channels/554713715442712616/591302255102132226
Scant details are available at the moment, but there’s been activity on the GB Studio GitHub regarding development and bugs for an upcoming 3.0 release of GB Studio, a popular game creation tool for the Game Boy.
It should be noted that GB Studio 2.0 has endured a lengthy beta period and it seems that might continue. The last stable version of GB Studio was 1.2.1, released almost a year and half ago in January 2020.
A brief message posted to the #faqs channel of the GB Studio Discord announcing the development of 3.0 notes that it’s currently unstable and there’s no timeframe for release. However, it also gives instructions on compiling GB Studio 3.0 from source code yourself if you’re interested enough, as well as the proper way to report bugs you encounter while using it.
GB Studio 3.0 is under development. Right now, it’s unstable and not suitable to develop with. We’ll post in #announcements when you can start testing it.
When is 3.0 beta coming out?
3.0 is made by volunteers, there cannot be a reliable release date.How do I get 3.0? Some people seem to be using it already.
Visit https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues/244#issuecomment-511568971 for a guide to compiling the source code.How do I report 3.0 bugs?
pautomas on the GB Studio Discord
Open an issue on GitHub here: https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/issues/new?assignees=&labels=bug&template=bug_report.md&title=(3.0) Please keep (3.0) in the title.
How exactly 3.0 differs from 2.0, and why the decision was made to jump to another major version, have yet to be formally revealed. However, it points to some serious under-the-hood work likely designed to make GB Studio more flexible in game creation and/or easier to develop updates for. Furthermore, a video posted by the creator of GB Studio, Chris Maltby, this past January teased a bevy of features enabled by a “completely rewritten game engine.”
Did work on the new engine balloon to the point it made more sense to debut it in a major new release? The new features in Maltby’s video (above) are impressive, especially the new integrated music tracker.
GB Studio 2.0 has been highly anticipated, packing in frequently-requested features such as full color support, platforming and other genres available as gameplay options, and the ability to save, among other things. Anecdotally, it seems most developers have already moved on to 2.0 for development of their games despite it still being labeled as beta software.
Hopefully this means 2.0 can graduate to the stable channel soon, as development on 3.0 heats up. 🔥
Andrew
GameBoy.blog 