Can you think of your favorite cutscene from a Game Boy game? Maybe the cutscene that comes to mind involves a hero being struck by lightning on a raft, or two pocket-sized friends about to go in for a tackle like the defensive line in the last quarter of the Super Bowl.

Whatever your favorite cutscene may be, wouldn’t you love to know the development workflow for such a cutscene? And wouldn’t it be nice to add a cutscene to your own game that could inspire so much imagination?

Recently I was wishing for some insight into the thought process behind those iconic cutscenes since I planned to participate in the Game Boy Showdown 2025 Game Jam. This year the game jam was all about making a cutscene and moreover, the jam was only going to last one week. In this article I hope to share with you my experience participating in the game jam, as well as my thought process for brainstorming and developing a cutscene with the Game Boy’s limitations.

Is There Anything I Can Do Before the Jam Starts?

Before the jam even started I did my best to identify any areas that would need the help of another. Not one second into this train of thought, I knew there was one major area I had absolutely no way of completing: Music & SFX. If left to my own devices the noise in my cutscene would sound more like I had dropped my Game Boy down a flight of stairs than it would sound like any sort of composition.

With that problem identified, a few weeks before the jam started I reached out to Beatscribe. I knew we worked well together because he had saved my poor music abilities in the past with the soundtrack to our game “a cat & his boy.” Thankfully since I reached out early enough he was available to assist.

Since we can’t start before the jam, all we can do is wait – right? Well, there are at least two other things I can do before we start. The first is quite simple: make an action plan to buy out some free time in my schedule to ensure I have all my family, work, and other priorities reasonably settled. This allows me to theoretically have at least a couple hours free to work on the cutscene.

The second task I can do is research. I spent some time before the Jam started to analyze some standout Game Boy cutscenes from the past. In a future article, I will show you an example of how I conduct my research. Besides those items, all we can do is wait for the jam to begin and for the theme to be revealed, which will provide us with a prompt as a jumping off point.

Ready… Set… Jam?

Participating in a game jam is like what I imagine a runner feels when beginning a marathon. I did everything I could to prepare for this moment, there is no more stretching or training I can do at this time, the jam has begun!

To our surprise, there was no theme for the jam this year. We had total freedom as long as it was a cutscene playable on the Game Boy with a runtime of 60 seconds or less. So, what should we make? I think a lot of us Game Boy devs like restrictions; I mean we develop games for a piece of hardware that has many limitations. Some of those limitations are the best things about the console! Without a theme this changes everything. This led me to spending the first day of the jam a little lost by the infinite possibilities. However the next day brought new thoughts and I decided to just start drawing on some storyboard printouts I had on my desk in preparation for the jam. One of the pages I drew looked feasible in comparison to the amount of free time I anticipated to have. Here is what it looked like:

I sent this rough sketch to Beatscribe and after we exchanged some ideas and inspirations for the cutscene, we began to work on our tasks to make this animation an 8-bit reality!

Inspirations, Innovations & Iterations

From a development standpoint, I initially set out to create all the art quickly, which to me means in a relatively traditional pixel art style that you would expect to see on the Game Boy. My planning and workflow resembled more of a sculptor than a deliberate architect. So I shaped out large, blocky pixel shapes, and laid out my framework ready to chisel away like a freeform game of Picross.

From there I created a few assets. Although after some time I began to view them through a more critical eye. There was nothing inherently wrong with any of it at a glance, but for myself, coming from more of an arts & crafts background rather than a programming one, I wasn’t happy with the artistic direction so far. Sometimes games emulate the classic look of the Game Boy, and that is good, but in this case I wanted the art to stand out. Game jams are a fantastic chance to try something bold since you will get immediate feedback if others like the style or not.

At this point, I was starting to feel unmotivated to even participate in the jam since I hadn’t really made any solid progress because of other important responsibilities. The clock was already ticking. We only had about 3 days left in the jam, but realistically, even less since I had a lot going on at my day job. I took a breath and tried to create a problem list.

My problems:

• Limited time remaining.
• Not happy with the art style.
• Need a lot more art made.
• Need to animate everything.

When I am having problems creatively, I like to think about this really fantastic bit of advice:

“A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.” –Shigeru Miyamoto

Is there any solution I can think of to solve two or even three of these problems at once? Let’s go back to the initial idea. The main character is a small toy knight made up of scraps of fabric, who uses a needle as a sword, has a thimble for a helmet, and a button as a shield. I got it! The inspiration was right there all along. The art needs to look like it is stitched together pieces of felt. That is an art style I love, but also it will be quicker to make this style of pixel art since it doesn’t require as much shading or dithering. The emphasis of the style is on stitchwork, not shadows and lighting. This solution will help tick the box on all of my remaining problems.

I sent a build of the cutscene to Beatscribe, and one of the brilliant ideas he had was to use the Set Music Routine function to create a synergy between the programming, the art, and the music. This is one of those huge benefits of collaborating, I would have never used this amazing aspect of GB Studio if he didn’t recommend it. Since we agreed we wanted this synchronized feel, he would need a clearer idea of the timing of the animations for him to begin composing the music. So I rolled up my sleeves and made a few iterations of the cutscene in a rough form.

With all of that in place, the rest was iteration. The last 10 percent of the project felt like more work than the first 90: adjusting timing, rearranging scenes and pushing pixels. Then before we knew it, time was up. We submitted our jam entry 2 hours early. What a relief! We made it in time. But even better, we made something we could be really proud of. Something artistically unique and original to things we are inspired by. Now all that was left was to see if anyone else felt the same way. The judging portion of the competition began!

What was the result?

To be honest, I wrote all of this before knowing what the result of the jam would be, because when I entered the jam it wasn’t about winning or losing but about growing as a game dev. I loved seeing what everyone else made! I can’t find it in myself to be competitive with other developers because what we make is all so different, there really is no comparison for me. I loved the other entries from this jam and had a huge smile watching them, knowing everyone worked so hard! The only thing I can compare this cutscene we made with is my previous work. So how does it compare? I would say it is a personal best so far, and I hope all the other people who participated feel the same way about their work. If you would like to see the final form of the cutscene along with the amazing music, please check it out along with all of the other Game Boy Showdown Game Jam entries: https://itch.io/jam/game-boy-showdown-2025/entries

Editor’s Note:
This article was submitted by Howdy Riceball. We’ll be updating the article with a proper author bio once we get that built!