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2026ZapskiiRacing

GB Racer

A homebrew pseudo-3D racer for the original Game Boy: three tracks, two rivals plus traffic, hills, bends you can see coming, and 27 lap records saved to the cart.

GB Racer

GB Racer is an arcade road racer for the original Game Boy, written in C and hand-written SM83 assembly with GBDK-2020. A per-line HBlank routine rewrites the scroll and palette for every line of the road, so a flat background curves towards the horizon and climbs over hills. # Tracks and Modes Three tracks (OVAL, CANYON and ALPINE), three race lengths (3, 5 or 10 laps) and three difficulty levels. Difficulty changes the car as well as the rivals: the push out of a bend is 0.75x on EASY, 1x on NORMAL and 1.25x on HARD, and it grows every lap. Two rivals race you, with random traffic on the road. # Handling The car has weight: grip builds over a couple of frames, so it slides a moment after you let go. The brake beats the throttle, so you can hold A and tap B for a bend. A sign in the sky warns of a sharp bend and flashes when you are too fast for it. The road is drawn as two bends, the current one and the next, so a bend appears on the horizon and reaches the car before the car feels it. # Cartridge 128 KB MBC1 with 8 KB battery-backed RAM holding the best time for every track, length and level, plus a Super Game Boy border of a race circuit. [Play GB Racer in your browser](/play/gb-racer) or read our [GB Racer review](/blog/gb-racer-game-boy-review).

Video

Key Facts

media

128 KB MBC1 + battery RAM

source

github.com/Zapskii/GB-Racer

tracks

OVAL, CANYON, ALPINE

players

1

enhancements

Super Game Boy border

Related Articles

Game Reviews
GB Racer: Pseudo-3D Racing on the Original Game Boy

GB Racer: Pseudo-3D Racing on the Original Game Boy

Three tracks, two rivals, traffic, hills and a road that bends towards the horizon, on a Game Boy with no 3D hardware at all. GB Racer is a proper arcade racer in a 128 KB cart.

Zapski Retro
1 Nov 2026
5 min read