u/Urist_McDev

Eggbound is a monster-collecting RPG in development for the original Nintendo Game Boy, inspired by classic games like Dragon Quest Monsters. I'm building it with a love for the genre and a focus on capturing that old-school handheld RPG feeling.

Eggbound is currently in active development, in the pre-production-to-production stage, moving toward a Kickstarter-funded completion and polish phase.

Eggbound explores a world where humans tame monsters and force them into submission, using them as tools for protection and survival. You play as a child who begins to discover that there may be another way to coexist with monsters. At its heart, Eggbound is about the bond between humans and monsters, and questioning whether strength has to come from control.

Game Features

- 80+ Unique Monsters: Discover and recruit a hand-crafted roster of strange, memorable creatures.

- Classic Turn-Based Battles: Build your party, develop your monsters, and master a strategic combat system.

- Procedurally Generated Dungeons: Explore dungeons with layouts that change based on the songs you play.

- A World of Secrets: Discover mysterious tablets, forgotten places, and the secrets behind the world's monsters.

- Party Building and Progression: Learn new skills, manage your resources, and prepare your team for increasingly dangerous challenges.

- Authentic Game Boy Style: Designed around the original Game Boy's visual limitations, with chunky sprites, a limited palette, and a distinctly retro RPG atmosphere.

Eggbound is a passion project made by people who genuinely love classic monster-collecting RPGs. The goal is to create something that feels like a lost Game Boy adventure: familiar in spirit, but with its own world, creatures, and ideas.

I'm excited to share more of the project as development continues!

I am organizing a Kickstarter campaign so anyone who may be interested should stay tuned!

I've been quietly working on a project called Eggbound, a monster collecting RPG built in GB Studio and designed to run on the original Game Boy, with minor palette support on the Game Boy Color.

One of my biggest inspirations is Dragon Warrior Monsters. I've always loved its sense of adventure, monster collecting, and strategic battles, and I'm aiming to capture that same feeling while creating an entirely original world, monsters, and gameplay experience.

Rather than pushing the hardware beyond its limits, I'm embracing them. My goal is to make a game that feels like it could have been discovered on a store shelf in the late '90s.

Some of the design goals include:

- Built for original DMG hardware.

- Monster collecting with original creatures.

- Strategic turn-based battles inspired by the feel of Dragon Warrior Monsters.

- Authentic Game Boy visuals and sound.

- Physical cartridge release planned.

- All artwork and music is being created by human artists.

Development is still ongoing, but I'm excited to start sharing progress with the community.

The video shows the basic attack system (on loop). It would be the "FIGHT" option from the main battle menu. Monsters use basic attacks (no skills) when selected without any targeting selection from the player.

The battle system uses SPD to determine the attacking order. I then use a bubble sorting script that loops 5 times in order to sort the monsters into the proper turn order. There's over 720 possible combinations for a 3v3 battle.

Don't mind all the dialogue text, it's just telling me what's happening with each step so I can make sure everything is in working order.

Right now they are just set to target the first monster from the opposing team that has >0HP.

It was a beast of a system to create, so I'm pretty happy with it. It scales down according to which monsters remain in battle.

Adding in the manual targeting system for each party monster should be a bit easier.

I hope you guys are ready for Eggbound, because it's coming!

I've got the base for the battle system implemented and have been running around in game testing it out. It feels good to have something playable after working on the individual systems, now it's just about connecting them all.

I'm currently working on the system to include 3v3 battles, and then I'll have a fairly decent tech demo to show off some of the games features!

I'm looking forward to having something that's playable as opposed to testing out various systems individually.

Progress is progressing!

For anyone who isn't aware of my project, it's a monster collecting RPG being made for the original Gameboy (with palette support for the Gameboy Color). It's heavily inspired by Dragon Warrior Monsters.

Thought I'd show a bit more. This video shows off the screen scrolling mechanic as well as the capture/recruit mechanic - which is using button input to copy a randomly generated sequence of characters to play a song for the monster in order to convince them to join your party.

The capture mechanic occurs in a similar manner as dragon warrior monsters. After a battle, there's a chance a monster will stick around. This chance can be increased by offering the monsters items in battle.

I'm just finishing the skeleton for the battle system before adding in skills, but once that's done I'll have a playable demo for testing !

The game is being created for the Nintendo Gameboy (DMG), with light palette support for the GBC. I'm hoping to launch a Kickstarter when this project is finished in order to raise some funding for an expanded, GBC only iteration.

Having that background moving during the battle scene sure does look pretty slick. I think these new tiles also add a layer of depth that was lacking previously.

I'm starting to fight with some of the limitations with the DMG - I really wanted the first iteration of this monster collecting RPG to be compatible with the DMG while having light palette support for the GBC. But if it starts to affect my ability to create, I may have to abandon that idea.

I'm currently working on managing all the heavy text during the battle scene, the dialogue starts to overwrite the party info which is a no-go. I've got a few solutions I can attempt first before I make any decisions about the project becoming strictly for the GBC, but those solutions get pretty complicated quickly and have their own unique drawbacks.

I'm working on incorporating the text into the VRAM, which makes the font take up unique tiles in the common tileset, which eats away at my space for the tileset and the amount of monsters that can be drawn per dungeon. I can however, cut those font tiles in half by making it only use capital letters - which could be cool. It seems like something you'd see on a DMG game lol.

I just wanted to showcase some new tiles that we've been working on.

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The video demonstrates the "portal" system that the player uses to enter the dungeons. The dungeons take place on floating clouds and the player hops from cloud to cloud in a similar manner to how the floors work in dragon warrior monsters. The clouds will be host to a variety of different biomes.

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The follower system is now working flawlessly with the screen scrolling mechanic as well, which is fantastic.

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Next step is finishing off the skeleton for the battle system.

This is just a video showcasing mostly UI stuff. I'm hoping to dive a bit deeper into the battle system and the scrolling map mechanics in the next video!

The encounters occur on a metatile check, it checks the tile and rolls a number, then determines if there's an encounter. This allows me to have unique tiles on the same map with different encounter rates (just like dragon warrior monsters!)

The music input capture/recruiting mini game uses button input. The player attempts to copy the sequence provided(randomized) before the timer runs out!

You won't always be able to recruit a monster after battle, there's a small chance the last monster defeated will stay behind by default, but it can be increased by giving them items in battle - again, similar to dragon warrior monsters!

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

It's still very much a work in process, but I'd love to get some feedback on what people think.

The whistle allows the monster tamer to get the attention of their monsters in battle, allowing them to give them commands.

But they can also play a tune to convince a monster to join their party!

This system is very similar to how DWM1 dealt with monster recruitment. At the end of a battle, the last monster defeated has a chance to get back up. This chance is increased if you've never captured that species before or if you have given them items throughout the battle.

Then, you are able to play a tune. This relies on button input, and each correct input will play a note (each unsuccessful input will play a sour note) If successful, the monster will join you.

If the player completely messes up the button input for the tune, the monster still has a chance to join you, but the dialogue will certainly let you know that they didn't particularly enjoy the melody.

Most of the little systems are complete!

Among other things, here's the highlights this week.

I've added in the follower system, which is a bit different since it's 8x8px movement using 16x16px characters, but I think it looks pretty darn good.

I've implemented the nickname system and just like in DWM each party monster gets a 4 character nickname.

I've implemented a tile based encounter system, where each unique tile has a set percentage to initiate a battle.

It's time to start the battle system skeleton (no skills yet) and implement stats, stat growth, levels, etc. All that fun stuff.

From there, a technical demo is just around the corner!

Eggbound is being created for the Gameboy Color and will be playable on physical hardware, as well as emulators. If there's interest, I may port it to switch.

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Due to some technical difficulties, I lost all of my files for the project. I’ve been dreading starting from scratch, but here we are.

Right now I’m mostly rebuilding core systems: UI work, a mock battle system, and reprogramming the procedural dungeon floor generation. The room layout system alone is sitting at around 180 variables for a max of 25 rooms.

Everything shown in the video is still very much placeholder/WIP, especially the terminology. For now, I basically copied a lot of DWM’s menu structure so I’d have a functional baseline to build from, since it’s the main inspiration behind the project.

The battle system itself will probably stay pretty close to DWM though. It’s still my favorite monster battler combat system ever made.

Hopefully I can create something people enjoy.

I haven’t seen many monster capturing games being made in GB Studio, and I have yet to see one actually finished. Probably because of how complex and tedious these kinds of systems become once you start digging into them.

Feels good to finally be working on it again.