Jamie Woodhouse may not be a household name, but he's certainly an interesting fellow: a game designer who dropped out of college (his major was designing games) so that he could just get on with designing games. His major claim to fame is a puzzle-platformer called
Qwak; a title in the vein of
Bubble Bobble,
Parasol Stars, or other similar deceivingly cutesy games from a simpler time in gaming history. Though it was initially released on the BBC Micro in 1989,
Qwak would eventually be ported to Acorn Electron, Amiga, Amiga CD32, and in 2006 Game Boy Advance. But what's special about the Game Boy Advance release is that Jamie decided to release the damn thing himself. By this time he had had enough experience designing GBA games to just make this his own pet project and sell the homebrew carts, xeroxed instructions and downloadable printable boxes right on his website. However, here's a bit of a breakdown of all the GBA titles that Jamie has had a hand in creating.
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Simon is a port of the old handheld electronics game. Y'know, there's four buttons -- each a different color. They light up and play a note in random order and you have to play it back. Sort of a precursor to the rhythm games we have today. The GBA version is exactly that. Although it may trigger some nostalgia and perhaps even boost your memory (I have no scientific data to back that up), it's not incredibly engrossing either.
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A port of the board game
Scrabble Junior was a similar upgrade of a childhood favorite. This conversion bodes much better than
Simon as it's far easier to get sucked into. It's also a perfect match for a handheld, as it's the kind of game that you can easily kill some spare time with.
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Next was a port of the 1979 arcade classic,
Lunar Lander. The GBA version is an extremely faithful recreation. And trust me, it's just as hard as ever. Retro-fans of the original will certainly be thrilled with the attention to detail, though newcomers may find the vector graphics to sort of sell the GBA's video output a bit short.
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Lego Racers 2 is possibly the most ambitious GBA release that Jamie developed. On the surface it's an average 2D racer reminiscent of
Super Mario Kart. But what's interesting is the story mode, which adds
Grand Theft Auto-ish missions and even statistical elements of an RPG. It's certainly an interesting mix of high- and low-action genres.
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In 2006 Jamie decided to independently port his masterpiece,
Qwak to the GBA. This version is fantastic. It seems almost like it was meant to live on the portable console with it's bright colors bursting out of its dark backgrounds and the condensed
Donkey Kong-like levels. And much like the 1994 Game Boy release of
DK, the levels just keep on coming, delivering hours of challenging game time. This cart is a must-have for GBA puzzle fans. And although the Game Boy officially "died" sometime in 2007, perhaps there's hope that independent developers could continue to breath new life into the fan favorite console.
Check out the rest of Jamie Woodhouse's portfolio, and beg him to port his other games to GBA here:
http://www.jamiewoodhouse.co.uk
