Top 10 best Game Boy demakes

The only Smash Brothers game "for a Nintendo portable" is a fan-made demake. And you still can't play it on the go.

While Super Smash Land is a totally playable Game Boy-styled demake of the home console scrapper, it's currently only available for your PC.

If you want to get your punch on portable style with Mario and the gang, you'll just have to wait like everyone else for the 3DS version.

This demake idea turned out to be an April Fool's Day gag by some of the folks behind Bulbagarden, an online Pokemon community.

The Tepig-loving tricksters spread word of a "leaked" trailer showing an official demake of Pokemon Black & White running on Game Boy hardware.

In actuality, it was just a very convincing ROM hack.

Since Monster Hunter has surfaced on 3DS and Wii U, it feels as if Capcom's action-RPG has always been at home on Nintendo consoles.

Pixel artist Army of Trolls explores this notion with Monster Hunter for Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Given this demake's top-down, almost Link's Awakening aesthetic, I'm really frustrated that this isn't real.

The Curse of Monkey Island is probably the most graphically rich of all the original Monkey Island games, so this Game Boy demake deserves a mention for its creator's sheer audacity.

Mind you, the Game Boy was around for so long that developers squeezed everything they could do out of it by the end of its life, so maybe this isn't too far-fetched an idea, after all.

The Game Boy is adored by chiptune artists the world over. With that in mind, it seems almost obvious that some clever chap would have a crack at re-purposing AudioSurf for Ninty's vintage handheld.

If you've yet to play AudioSurf, here goes: you jet along a path to the strains of various audio tracks and try to collect blocks. Yep, it's a rhythm-action game crossed with a puzzler.

Maxwell Jensen took the core ideas of PS2 swan song game Shadow of the Colossus and drafted a series of demake mock-ups for all to see.

Horse riding, colossus scaling, world navigation... it's all here. Jensen's even captured the original game's distinctive tribal look.

There's a detailed write-up on Jensen's approach to the re-design over on his site. For all you game designers in training, that is.

There is a playable version of the first part of Disco Elysium, made for Gameboy, which allows you to play the first part of the game - gore and all. Though it's currently lacking sound and much more of the game beyond the first bit, there is a lot to be played through here and it makes for a good nod to the game.

A team of volunteers are creating a private demake of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. There are over 22 chapters to the game, with their own spins on the original game. Though the game is private, you can actually check out some of their videos of the demake as well as their discord to follow the progress and get a glimpse into what they are creating.

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A developer under the name jackarte has created a playable Half Life demake which you can play on your GameBoy. Their focus was on keeping the style of the game within the green, pixelated graphics that you'd expect, but adding in Half Life's story and gameplay. It's an interesting take, and it's great to actually get to play it.

Over on WayOfThePixel.net, the website owners held a competition in which budding designers would be judged on their re-imaginations of modern games for a new audience.

CroM's rendition of BioShock is without doubt the best thing to come out of it.

Through the muted browns of the Game Boy's dot matrix screen and the uncannily modern design, CroM nails the future-retro aesthetic of Rapture beautifully.

Now, if only the game were playable...