The Idea

During the summer of 2022 I got hooked on watching YouTube videos about modding retro consoles, all from the GameBoy Color to the Nintendo Wii. It was like injecting pure dopamine in to my brain one video at a time lmao.

But one video, by Macho Nacho Productions, really stood out to me. Basically he made a “Super” GameBoy Color, where he crammed like 4 mods into it. I immediately wanted to try something like it myself, so I took my dusty, old, purple GameBoy Color with me back to Bergen, where I study.

Products

As soon as I got to Bergen I ordered a GameBoy Color 2.0 Q5 IPS Laminated Backlight Kit, a white GameBoy Color 2.0 Laminated Q5 IPS Ready Shell and some purple buttons/pads from FunnyPlaying, and waited excitedly for them to arrive..

Modding process

The first step of the project was to disassemble the old GameBoy and clean the circuit board. This process was fairly easy as it only involved rubbing some q-tips, dipped in isopropyl alcohol, around the board to remove dirt and dust.

The soldering part of the project wasn’t something you needed to do, unless you wanted the ability to change the color of the logo and/or change the screens x- and y-position.

Long story short, it didn’t go exactly as planned hehe.. I managed to break one circuit board by fucking up somehow with the soldering of the start and select buttons, so had to buy a whole new GameBoy for it..

I still haven’t soldered on the new board (that’s why the logo is kinda scuffed lol). I’m kinda scared to do it, but one day I will try again!

End result

Here is the “finished” product. I’m very satisfied with the outcome as this was my first console mod, like ever. The games look so good and I will definitely enjoy taking this with me on trips forward!
I recommend trying this out if you want to bust out your old GameBoy Color again and play some good old games like Pokémon!