Binx/README.md

# gb-boilerplate

A minimal, customizable, ready-to-compile boilerplate for Game Boy RGBDS projects.

## Downloading

You can simply clone the repository using Git, or if you just want to download this, click the `Clone or download` button up and to the right of this. This repo is also usable as a GitHub template for creating new repositories.

## Setting up

Make sure you have [RGBDS](https://github.com/rednex/rgbds), at least version 0.4.0, and GNU Make installed. Python 3 is required for the PB16 compressor bundled as a usage example, but that script is optional.

## Customizing

Edit `project.mk` to customize most things specific to the project (like the game name, file name and extension, etc.). Everything has accompanying doc comments.

Everything in the `src` folder is the source, and can be freely modified however you want. The basic structure in place should hint you at how things are organized. If you want to create a new "module", you simply need to drop a `.asm` file in the `src` directory, name does not matter. All `.asm` files in that root directory will be individually compiled by RGBASM.

The file at `src/res/build_date.asm` is compiled individually to include a build date in your ROM. Always comes in handy.

If you want to add resources, I recommend using the `src/res` folder. Add rules in the Makefile; an example is provided for compressing files using PB16 (a variation of [PackBits](https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Tile_compression#PackBits)).

## Compiling

Simply open you favorite command prompt / terminal, place yourself in this directory (the one the Makefile is located in), and run the command `make`. This should create a bunch of things, including the output in the `bin` folder.

If you get errors that you don't understand, try running `make clean`. If that gives the same error, try deleting the `deps` folder. If that still doesn't work, try deleting the `bin` and `obj` folders as well. If that still doesn't work, you probably did something wrong yourself.

## See also

If you want something less barebones, already including some "base" code, check out [gb-starter-kit](https://github.com/ISSOtm/gb-starter-kit).

[Here](https://gist.github.com/ISSOtm/a9057e7c66080f36afcd82ed2863fd62) are the naming conventions used in this code; maybe you'll find them useful.

I recommend the [BGB](https://bgb.bircd.org) emulator for developing ROMs on Windows and, via Wine, Linux and macOS (64-bit build available for Catalina). [SameBoy](https://github.com/LIJI32/SameBoy) is more accurate, but has a much worse interface except on macOS.

### Libraries

- [Variable-width font engine](https://github.com/ISSOtm/gb-vwf)
- [structs in RGBDS](https://github.com/ISSOtm/rgbds-structs)