Released in 2001, around the same time as the GBA, the GP32 was the absolute coolest handheld on the planet for quite a while. It occupied a very unique time when homebrew development was really taking off on various home consoles, such as the Dreamcast, and offered a very powerful portable package with no restrictions on development.
I learned about the GP32, oddly enough, in an issue of EGM where they were reviewing the "next-gen" of handheld consoles. They were comparing the Gameboy Color, the new-ish Gameboy Advance, the Wonderswan, among a few other pretenders. Their conclusion was for everyone to pick up the GBA, but at the end of the article they outlined two "wildcards" in their decision: The GP32 and the then-upcoming Tapwave Zodiac.
Their description of the GP32 -- they concluded the commercial game market would never materialize but that it might be home to a great homebrew community -- intrigued me such that I ordered one straight from Korea on my birthday. It arrived with a 128 mb Smart Media Card, and I picked up the physical boxed copy of Tomak Save the Earth Again, Dungeon & Garder, Her Knight: All for Princess, and Little Wizard. It would turn out that those games would eventually become extremely rare to own in physical copies, as, true to EGM's word, the commercial game market for the GP32 never really materialized. Only a handful of real, commercial games ever emerged.
That, however, is not why I got my GP32. The games were neat - Tomak looked like Metal Slug, Little Wizard was a fun fighting game, Her Knight was a very strange beat 'em up, Dungeon & Garder... well, sucked. But the real reason I picked it up was because of the then-thriving homebrew scene. In many, many ways, the GP32 was so far ahead of its time.
The GP32 became sort of the unofficial little brother of the homebrew Dreamcast scene. The GP32 was awesome in that it supported SDL nearly out of the gate, which made developing for the thing a breeze, and most people would mirror projects between the dreamcast and gp32. Eventually link cables and chatpads were developed to let you further connect the GP32 and Dreamcast scenes.
A bunch of the highest profile homebrew releases from that era were either GP32-first or got really good GP32 ports early on. Early stand outs included Beats of Rage, which released alongside the Dreamcast version, SmashGP (a smash bros clone for the GP32), and Great Giana Sisters Return.
The otherside of homebrew development was a bunch of really well made ports of existing games. Throughout the GP32's life, it saw extremely well made ports of Doom (including all wads and Doom 2), Rise of the Triad, Wolfenstein, Rogue, ScummVM, Pinball Dreams (actually released as a full commercial title on Gamepark's digital distribution network), Another World (AND the Sega CD exclusive Heart of the Alien), Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Hexen & Heretic, and Flashback, among others.
And, of course, emulation. Glorious, glorious emulation. Full speed NES emulation came basically day 1 with LittleJohn, full speed PC Engine emulation followed shortly. Then came full speed Master System/Game Gear emulation. Then full speed Genesis emulation with Dr. MD. Before long, you could play SNES games, Wonderswan games, Neo Geo Pocket games, gameboy and gameboy color games, various micro computers like the MSX2, ZX Spectrum, C64, and even stuff like CPS1 emulation in MAME. The very day I got my GP32, I loaded up Little John on my GP32 and played Ninja Gaiden on the road and it absolutely blew my mind. Please keep in mind that this was 2001.
Then there was the media playback support. The GP32 came with a build in MP3 player and they sold an app on their digital distribution network called GPCinema that could play avi files encoded in mpeg2, which also came with a media converter. This was like weeks before the ipod 1 came out, and 3 years before ipods weren't mac-only, and 5 years before they could play video. The GP32 was my first MP3 player, and I remember taking it with me to college classes to listen to MP3s.
I've mentioned a few times that gamepark had a digital distribution network. Now entirely defunct, you could purchase additional applications and newly released games on their service. Through this service, I bought pinball fantasies, GP Cinema, and a few other games like Astonisha Story R (which later got ported to the PSP) and GP Fight. Patches for existing games, like Tomak Save the Earth Again, were also distributed through this network. Downloaded files were encoded to only work with your GP32 using a system ID, but it could easily be altered with a hexeditor.
I actually kept up with GP32 releases. I own a copy of the last game released, a metroidvania game only released in europe called Blue Angelo, the absolute rarest title for the GP32, which was also never distributed digitally. It is a surprisingly great game, one of the better metroidvanias of that era.
Initially, the GP32 didn't feature any sort of light, it was like the old school gameboy. When modders began offering afterburner mods for the Gameboy Advance, Gamepark came out with an updated front-lit GP32 called the FLU. this was eventually replaced with the GP32 Backlit unit, or BLU, which offered a better screen. The original BLU had universal compatibility with the entire GP32 library, but an updated BLU, called BLU+, used a knock-off screen that was incompatible. Hence, some games were released in dual formats, both with a normal executable and with a BLU+ patched version.
Most importantly, I actually coded for the thing. It was just awesome. Slowly, the homebrew scene left the Gp32 in favor of stuff like the GP2X or later things like PSP hacking. but for a good 2-3 years, the GP32 was the absolute coolest homebrew system in the world.
Today, info on the GP32 is hyper scarce. I actually couldn't find any screen shots of any of the games - homebrew or commercial - online to litter this post with. Even finding downloadable files for the GP32 is tough. Finding commercial games is near impossible.
I still have my GP32, and a GP32 BLU (non-plus) and about 20 SMCs and all my commercial releases. I'll try and snap some pictures of the games running. Anybody else have great memories of this terrific and largely forgotten handheld?
I learned about the GP32, oddly enough, in an issue of EGM where they were reviewing the "next-gen" of handheld consoles. They were comparing the Gameboy Color, the new-ish Gameboy Advance, the Wonderswan, among a few other pretenders. Their conclusion was for everyone to pick up the GBA, but at the end of the article they outlined two "wildcards" in their decision: The GP32 and the then-upcoming Tapwave Zodiac.
Their description of the GP32 -- they concluded the commercial game market would never materialize but that it might be home to a great homebrew community -- intrigued me such that I ordered one straight from Korea on my birthday. It arrived with a 128 mb Smart Media Card, and I picked up the physical boxed copy of Tomak Save the Earth Again, Dungeon & Garder, Her Knight: All for Princess, and Little Wizard. It would turn out that those games would eventually become extremely rare to own in physical copies, as, true to EGM's word, the commercial game market for the GP32 never really materialized. Only a handful of real, commercial games ever emerged.
That, however, is not why I got my GP32. The games were neat - Tomak looked like Metal Slug, Little Wizard was a fun fighting game, Her Knight was a very strange beat 'em up, Dungeon & Garder... well, sucked. But the real reason I picked it up was because of the then-thriving homebrew scene. In many, many ways, the GP32 was so far ahead of its time.
The GP32 became sort of the unofficial little brother of the homebrew Dreamcast scene. The GP32 was awesome in that it supported SDL nearly out of the gate, which made developing for the thing a breeze, and most people would mirror projects between the dreamcast and gp32. Eventually link cables and chatpads were developed to let you further connect the GP32 and Dreamcast scenes.
A bunch of the highest profile homebrew releases from that era were either GP32-first or got really good GP32 ports early on. Early stand outs included Beats of Rage, which released alongside the Dreamcast version, SmashGP (a smash bros clone for the GP32), and Great Giana Sisters Return.
The otherside of homebrew development was a bunch of really well made ports of existing games. Throughout the GP32's life, it saw extremely well made ports of Doom (including all wads and Doom 2), Rise of the Triad, Wolfenstein, Rogue, ScummVM, Pinball Dreams (actually released as a full commercial title on Gamepark's digital distribution network), Another World (AND the Sega CD exclusive Heart of the Alien), Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Hexen & Heretic, and Flashback, among others.
And, of course, emulation. Glorious, glorious emulation. Full speed NES emulation came basically day 1 with LittleJohn, full speed PC Engine emulation followed shortly. Then came full speed Master System/Game Gear emulation. Then full speed Genesis emulation with Dr. MD. Before long, you could play SNES games, Wonderswan games, Neo Geo Pocket games, gameboy and gameboy color games, various micro computers like the MSX2, ZX Spectrum, C64, and even stuff like CPS1 emulation in MAME. The very day I got my GP32, I loaded up Little John on my GP32 and played Ninja Gaiden on the road and it absolutely blew my mind. Please keep in mind that this was 2001.
Then there was the media playback support. The GP32 came with a build in MP3 player and they sold an app on their digital distribution network called GPCinema that could play avi files encoded in mpeg2, which also came with a media converter. This was like weeks before the ipod 1 came out, and 3 years before ipods weren't mac-only, and 5 years before they could play video. The GP32 was my first MP3 player, and I remember taking it with me to college classes to listen to MP3s.
I've mentioned a few times that gamepark had a digital distribution network. Now entirely defunct, you could purchase additional applications and newly released games on their service. Through this service, I bought pinball fantasies, GP Cinema, and a few other games like Astonisha Story R (which later got ported to the PSP) and GP Fight. Patches for existing games, like Tomak Save the Earth Again, were also distributed through this network. Downloaded files were encoded to only work with your GP32 using a system ID, but it could easily be altered with a hexeditor.
I actually kept up with GP32 releases. I own a copy of the last game released, a metroidvania game only released in europe called Blue Angelo, the absolute rarest title for the GP32, which was also never distributed digitally. It is a surprisingly great game, one of the better metroidvanias of that era.
Initially, the GP32 didn't feature any sort of light, it was like the old school gameboy. When modders began offering afterburner mods for the Gameboy Advance, Gamepark came out with an updated front-lit GP32 called the FLU. this was eventually replaced with the GP32 Backlit unit, or BLU, which offered a better screen. The original BLU had universal compatibility with the entire GP32 library, but an updated BLU, called BLU+, used a knock-off screen that was incompatible. Hence, some games were released in dual formats, both with a normal executable and with a BLU+ patched version.
Most importantly, I actually coded for the thing. It was just awesome. Slowly, the homebrew scene left the Gp32 in favor of stuff like the GP2X or later things like PSP hacking. but for a good 2-3 years, the GP32 was the absolute coolest homebrew system in the world.
Today, info on the GP32 is hyper scarce. I actually couldn't find any screen shots of any of the games - homebrew or commercial - online to litter this post with. Even finding downloadable files for the GP32 is tough. Finding commercial games is near impossible.
I still have my GP32, and a GP32 BLU (non-plus) and about 20 SMCs and all my commercial releases. I'll try and snap some pictures of the games running. Anybody else have great memories of this terrific and largely forgotten handheld?
