Retro Handhelds

Retro Handhelds

Play your own GBA games inside Minecraft.

Put a cartridge in a Retro Console and the game plays live on the block’s screen. Build a wall of Retro TVs next to it for a giant screen. Carry a Retro Handheld and play it in your hands while you walk around. Or just go full screen.

No games or BIOS files are included, and the mod never downloads any: you bring your own.

Features

• Retro Console block: the game plays on its screen, with sound that fades with distance
• Retro TV block: TVs touching a console show its game; TVs in a rectangle join into one seamless screen, up to 16×16. Play by right-clicking the screen
• Retro Handheld item: hold it to see the game in your hands; other players see it too
• Retro Remote: link it to a console and play from across the room
• Play full screen, or in the world (the HUD hides so nothing covers the game)
• Cartridges remember their game and keep their own saves; automatic in-game saves plus save states
• Keyboard and gamepad (Xbox, PlayStation and more), all rebindable
• Fast-forward up to 4x, optional GBA color correction and LCD ghosting
• Also plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color games

Multiplayer

Players near a console, TV or handheld see and hear the game being played, live. Every game runs on the player’s own computer, never on the server; the server only relays a compressed picture and sound, within limits the server owner sets. Each player who wants to play a game needs it in their own roms folder: the mod never sends games between players.

How to start

1. Launch once, then put your own .gba, .gb or .gbc files in retro_handhelds/roms/ in your Minecraft folder.
2. Craft a Cartridge, right-click it and pick a game.
3. Right-click a Retro Console with the cartridge, then right-click the console with an empty hand. Or right-click the cartridge onto a Retro Handheld in your inventory, then use the handheld.

Full guide, recipes, controls and config: README on GitHub

Credits and legal

Emulation by mGBA (MPL 2.0). The jar contains the unmodified mGBA libretro core for Windows, Linux and macOS; exact version and source: THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo. Only play games you own.