Metamorphosis Collection
Metamorphosis Collection is a horror anthology that includes the following games on a single ROM/cartridge:
- Opossum Country
- Decline
- Specimen 134
It can be purchased from Incube8 Games here: BUY Metamorphosis Collection
The free Demo can be downloaded here: Metamorphosis Collection DEMO or played in your browser above. It includes the beginning of Specimen 134.
Many are familiar with Opossum Country and Decline, so this collection adds Specimen 134 which is a brand new game.
Specimen 134 is significantly longer than its companions in the collection. It contains extended action segments and multiple difficulties for enhanced replay value. Experience it for yourself by playing the beginning, included in the Metamorphosis Collection DEMO.
Controls
| Gameboy | Keyboard | Function |
| A | Z | Interact / Menu: Confirm |
| B | X | Exit / Reload / Menu: Back |
| START | ENTER | Pause / Open Menu / Advance to next scene |
| SELECT | L SHIFT | Opens website link on game select screen |
Comments
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Hi Ben, I have a question about your art process if you’re willing to share. I’d be honored if you gave as much or as little info as you want.
I’m more of an artist who’s been using GBStudio as a way of exploring games. I was sooo inspired by your art! The art in Specimen 134 is incredible, truly the prettiest GBC game I’ve ever seen. I bought the whole collection and love it. Love The Machine too.
I learned the basics, but the disconnect between what I want to create and what loads onto the screen in GBStudio is huge! Did you use Clip Studio Paint for S134? Do you make your backgrounds using a palette with multiples of 8 and load it in directly, or did you use the GB color values and then use different palettes for different tiles to simulate full color? I’m still really struggling to understand how you managed to pull S134 off, haha.
Thanks for your time if you happen to respond to this.
I use clip studio paint for 99% of what I do but I should say that sometimes I jump into aseprite because in that program you can edit tiles and have all of the same tiles update at the same time. Usually it's just to do something quickly and jump back.
To be completely honest with you I don't even pay attention to the color limitations. I just pick the color I want and make sure not to use too many colors per tile and allow the program to convert it to the closest gb color. I only adjust it further if it looks awful. I make the art in full color within the restrictions in clip studio and then export it in color if I can get away with it and then have gb studio autocolor it. I have an 8x8 grid enabled when doing this so I can easily count the colors within a tile. If I need to manipulate the palettes somehow I'm forced to hand paint the palettes onto the background which is a tedious process but unfortunately it's often necessary.
https://www.gbstudio.dev/docs/assets/backgrounds/
Definitely check out this page especially the stuff about autocoloring backgrounds and using mono backgrounds.
Your reply means a lot! I'm so excited to see what I can make. While I was looking for info on your process, I heard that you have another big project in the works--super stoked. You are something special in the gaming world, thanks for making your art.
Thanks so much for your support. It's a ton of work to make games and comments like that help me stay motivated.
Well, for what it's worth... I didn't even grow up with the gameboy or anything. I'm 24 and The Machine is one of my favorite games ever. I definitely wouldn't be trying to make games without your inspiration.
(It's nearly a miracle I found your games though, haha. Whatever publisher you go with--please consider their ability to do a multiplatform release!)
I'm doing my best to get my games onto other platforms but it's not super easy. Hopefully will have news on that front in like a year.
Specimen is SO GOOD, imagine my disappointment when I realized it was a demo 💀 LMAO I had failed to read that part, nonetheless, I LOVED IT AND WISH TO PLAY MORE
Hi Ben, I'm a writer for the Spanish site ErreKgamer, and last year I wrote a detailed and extensive review of this game (no spoilers). I cordially invite you to read it.
https://errekgamer.com/2024/11/20/analisis-metamorphosis-collection/
Hi Ricardo, Thanks for covering my game! It was a great read pero no está en inglés! ;) I hope google translate did it justice.
So I go there to download the free demo but I can't just download it, I have to pay $0.00????? How does that work... ?
After you fill out the email and address it will let you download the rom. If you don't want to share any actual personal information, I can confirm that it still works with everything including the email address incorrect.
I dont suppose you can have the digital version of your games for sale on THIS site? No offense, but i'd rather not buy on an external site if i can avoid it (paranoia mostly)
I'm sorry, I sell my digital editions through my publisher too. I'd love to just toss my games up on itch but I'm bad at promo so if I sell stuff on my own on itch it doesn't sell well enough to justify the time I spend making it.
Ok, but i have another question, do you NEED an emulator to actually play the games you make or can we just download and play with the digital edition. I do not use emulators for several reasons, and the requirements on the games seem to say they need a gba emulator to work.
Since the game is in the Gameboy rom format, it requires an emulator unless you play it on Game Boy hardware or an fgpa device that replicates the game boy hardware. Even an fgpa could be considered hardware emulation. It's possible for me to convert it to an exe but it would be inside of an emulator wrapper. I figure it's better to give the player more flexibility instead.
Why not also include the option for an EXE version anyway? For those who don’t HAVE an emulator, don’t know where to get one safely, and for general consumer convenience? If you ever have an EXE option (just download, click application, and immediately play), I’ll gladly buy this game like 5 times to support ya. I promise.
There's a totally free, safe and very easy to use emulator on Steam called RetroArch. I'd highly recommend it.
the exe still runs it in an emulator
I'm always wary of external sites too, but I can vouch that it's legit. When you purchase it they send you an email with the game download immediately. They take PayPal too so you're pretty secure. :)
Just played through Specimen 134 and loved it! One of the most impressive game boy games I've ever seen! Was just wondering how many endings there are? I've found three (all very cool). Not sure if I've missed any. :)
Thanks so much! There should be 3 endings like you discovered. There may be some variants of endings or um secrets for harder difficulties.
Awesome, thanks for the heads up! Had a blast with the game. Will get a video up soon. :)
awesome!
how long is Specimen 134 roughly and how many endings? The Machine is one of my all time favourite GBC games so hoping for something of similar quality. Keep up the great work. Can we have The Machine 2? Or another sci fi interactive adventure, love the gameplay style so much
I find it really hard to estimate playtime because since I made the game when I play through it, I am kind of like a speed runner since I always know exactly what to do next. I don't want to spoil too much but Specimen is not as nonlinear as The Machine. It does have multiple endings though. If you want more games like that, buying my games would help sustain their development!
thanks, i played the demo and love the style, feels a bit like Simon Stalenhag does 8 bit with a Stranger Things vibe. I love all of it. Well ive purchased all of your physical releases to date so im happy to back this. Thanks again
Thanks so much! I will take your input into consideration when designing my future projects. Nonlinearity quickly gets out of hand so I find myself walking a tightrope between the art having to be very simple and the story being nonlinear. It's hard to have a huge branching plot alongside really developed art. The simplicity of the art was a huge advantage in The Machine.
The reward of the non linear path is that you end up with a game with a lot of replayability. I think thats a huge part of why The Machine is so popular. The most common complaint I see from other gamers who play a lot of homebrew games is that theyre too short. Art style and the mood that can afford a game is great, and your work is particularly great in that regard, but especially for those investing a pretty big whack sometimes in physical games find it hard to justify the price for games that are so short. I cant even begin to imagine how much work must go into creating a branching game like The Machine but it was 100% worth it. I was speaking to someone today who shared a picture of all his physical release homebrew games for GB, GBC and GBA. I asked him his top 5, he listed them but said “if you have to play one game play The Machine, its insane”. Out of about 50 games he physically owned that was his recommendation, I cant think of better praise to give than that. Its really something special.
That's awesome to hear! I think you're right and it's hard to imagine how much work it is to make. It's unique because of that but another one too soon might put me in the hospital before it's done anyway.
Hi ! Nice proposition as usual ! Do you use a plugin to set avatars in 32x32px instead of 16x16px or personnal code ? I wonder if I could pick that from you. As I can see, this work fine for GB 4.xx
I used an old trick which is to just add the avatar tiles to your ascii sheet and then type in the characters that represent the avatar when inputting text. This is very helpful with that: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/RichardULZ/2920dca52989902dbb7225318256c545/r...
Thanks for the advice. So you have to sacrify characters ... It's not the best in french, we use a lot of accents ... But the render is much better than the poor 16x16px !
There are a lot of extra characters in the ascii sheet and all you need to do is identify 9 tiles you can use. If you want to do more than one portrait, you can switch the font sheet so that the other portraits use the same 9 tiles.
Okay, my bad, I just learned that the !F command can change the font right now !
That is perfect, a great thanks for the help with this trick !
In my humble opinion no one is making new Game Boy games to the level of character and quality that you do. Super looking forward to the new one. Thank you!
Thanks so much! There's a lot of great Gameboy devs I respect so that really means a lot.