A touch of nostalgia is in the air: The emulator “Giovanni” brings classic game boy on the wrist. Using the open source project, owners of an Apple Watch can play old games like Pokémon Yellow on the small screen.
What is the purpose of a Smartwatch? Until now, manufacturers have only been able to provide a limited answer to this question.
Apart from smaller comfort features and the simple mirroring of smartphone notifications, the smart watches offer little-added value in everyday life – especially in relation to the sales prices of relevant models.
Fortunately, there are resourceful developers who are willing to fill this void and try to fill those with exciting ideas.
For example, the technical gem of the wrist can quickly become an entertaining gaming platform.
Giovanni brings Pokémon Yellow to Apple Watch IOS developer Gabriel O’Flaherty-Chan has spun the idea and built a game boy emulator for the Apple Watch with “Giovanni”.
The name comes from the Pokémon series and is a symbol of the (presumed) primary purpose of the game: Playing old Pokémon titles – at the time, undoubtedly the most popular games of the mobile platform.
The control on the small display of the Apple Watch – even in the largest version measuring only 1.65 inches in the diagonal – is a bit hacky, but fulfills its purpose.
The following diagram illustrates the control:
Of course, the Apple Watch is not designed for gaming.
Accordingly, performance is not optimal in addition to the control, even though the latest models of Smartwatch reach acceptable framerates.
This is due, on the one hand, to comparatively weak hardware, but also to the lack of support from the watchOS of Apple.
According to O’Flaherty-Chan, the connection to the available interfaces was a challenge. Nevertheless, he is satisfied with Giovanni.
The emulator is open source, and there is an installation guide along with the source code at Git.
It is open to interested developers to contribute to the project.
