The GBA Pixel Book

When the Game Boy Advance debuted in 2001, the game industry was supposed to have moved on. In the years before, systems like Sony’s PlayStation had asserted that the future of games had three dimensions. The new millennium, many agreed, would be a place of polygons, not pixels.

And then – as told in The GBA Pixel Book – the Game Boy Advance landed on shelves, dazzling fans as it put 2D worlds front and centre of its offering. Nintendo’s compact pixel art powerhouse quickly established a stunning software library that remains influential almost quarter of a century on, with games like Fire Emblem, The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Metroid Fusion, Metal Slug Advance, Gunstar Future Heroes, and Mother 3.

All those releases and many, many more are included in The GBA Pixel Book, which Bitmap Books is proud to bring to English-language readers in partnership with German publisher Elektrospieler. The book, which has been meticulously translated from the German original, features a bounty of articles that delve deep into the GBA’s magnificent game portfolio, spotlighting over 240 titles. It also brings together almost 4,000 screenshots from the games included, each of which has been especially composed and captured for this book. They are presented across 300-pages along with pixel art cut-outs, sprite work, vast montages, and immense level maps.

In grouping its contents by genre, The GBA Pixel Book also presents a fascinating look at the Game Boy Advance’s key role in evolving so many popular gaming forms, while charting the design trends that kept pixel art alive until it was embraced by today’s indie development movement. The GBA Pixel Book also continues the series established by Bitmap Books Elektrospieler with The SNES Pixel Book.

With the two publishers working together once more, you can also expect ambitious, eye-catching design, high quality printing on heavy gloss paper, and a sturdy, beautiful slipcase to protect the book.