# TV turned into a Game Boy Color with a Pokemon home screen

A television rebuilt as a Game Boy Color, with a Pokemon-style town as the home screen. Apps open by walking into buildings, and settings are gated behind gym battles.

- Category: Interface (mod)
- Device: [Game Boy](https://afterware.xyz/d/game-boy)
- Made by: [Robbie Tilton](https://x.com/robbietilton) on X
- Original: https://x.com/robbietilton/status/2111936458923851923
- On Afterware: https://afterware.xyz/p/tv-turned-into-a-game-boy-color-with-a-pokemon-home-screen

## Can I build this?

- Difficulty: Beginner
- AI-buildability: 5/5 (The core of the project is a custom launcher UI, which is software that AI tools can write, running on a TV you already own.)
- Time: A weekend
- Cost: $0
- Tools: soldering iron, 3D printer, hand tools, computer

Estimates based on the original write-up. How the AI-buildability score works: https://afterware.xyz/ai-buildability

## Build sheet

- Base: Television
- Styling: Game Boy Color
- Home screen: Pokemon-style town
- Navigation: Walk into buildings

## Starter prompt

```
Based on "TV turned into a Game Boy Color with a Pokemon home screen" on Afterware: https://afterware.xyz/p/tv-turned-into-a-game-boy-color-with-a-pokemon-home-screen

Help me build a tile-based town home screen for a small Linux single-board computer driving a TV or HDMI display. Walking the player character into a building should launch the matching app. Use a simple tilemap loaded from a JSON file, and gate a settings menu behind a flag set by a boss battle. Start with the map renderer and input handling.
```

## Story

The post is a short announcement with one screenshot-style description. The television is cased in a Game Boy Color style shell and its home screen is a Pokemon-style town. Walking into a building launches an app, and changing a setting requires beating the gym leader first.

The source does not list the hardware inside, the board, the display or the software stack, so the build method is not described here. The interaction model is the interesting part: navigation is a map to explore rather than a grid of icons.

The post credits an AI model in its closing line. That is a comment on the tooling, not a description of the code, so it is not treated as evidence of how the interface was written.

Tags: game boy color, pokemon, tv mod, home screen, retro ui, game ui, vibe-coded

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