An engine by consent: GBStudio and queer pleasure through (design) restriction

GBStudio is a JavaScript-based game engine with a compelling restriction: any game produced in the engine must be able to run on a Nintendo Game Boy, allowing users to export their games either to the web or to physical cartridges playable on original hardware. Boasting an intuitive and low-code user interface and a charming retro aesthetic, the engine has inspired a renaissance of small independent games published online and, occasionally, as purchasable Game Boy cartridges. GBStudio is a provocative case study for the emerging fields of engine studies and platform studies: unlike traditional platforms that are bound by the material constraints of hardware, and unlike commercial game engines like Unity and Unreal that emphasize limitless game development potential, GBStudio restricts the possibility space of development by artificially imposing limitations modelled after hardware. What does it mean to structure a game engine, and game development processes more broadly, around limitations and restrictions? And how might this intervene in the study and development of game engines and game-making processes, in a context in which game engines so often conceal limitation beneath the rhetoric of infinite creative possibilities? In this article, I conduct a close reading of GBStudio through the lens of queer game studies and feminist platform studies, examining the engine’s interface, source code and emerging development community. I adapt Mattie Brice’s framework of kink and consent to argue that GBStudio operates as a platform by consent, in which creators find pleasure in submitting to GBStudio’s hardware limitations. Finally, I read this pleasure through restriction as a kind of queer potential and as one possible path towards queering software and engine development.