Ingenious Developer Compresses Solitaire Game onto One Nintendo GBA e-Reader Card

In an exciting fusion of nostalgia and innovation, independent developer Matt Greer has managed to fit an entire game of Solitaire onto a single custom Nintendo e-Reader card. This intriguing feat is spotlighted in both a blog post and a YouTube video, where Greer details the accomplishment. The card uses just two “dotstrips,” each holding 2,192 bytes, adding up to slightly more than 4.3 kilobytes of data.

For those who might not remember, the Nintendo e-Reader was an attachment for the Game Boy Advance, first hitting the market in Japan in late 2001, and making its way to the United States by September 2002. This clever peripheral allowed players to scan cards to load full games or add expansions to their existing Game Boy Advance catalogs, tapping into the e-Reader’s substantial 8MB of onboard storage. Back in the day, some NES ports could require as many as ten cards to function, while an e-Reader could handle up to 12 cards. On the other hand, extras like additional levels for Super Mario Advance 4 could be added with just one card.

For those with a penchant for gaming trivia, Greer’s accompanying blog post delves deep into the technical journey behind creating this homebrew version of Solitaire. Working within the stringent technical confines of the Game Boy Advance, Greer’s endeavor pushes the boundaries of what many would consider possible. Homebrew games for the GBA are already rare, but crafting one that fits onto a single e-Reader card elevates this project to a whole new level of niche ingenuity.

As explained in the blog, the e-Reader is equipped to load NES games, raw binaries, and impressive Zilog Z80 binaries, the latter of which offers a low-memory advantage crucial for this kind of project. The cards can be used more efficiently thanks to an e-Reader API, which allows some coding tasks to be handled directly by the e-Reader, conserving additional space.

Greer also points out the challenges posed by the Z80 emulator within the e-Reader, noting its partial inaccuracy and its limited subset of opcodes and registers. Despite these hurdles, he successfully built a complete game of Solitaire—complete with customizable music—within those tight 4,384 bytes spread across two dotstrips. Greer’s work is a testament to the astonishing capability of homebrew developers. It’s a shame that e-Reader cards were in circulation for such a short span, as the Nintendo e-Reader has largely faded into the annals of gaming history.