Play Pokemon on your Apple Watch with this hack
Forget Pokemon Go, this takes you back to the start.
- Best New Journalist 2019 Australian IT Journalism Awards
Time to get your retro Pokemon fix.
Software developer Gabriel O'Flaherty Chan has made a Game Boy Color emulator for the Apple Watch Series 2, according to Ars Technica. If you're a Pokemon fan, you'll recognise the name of the software: Giovanni, after the game's Team Rocket villain.
Using an existing iOS emulator called Gambatte, O'Flaherty Chan was able to run Pokemon Yellow with his own Apple Watch-friendly controls. These include select, start and B buttons which run along the bottom of the screen; the A button activated with a tap on the right side; the left just housing a control pad. The Digital Crown scrolls through option lists.
The Digital Crown in action.
"Since getting an Apple Watch last fall, I've been disappointed by the lack of content," O'Flaherty Chan said in a blog post. "I feel this is my way of giving back to the community."
A previous effort to bring more games to the Apple Watch saw Facebook developers run a barely playable Doom in 2015.
While a better effort, Giovanni isn't without bugs, and was created mainly as a proof of concept. Inviting feedback, O'Flaherty Chan has made the open source available on Github.