Tao Te Ching GB Edition

This work is a photo artbook made for the Gameboy in GB studio. It combines original photos with the Tao Te Ching, a 4th century BCE. Chinese philosophical and religious text written by the sage known as Lao Zi (meaning old master). The original photos are all taken by myself, mostly in 35mm  film, though a few are digital and a handful are or 4x5 and 8x10 sheet film.

The project is available free to enjoy on the browser, the ROM and Pocket files are available for $1 but you are encouraged to donate more if you want.

Physical cartridges will be available soon for original Gameboy, and Gameboy Color handhelds as well. 

I also am working on creating a version that uses the original Chinese text but due to limitations in the Gameboy (4mb file limit for the finished project) this is much more complicated. 

The text  is a compilation of three different open source translations, the James Legge version,  the J. H. Mcdonald version and the original Chinese (all compiled using generative AI, and then hand edited by myself for clarity and berevity and to ensure the text stays true to the original meaning). I combined and edited several translations because all of the public domain translations of the Tao that I have encountered are overly wordy and wouldn't fit on the small screen of the Gameboy nicely.

CONTROLS

Press A  to advance the text

Press start to skip the control explanation and go to the menu.

Use the up & down arrows to navigate the menu.

Press A at each verse page to continue.

Press B at each verse to return to the last verse.

Press start at each verse to go to the menu.

Press select at each verse to save your spot.

When the screen scrolls A is disabled, you will see  a symbol to tell you A is disabled, and the text will automatically change 

Controls (for browser)

Up - Up Arrow / W
Down - Down Arrow / S
Left - Left Arrow / A
Right - Right Arrow / D
A - Alt / Z / J
B - Ctrl / K / X
Start - Enter
Select - Shift