Michael Iantorno PhD Candidate, Game Designer, and Writer

Taggame boy

Mod Guide: Solar-Powered Game Boy Pocket

This summer, as part of our activities with the Residual Media Depot, Alex Custodio and I are modding several videogame consoles while closely documenting our work. The goal of this project is to create a series of succinct, approachable modding guides that detail the tools and techniques needed for hardware modding. Solar-Powered Game Boy Pocket This modding project is an adaptation of the solar...

Mod Guide: Game Boy Pocket FunnyPlaying IPS LCD

This summer, as part of our activities with the Residual Media Depot, Alex Custodio and I are modding several videogame consoles while closely documenting our work. The goal of this project is to create a series of succinct, approachable modding guides that detail the tools and techniques needed for hardware modding. Game Boy Pocket FunnyPlaying IPS LCD Installation This week, we returned to the...

Mod Guide: Game Boy Pocket Backlit LCD

This summer, as part of our activities with the Residual Media Depot, Alex Custodio and I are modding several videogame consoles while closely documenting our work. The goal of this project is to create a series of succinct, approachable modding guides that detail the tools and techniques needed for hardware modding. Game Boy Pocket Backlit LCD Installation Our first modding project involved...

A Trio of Game Boy Workshops

This past summer, I had the privilege of working with Alex Custodio and lee wilkins on a trio of Game Boy workshops, leading up to our Solar Game (Boy) Jam on August 26th.  The work was completed as part of the Milieux Solar Media Project, which explores the affordances of solar energy for digital communication systems. The three workshops invited guests to tinker with different aspects of the...

Volatile Memory: How to Replace Your Game Boy Cartridge Batteries

Last week, Alex Custodio and I had the opportunity run a workshop titled Volatile Memory: How to Replace Your Game Boy Cartridge Batteries, which we put on as part of an exhibition at Concordia University. We invited folks down to the Makerspace to learn about videogame maintenance and showed them how to swap the battery on a Game Boy cartridge – extending its lifespan by allowing certain...

GB Studio Workshop @ TAG

I will be co-hosting a GB Studio workshop with Alex Custodio from the Residual Media Depot on Tuesday February 4 from 4:30-6:30pm at TAG Lab. GB Studio is a very cool (very free) drag-and-drop game creation tool that lets you export your games online or as Game Boy ROM files. This workshop is very much inspired by work that both Alex and I completed last year as part of Mia Consalvo’s Games...

I Can’t Find The Words

I Can’t Find The Words is a prototype created for Mia Consalvo’s Games and/as Research-Creation graduate class at Concordia University. It explores the research question: “Can certain established videogame mechanics (namely, navigating 2D game space and speaking with NPCs) be co-opted to create an effective metaphor for the social anxiety caused by living with a speech impediment?” The prototype...

Michael Iantorno PhD Candidate, Game Designer, and Writer