Game Boy screen simulator in ggplot2 with ggboy

Package

Author

Chris Holmes

Game Boy screen style

ggboy package tries to recreate the original screen style of the Game Boy (DMG-01). The main function of the package is ggboy, which transform the input image as follows.

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
ggboy(img)

Image with Game Boy aesthetic in ggplot2

By default, the function applies image dithering. If you want you can set dither = FALSE to avoid it.

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
ggboy(img, dither = FALSE)

Image without dither

Image adjustment

The images can be adjusted in several ways, such as increasing or reducing the resolution (res), the number of colors (ncols) or the cropping if no frame is used.

Game boy simulator adjustments

High resolution

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
ggboy(img, res = 300, ncols = 50)

Number of image colors

Changing the number of colors

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
ggboy(img, ncols = 2, frame = 0)

No crop image

Avoid cropping

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
ggboy(img, crop = FALSE)

Color palettes

There are also several color palettes, which are shown in the image below. You can also pass a vector of colors as in scale_fill_gradientn function.

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)
# install.packages("patchwork")
library(patchwork)
# install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)
# install.packages("purrr")
library(purrr)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
wrap_plots(map(seq_along(palettes),
               ~ggboy(img, palette = .x) +
                 labs(title = .x)))

ggboy color palettes

Types of frames

There are six different types of frames available which can be selected using frame argument. Possible values are 0, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 and 22.

ggboy frame types

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)
# install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)

# Plot
frames_df %>%
  ggplot(aes(x, y, fill = z))+
  geom_raster() +
  facet_wrap(~frame_n) +
  scale_y_reverse() +
  scale_fill_gradient(low = "black", high = "white")+
  coord_equal() +
  theme(legend.position = "none",
        axis.title = element_blank(),
        axis.text = element_blank(),
        axis.ticks = element_blank())

Body graphic

The package also allows you to get your image inside a real Game Boy body, setting graphic = TRUE.

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/favicon.png"

# Plot
ggboy(img, graphic = TRUE)

ggboy image with Game Boy body

Gifs

ggboy with gif image

There is an additional function named ggboy_gif which allows simulating the Game Boy aesthetic to gifs.

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/gif/pokemon.gif"

# Plot
ggboy_gif(img)

ggboy gif with body

You can even specify other arguments as in the previous function, such as the body of the Game Boy.

# install.packages("remotes")
# remotes::install_github("cj-holmes/ggboy")
library(ggboy)

# Image 
img <- "http://localhost:4321/images/gif/pokemon.gif"

# Plot
ggboy_gif(img, graphic = TRUE)