How we made a cartridge with the game Apotris

History of Early Projects

This chapter is narrated by the inspirer and main driving force behind all this - Ruslan:

The Frog Didn't Work Out

It all started somewhere in 2022. We gradually came to the idea of making something of our own - physical, real. We were inspired by companies like Limited Run that release modern games on retro cartridges with bonuses: stickers, posters, beautiful boxes.

The DMG-Dreams chat brought together people united by their love for retro consoles, especially Game Boy and Famicom. We decided: why don't we try it too?

The first project was a game about a frog - the English name is hard to pronounce. It was about the game The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls - a Japanese RPG adventure released by Nintendo in 1992 exclusively in Japan.

Later, a fan-made English localization appeared, but there was never an official release outside Japan.

Its title translates as "The Bell Tolls for the Frog" - an allusion to the title of Hemingway's famous novel. But in the Japanese interpretation, it's a humorous adventure with RPG and platformer elements.

We wanted to make a cartridge with the game, a box and a manual. Everything like the "big developers". We found donor cartridges and ordered boards.

We drew the design and translated the instructions.

But the project stalled. Some didn't do their part on time, others got offended, the team fell apart. The poster didn't work out, the manual wasn't finished. This was our first failed project.

Our First Cartridge

After the failure, we concluded: we need to work in a small team. Two or three people, maximum. So began our next project - VS. Super Mario Bros.

This game is the arcade version of classic Mario, but harder and with a ranking table. It was released in the US, but not published on home consoles.

Koshchei redrew the box and manual from Japanese to English.

I found quality cases in Japan and China. The boards didn't work out at first, then we managed to find a master in China who understood our idea.

Well, sort of understood. For this, we had to draw a picture. We communicated with gestures, but over the internet.

We assembled the first batch of 13 pieces - with a box, manual, sticker.

And even made an advertising poster, like in old magazines. Koshchei spent 50+ hours redrawing it.

This was our first successful release.

Purple Grimace and Happy Meal Magic

At the end of 2023, Evgen bought the ROM of the game Grimace's Birthday, made for McDonald's.

The game existed only in digital form and was distributed for free.

Evgen also acquired the source materials: box, stickers, materials. There was no manual in the usual form - Koshchei's wife made it from scratch, and it turned out great. We barely edited it.

I found a new manufacturer in China who sent excellent boards. We chose cases in two colors - purple and yellow.

We added a wooden magnet in the shape of a Game Boy Color, a keychain with the heroine, a matte box like Happy Meal.

The batch sold out quickly. The price was fair - 3500₽, without markup. The project turned out to be a gift edition.

This was the backstory of creating the Apotris cartridge.

Apotris

After the successful release of Grimace, the DMG-Dreams team decided to take on a more ambitious project - on the Game Boy Advance platform. The choice fell on Apotris - a modern version of Tetris that Nintendo never published and that was distributed for free.

Why Apotris?

Fan approach advocate Evgen insisted from the beginning on the principle: if a game never had a physical release, it can be "re-released" unofficially. Apotris was perfect - it was a third-party development, high quality and never released on physical media.

The team wanted not just a ROM file on a flash drive, but a full physical release - with a box, sticker, manual and souvenirs. The main highlight was to be a vibration cartridge, a rare feature even for official GBA releases.

But before doing anything, we had to clarify who even needed this. Ruslan published a post with the question: "Who would buy Apotris with a vibration cartridge and full kit for ~3000₽?"

10 people responded immediately. This became the reason to start production. We decided to release 20 kits in total: 4 - for the collection, 10 - for pre-order, the rest - as reserve.

For cartridge production, Ruslan turned to a Chinese supplier who already worked with vibration boards. Again through a translator app, using gestures, we managed to explain that we needed vibration on the cartridge.

No one believed that the Chinese guy fully understood what Ruslan wanted. But in the end, despite all doubts, the supplier understood everything - and sent ready vibration cartridges.

Cases, Color and Magnets

Cases were ordered from several suppliers. The final choice fell on transparent ones that glow in the dark - visually attractive.

There was hesitation with the choice of magnet colors. The project author wrote to Evgen, who replied: "Make it pink." And so appeared the pink magnet in the shape of a GBA with the Apotris splash screen.

Sleeves and the Most Expensive Part

Initially they planned to take ordinary matte plastic boxes.

But in the end, we abandoned this idea and made custom transparent boxes.

Since the boxes were transparent, the team decided to make sleeves - similar to Japanese GameCube releases. They were printed at a local printing house. Due to the small print run, the cost turned out to be high: about 500₽ per piece.

See? The box has a cardboard sleeve.

This made the sleeve the second most expensive element after the boards.

Manual and Sticker Pack

Koshchei created a sticker pack - with characters in the spirit of Apotris: from Tetris blocks to crazy faces. Many concepts were developed.

Then Koshchei came up with something like this:

And the final result looked like this:

Work on the manual began with a draft. We hired a freelancer, but he delayed deadlines and refused further edits. In the end, Koshchei finished everything again.

During the process, a new version of Apotris (4.0.2) was released, and we had to rewrite about 40% of the manual.

That's about when I joined. I was asked to proofread and edit the manual.

Originally it was just a Word file that looked like this:

At this stage, I just edited the text, highlighting my suggestions in gray. Since we hadn't worked with DMG-Dreams before, it wasn't very clear how to organize the workflow. So I just suggested text and highlighted sentences with color.

After my first edit, the manual started taking its final form. They sent it to me again for review.

Since writing the manual required understanding all the game's intricacies, I couldn't avoid the block editor either. That's how that surprised face appeared.

But my favorite part was on page 35. Can you find it? I believe the manual is exactly the place where such text should be :)

But in the end, we conquered the manual too. Gradually, all ordered parts started arriving, and we could begin assembling the final kit.

The final point in creating this cartridge was when it reached me. My wife takes all the photos for the website, and it was clear that the honor of creating promotional images of the cartridge would fall to her. That's how these wonderful photos came about.

Epilogue

Apotris became a cool, living project. The work took about five months. Everything - from idea to physical result - was done by the hands of passionate people. And I was lucky to be part of this project.

This product became a source of great experience and understanding of how to do things properly. There were many small tasks, on-the-fly decisions, unexpected difficulties - but we succeeded!

And when everything finally came together - the box, the vibration cartridge, the printed manual and stickers - it looked truly amazing. The result was something cool that you want to hold in your hands and show to friends.