A Printer Problem Is Why This New GBA e-Reader Game Is Being Built for PC Too

The game works. Printing the Nintendo e-Reader cards is the nightmare

Eridin is being built for the Game Boy Advance e-Reader and PC after developer Matt Greer learned that making the software can be easier than manufacturing cards the hardware will actually scan.

Making a new game for a Nintendo accessory from 2002 is strange enough. For developer Matt Greer, though, the bigger problem arrived after the code worked: finding a printer that could reliably reproduce the tiny dot-code strips used by the Nintendo e-Reader.

That experience is now shaping Eridin, a new fantasy turn-based strategy game Greer is developing for both GBA/e-Reader hardware and PC. It is another odd little hardware story in the same spirit as Robbo‘s original DOS programmer bringing the game to Playdate 33 years later: old technology is directly shaping what gets built now.

Early Eridin screenshots and mockups from Matt Greer’s development post. The creator notes that one early e-Reader integration mockup no longer reflects the current plan. Image: Matt Greer / RetroDotCards.

Eridin GBA and PC Prototype Comparison

Watch Matt Greer’s GBA and PC prototype comparison on YouTube.

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A finished e-Reader game that could not reliably be printed

Greer has already shipped games for the e-Reader through RetroDotCards. His next project, Pixel Pup, was supposed to go further. The e-Reader version was finished and the cards were manufactured, but Greer says his printer had changed equipment and software, and the new cards no longer scanned reliably enough to sell.

He then contacted about a dozen printers around the country. According to Greer, none wanted to take on the unusual precision requirements. Pixel Pup ultimately released as a normal GBA game instead.

That is the problem Eridin is designed around. Greer still wants to make an ambitious e-Reader game, but this time the whole project will not depend on finding somebody in 2026 willing to manufacture cards for a long-discontinued Nintendo peripheral. If the physical side does not work out, the PC version can still exist.

The same game engine is targeting GBA and PC

Greer is writing the game in C. The GBA side uses DevKitPro and libtonc, while the PC version uses SDL2. Instead of making two unrelated games, he has separated platform-specific jobs such as rendering and input from the systems that can be shared.

The PC version is still designed around the GBA’s 240×160 visual language, but it does not have to reproduce every hardware limitation. Greer’s prototype video shows smoother map scrolling on PC through higher-resolution rendering and subpixel movement, while the GBA version moves in the chunkier increments expected from the handheld.

It has some of the same appeal as PlayDOOM squeezing a full 32-map Freedoom campaign into a Reddit post. The limitation is not something hidden behind the project. It is the reason the project is interesting.

There is no release date yet

Greer published the Eridin development breakdown on September 17, 2026. The game is still early, with no public build or announced release date. The physical e-Reader card plan is also unresolved, and Greer says he is still considering digital ways of getting e-Reader data onto real hardware if traditional manufacturing remains impractical.

Fix Gaming Channel has not played Eridin. The printing story, development approach, platform plans, and current status come from Greer’s own development post and prototype comparison.

For now, that is enough of a story by itself: somebody is making a new game for a Nintendo card scanner from 2002, and the part threatening the physical release is not the GBA, the code, or the e-Reader. It is finding a printer.

Eridin

Release: TBA; early development

Genre: Fantasy turn-based strategy

Developer: Matt Greer / RetroDotCards

Platforms: PC and Game Boy Advance / Nintendo e-Reader

Project: Developer breakdown

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