HOW TO PLAY KIRBY TILT ‘N’ TUMBLE ON GBE PLUS EMULATOR WITH A WIIMOTE ON UBUNTU.

Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble is a unique GAMEBOY Color game that was released in the year 2000, the game instead of using traditional game controls (dpad and buttons) uses accelerometers that were built into the game cartridge for motion controling Kirby in the game.

For a long time this game was unplayable on emulators, as they did not expose the sensors of the game so that they can mapped to an input device but now the GBE Plus emulator lets you assign keyboard keys to the accelerometers, giving you the option to control the game with a keyboard or game controller.

But Maybe you are looking for a more authentic experience and want to use motion controls and play the game the same way it was played on the GAMEBOY with a original cartridge. Well that is possible and there are more than one ways day to achieve that. In this article we are going explore the method of connecting a Wiimote (Wii Remote) to a computer in order to control the game. A wiimote has a built in a variety of motion sensors and it is easy to connect it to a computer running Ubuntu, so it is a perfect fit for playing Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble.

You will need:

A Wiimote ( I am using the original remote, I don’t know if later revisions or 3rd party ones work)

A Bluetooth dongle (Most laptops have build in Build In Bluetooth dongle)

GBE Plus emulator (Latest Version)

XWii (For mapping the keyboard to Wiimote)

First you need to download the source code for Gbe Plus Emulator from here. By following these instructions.

In order to compile it you need the following software

GIT (Click for instructions)

CMake (Instructions)

SDL 2.0 (sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev)

OpenGL

Qt4 or Qt5 (sudo apt-get install qtdeclarative5-dev qml-module-qtquick-controls)

When you are sure you have the necessary software installed type the following commands into the terminal.

git clone https://github.com/shonumi/gbe-plus.git

cd gbe-plus

mkdir build && cd build

cmake ..

make && make install

This should compile and install Gbe plus.

The next step is to install Xwii

Go to http://www.photofiltre-lx.org/projects/xwii/download.html

Download the 64bit version, (Do not download the GUI source code ALPHA)

when the file is downloaded , double click on it and install it with Ubuntu software.

after the installation is finished click on Files in the Unity Launcher and go to usr/share/xwii/profiles/

create a new document and name it gbeplus.xwii

open the file and copy and paste into it the following code:

[tilt_left]KEYBOARD H [/tilt_left]

[tilt_right]KEYBOARD Y[/tilt_right]

[tilt_forward]KEYBOARD G [/tilt_forward]

[tilt_back]KEYBOARD J [/tilt_back]

[a]KEYBOARD Q[/a]

[b]KEYBOARD W[/b]

[1]KEYBOARD S[/1]

[2]KEYBOARD A[/2]

[minus]KEYBOARD Return[/minus]

[up]KEYBOARD Left[/up]

[down]KEYBOARD Right[/down]

[left]KEYBOARD Down[/left]

[right]KEYBOARD Up[/right]

[led1]1[/led1]

Save and close the file.

Now run the emulator with gbe_plus_qt

from the options menu choose controls

Configure Button A as Keyboard key A

Configure Button B as Keyboard key S

Configure Button START as Keyboard key ENTER/RETURN

Configure LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN, as Keyboard directional keys (the buttons with the arrows.)

the rest doesn’t need to be configured.

Next Click on Advanced Controls

Configure Context Up as Keyboard key Y

Configure Context Down as Keyboard key H

Configure Context Left as Keyboard key G

Configure Context Right as Keyboard key J

Close the Controls Configuration but don’t close the emulator

Open the Terminal and type xwii and press enter. A list with all the xwii Profiles should appear.

Type the number that is corresponding to the gbeplus profile and press Enter

Now on your Wiimote press and hold the 1 and 2 buttons until it is connected.

Finally open the Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble rom image and enjoy playing the game by holding the Wiimote sideways and tilting it.