mGBA

mGBA is an emulator for Game Boy Advance games that also supports Game Boy and Game Boy Color. This Homebrew cask installs the macOS graphical application; it is distinct from command-line or emulator-core distributions.

Playing and controls

The official project documents remappable keyboard and gamepad controls, fast-forward, configurable rewind, save-type detection and nine save-state slots. It supports loading ZIP and 7z archives and applying IPS, UPS and BPS patches. A built-in BIOS implementation is provided, with the option to load external BIOS files. Use game files you are legally entitled to access.

Hardware and media features

The emulator supports local link-cable emulation on the same computer, cartridge motion sensors and rumble with appropriate controllers, real-time clocks, Boktai solar sensors, Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer features. Recording options include video, GIF, WebP and APNG. These are documented project capabilities, not claims that every game or peripheral is fully emulated.

Advanced workflows

Lua scripting, cheat codes, a command-line debugger and GDB remote support serve testing and development workflows. The README separately lists incomplete support for some Game Boy mappers and planned features; networked link-cable multiplayer and wireless-adapter support should not be assumed available merely because they appear on that roadmap.

Installation and version scope

Install with brew install --cask mgba-app and launch the application. Controls are configurable in Settings. The recorded version is 0.10.5, distributed in the official macOS DMG. Its GitHub release body is empty, but the exact-tag source tree contains the official CHANGES file, which is used for version-specific notes. Build dependencies documented in the repository are for source compilation, not ordinary installation of the packaged application.

Sources

• Official website
• Official repository and README
• Exact 0.10.5 changelog
• Official 0.10.5 release
• Homebrew cask