gba-build-develop

/gba-build-develop — Self-Driving GBA Game Development Pipeline

Composes /gba-build develop, /gba-ai-full, /research-perplexity, /creative-research, and /orchestrator-multi into a single autonomous mega-pipeline that researches, plans, parallelizes implementation, AI-playtests, iterates on failures, discovers creative features, and ships production-ready GBA games.

Usage

/gba-build-develop "<game description>"

Arguments: $ARGUMENTS = A natural-language description of the GBA game to build (e.g., "dungeon crawler with 3 floors, enemies, and a boss fight").

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7-Stage Pipeline

STAGE 0: INIT ─── Load skill, compile context, detect project state
    │
STAGE 1: RESEARCH ─── /research-perplexity → architecture + module plan
    │
STAGE 2: ORCHESTRATE ─── /orchestrator-multi patterns → parallel agent build
    │
STAGE 3: AI PLAYTEST ─── Generalized /gba-ai-full → save state + assert
    │
STAGE 4: RESEARCH ITERATION ─── Feed test results → fixes/improvements
    │                               ╰─► Loop to STAGE 2 if fixes needed
STAGE 5: CREATIVE DISCOVERY ─── /creative-research adapted for GBA
    │                               ╰─► Quick Wins loop to STAGE 2
STAGE 6: SHIP ─── Full playthrough, profiling, production audit, docs

Prerequisites

• devkitPro installed (pacman -S gba-dev)
• Butano (default engine) or libtonc — BUTANO_PATH set if using Butano
• mGBA running with Lua MCP server on port 61337
• git initialized in project directory
• loop_driver.py at "C:\Users\AustinKidwell\ASR Dropbox\Austin Kidwell\04_ResearchAnalysis\automated claude\automated-loop\loop_driver.py"
• MCP server registered in ~/.claude/settings.json

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Frame Timing Constants (Research-Derived)

These constants are hardware-derived from GBA specs (280,896 cycles/frame at 16.78 MHz) and validated against mGBA Lua API behavior. Use these exact values — never guess.

Constant	Frames	Use Case
FRAMES_BOOT_BIOS	270	After gba_flash_rom() with BIOS intro enabled
FRAMES_BOOT_SKIP	10	After gba_flash_rom() with BIOS skipped
FRAMES_BOOT_BUTANO	15	After gba_flash_rom() for Butano engine (heavier C++ init)
FRAMES_TITLE_TO_GAME	60	After pressing START — covers 32f fade-out + 5f load + 20f fade-in + 3f settle
FRAMES_INPUT_SETTLE	3	After press_button() before reading memory (key_poll + logic + 1 frame margin)
FRAMES_INPUT_VISUAL	4	After press_button() before screenshot (input + OAM DMA copy)
FRAMES_SCENE_TRANSITION	75	After triggering scene change (32f fade + 10f VRAM load + 32f fade + 1f settle)
FRAMES_FAST_TRANSITION	40	Scene change with same tileset / no fade
FRAMES_COMBAT_INIT	90	From encounter trigger to stable battle screen (RPG)
FRAMES_COMBAT_INIT_ACTION	45	From encounter trigger to stable combat (action game, simpler transition)
FRAMES_SAVE_COMPLETE	3	After triggering SRAM save (1f write + 2f state machine margin)
FRAMES_SOFTLOCK_TIMEOUT	900	15 seconds of zero state change = confirmed softlock
FRAMES_SCREENSHOT_NORMAL	60	Screenshot interval during normal gameplay (1/sec)
FRAMES_SCREENSHOT_TRANSITION	5	Screenshot interval during transitions (high granularity)
FRAMES_SCREENSHOT_GAMEPLAY	30	Screenshot interval during active testing (~2/sec)
FRAMES_STATE_CHECK_FINE	5	Memory read interval for position/HP (catches movement)
FRAMES_STATE_CHECK_MODE	1	Game mode byte check interval (every frame during transitions)
FRAMES_STATE_CHECK_COARSE	30	Memory sentinel / corruption check interval
FRAMES_CHECKPOINT_INTERVAL	300	Save state safety checkpoint (~5 seconds)