A downloadable game

This Game Boy® demo ROM (version 2), includes 15 levels (last 5 are more difficult), and the endings have been removed. The full physical game cartridge includes 100 levels, and multiple endings.

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Save Me Cows!™ is now available to pre-order; ships in August 2025.

Save Me Cows!™ is an action puzzle game in the ChuChu Rocket!™ genre. The game includes a physical cartridge (Game Boy®, Game Boy Color®, and compatible systems), instruction manual, box, and some fun stickers.

You star as a cowpoke working for Edgar, a world renown rancher and 4 time alien abductee. Tasked with using your bovine sensibilities to save his prize cattle, place arrows and special tiles to direct all cows to the exit, and collect the stars.

Save Me Cows!™ features 100 mind bending levels, detailed pixel art, 100% custom assembly code, multiple endings, hours of fun, with original chiptune music. It's Game Boy Color® compatible, and has monochrome palettes for DMG, Lite, and Pocket. And best of all, it's suitable for all ages!

More information

Status	Released
Author	binarysquare
Genre	Puzzle
Tags	chiptune, Game Boy, gameboy-color, Game Boy ROM, Homebrew, Multiple Endings, Pixel Art, Singleplayer

Download

SaveMeCows_Demo.gb 128 kB

Install instructions

You need a Game Boy® or Game Boy Advance@ emulator or a ROM cartridge like the EverDrive.

Comments

bbbbbr47 days ago (2 edits)

Enjoying the puzzles of this game, the music and the idea. As with the other comment, would be cool to have a digital version.

Now, some unsolicited suggestions :)

I’m finding the button mapping kind of frustrating (and maybe somewhat outside normal conventions). Keep mis-pressing Select trying to toggle between Select and Edit and fumbling with B Pick-up behavior, etc.

Currently:

Start: Info screen
Select: Starts cows
A:
- In Select Mode: Toggles to Edit
- In Edit Mode: Places
B: Toggles between Select/Edit, and simultaneously Picks-up objects when over them in Edit mode

Would prefer something like this:

Start: Starts cows
Select: Toggle between Select/Edit
- Select held + Start: Restart level
- Select held + B or A: Show help screen
A: Places
- No auto toggle of Select/Edit
- Does auto-highlight next available item in Select bar if present
B: Picks-up
- No auto toggle of Select/Edit
- Does auto-highlight whatever was removed in Select bar

Also getting some exceptions in BGB and Emulicious (DMG and GBC modes). I have exceptions turned on for development and so in bgb some of these pop up as dialogs whenever trying to run the game.

Invalid VRAM access
OAM 16 bit increment bug
Reading from non-initalized WRAM

binarysquare45 days ago(+1)

Thanks for the info. I'm looking into it.

binarysquare42 days ago

Hi, I was wondering if you can give some more details? I'm not seeing the exceptions. Could you provide details on when you are seeing these?

bbbbbr42 days ago (2 edits)

With these settings. By default all the exceptions may not be turned on, so good to check them.

I can’t seem to upload the video capture of from bgb, but here is the exception log from emulicious. It’s fairly similar.

Here “…” = lots of repeated similar lines.

This was game start with the palette fades on the splash screen:

ROM06:4794: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible Palette
ROM06:4794: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible Palette
...
ROM06:4794: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible Palette
ROM06:4794: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible Palette
ROM06:4794: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible Palette
ROM00:34A3: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C623
ROM00:380A: Reading from uninitialized memory at HRAM:FF89
ROM06:4A7D: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C30B
ROM06:4A84: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C30C
ROM06:4A7D: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C30D
...
ROM06:4A7D: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C347
ROM06:4A84: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C348
ROM06:4A7D: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C349
ROM06:4A84: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C34A

I think this was going into the About page
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM02:7A0D: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C5EF
ROM02:79F6: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C5EF
ROM02:7A03: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C5F0
ROM02:7A20: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible VRAM
ROM02:7A26: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible VRAM

Maybe back to the main menu and starting the game:
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
...
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM03:528C: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C649
ROM03:5275: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C649
ROM03:5282: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C64A

Maybe right before the main game screen
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM00:37E6: Exception Breakpoint Hit: Accessing inaccessible OAM
ROM01:64BB: Reading from uninitialized memory at WRAM0:C2F2

binarysquare40 days ago

Thanks. I got them cleaned up. Working on a demo update.

bbbbbr40 days ago

Cool!

binarysquare35 days ago(+1)

New demo available!

View more in thread

wavedout47 days ago(+1)

Is there a way to pre-order a digital copy? Would love to support this project

binarysquare45 days ago

Not at this time. I will think about it though.

BrewOtaku - The Homebrew Gaming Magazine48 days ago