I actually have little to no 'karma' perception but judging form the interview over at Nintendojo with Dutch developers Karma Studios, I'm guessing that this one counts as good karma. The developers have so far completed 5 games for the Gameboy Color and are actively seeking publishers for these titles. Also they are 65% complete in developing a next-gen title which they say could appear on either the PS2, Dolphin or Dreamcast. Here's what they said, an interesting read no doubt...

Any plans for developing for the Game Boy Advance?

We are excited about the Gameboy Advance and would love to get our hands on a devkit as soon as it's out. I don't think people should overeact by thinking the power would be equal to that of a Sony Playstation (since the magic 32-bit keyword is dropped). I think a Super- Nintendo would more accuratly describe the system's possibilities. But, if its design is good, you can expect attempts at 3D on the system, and we will surely try to go for a 3D engine on the system to maximize its capabilities!

What tools has Karma Studios created to assist in the development of games?

We've created a number of systems and tools to assist us in our development:

We have developed a number of multicolor and hi-color techniques. Ever since the Game Boy Color came out, the first thing we wondered was if it would be possible to surpass the 4 color per tile/8 palettes limit of the Game Boy. Soon we were able to display graphics with more than 4 colors per tile, by layering different layers of graphics on top of each other. Later on we developed two different techniques that would allow us to display hi-color pictures on the Game Boy Color. The first technique is something we call the KHCI technique. It involves 'blending' several layers, allowing us to display and modify the individual RGB components of a picture for each picture, without having to take care of palettes and/or 4 color pixel information, resulting in full RGB color pictures. The second technique is something quite similar to what Icarus Productions came up with a little while ago. It involves changing palettes after each scanline. This gives a slight better results than the first technique, but it's not that flexible (i.e. you can't easily modify your RGB data).

Finally, we have our Full Motion Video system. The first version of our Full Motion Video (FMV) system, like the one used in Turbo Racing Challenge (which contains a pre-rendered intro animation of about 45 seconds) was developed to work on both the traditional Game Boy Pocket as well as Game Boy Color. Right now, we are implementing various Game Boy Color only techniques to enhance our system. Also, we are combining our multi-color and hi- color skills to implement Full Color and Hi-color movie displaying on Game Boy Color.

Besides the systems described above, we've created a handfull of tools like graphics/animation converters, level-editors, animation-editors and more.

The music in your games is impressive, to say the very least. What tools have you created to produce such music? Will the tools be used by other companies?

Our music system uses the Game Boy sound chip to it's maximum, supporting tone slides, volume slides, panning settings, appergio, and many more effects. This allows us to create the kind of music that wasn't thought possible to do on Game Boy, like dance-music. If you don't believe us, we have got a number of MP3 demo tunes for our music system (including a dance tune) available for download on our site (www.karma-studios.com) as well as the game music for some of our upcoming games. We've got a number of license requests from various (known) companies, but we're not planning on licensing the system right now.

You state that you have two "next-gen" titles in development. Does this "next-gen" label cover Dolphin, and can you confirm that any of your products in development are targeted for Dolphin?

We have currently started the development on the first planned next-gen title. We will start development on (and targeted for) the PC platform. After about 65% of the game is completed, we will decide which next-gen platforms we will be targeting, which will most likely be Playstation 2, Dolphin and Dreamcast. But at the moment, we can't confirm a release for any of these platforms.

What can you tell us about your "Serious Engine" for next-gen systems? What sort of games is that engine best for or geared toward?

Well, Serious Engine is a component-based 3D engine designed to handle each type of game. Due to the use of components, it's possible to handle every 3D visualisation method. Also, it allows us to easily port the engine to any platform or API desired.

We can do practically any type of game we desire, ranging from racing-games to first-person shooters to full freedom Mario64 style platform games. Furthermore, the engine uses the latest cutting-edge techniques like skinned-character animation, automatically rescaling LOD and much more. We'll release more information on our site (www.karma-studios.com) as soon as we've completed the engine.

What kinds of issues face an overseas developer (particularly one that isn't in Japan) when bringing a game to the States? Any particular hardships that wouldn't be faced by a company like, say, Rare?

Financials, which give you the freedom to perfectionize your game and (like Rare in your example) the freedom to stop the development of a product if you are not completely satisfied with it. Also, we think actually selling your game (as good as the quality may be) to a publisher can be quite hard some times because of release-scedules, licensing issues, etc.

As Karma Studios looks to the future, where do you see the Game Boy platform headed? Will kids still be playing the GBC in 5 or 10 years?

Although the Gameboy has been most succesfull for a very long period (more than 10 years now), I don't think it will hold another 5 or 10 years. I think making the Game Boy Advanced is an excellent successor to the Game Boy Color, which probably will last another 5 years in our opinion.