GBJam is about making gameboy "spirited" games, and not actually needing the technical ability to make a game for the gameboy. With the new leaps forward in the form of GBStudio, however, that barrier for entry is lower than it once was.
Participants are encouraged to make and submit whatever they can in any form that they can.
Incidentally, ours was made with GBStudio and has a gameboy and .pocket version: https://polyducks.itch.io/potbound
GBJam is about making gameboy "spirited" games, and not actually needing the technical ability to make a game for the gameboy.
It can actually be quite a challenge to make something look like a proper Game Boy game using something else, so this is interesting too in itself. :)
With the new leaps forward in the form of GBStudio, however, that barrier for entry is lower than it once was.
I agree, but I think that if you want to have your tailor-made original game, you may have to dig deeper into the code, possibly using the Engine Eject feature. (And if you really need careful optimisation, it may not be enough, as it is built upon C-language GBDK rather than ASM-language RGBDS.) Maybe you used it yourselves for your game, or you managed to circumvent the limitations in some way? (I still have to try it out!)
When touring for a little state of the art on Game Boy development tools, I realized there were some limitations to GB Studio if you want to depart from the ‘templates’, as stated on this tool-listing page, or as the creator of Game Boy Showdown’s Super Jacked Up Tomate Face Johnson said (‘Yeah, I think making a platformer with the current version of GB Studio makes for rather simple core gameplay but i am trying to making it at least a little more exciting with my level designs.’ — he was talking about a previous version, but according to the dates, I guess it was 3.0.3). It can get you going for a classic platformer, shoot ’em up, point-and-click, or top-view adventure, but it is up to you to go further.
Do not get me wrong, I think it is great to allow people to come to the Game Boy through visual scripting and editing (the current GB Studio 3.1.0 demonstration game is well designed and varied enough to show its extent!), and you can get great classic/standard-gameplay games; I just think it is, as you mentioned, an entry point, and then, you may have more things to learn if you want to get outside the box.
(Sorry for my wordy comments, I have been passionately exploring around the whole Game Boy tools information — although I confess I somewhat overlooked WLA-DX as apparently more generic/cross-platform —, I just wanted to give it back in return! I should definitely get a website to write down my musings and refer to it instead of squatting in other people’s places. XD)