Play-Yan Emulation: it's real!

Intro

After 19 years, people can finally emulate the Play-Yan. And as the only Play-Yan fan site on the web (possible???), it had to be tested. And now, you can too can emulate the Play-Yan!

What you'll need:

1. A computer that can run GBE+

2. GBE+ itself

3. Play-Yan ROM

How do I do it?

Go and download GBE+. Since Webmaster uses a Linux rig, he went for the Flatpak variety. While that's downloading, scour the Internet for a Play-Yan ROM. We will NOT be providing links to these ROMs, but a quick search on your search engine of choice will let you find one.

Open GBE+, and go to Options, then General Settings. In the general settings, change the General ROM Type to AGB - Play-Yan. You can now open up the ROM. ALWAYS do this before you run the ROM. Otherwise you'd be stuck staring at the Play-Yan title screen, waiting for it to load.

The Play-Yan shall now boot up. However, I do not know how to load up the minigames. This site tells me there's a data folder... Nevermind. I have found the data folder by searching "gbe" in the files. I have also popped a random MP3 in just for the giggles.

Now, for the moment of truth. The MP3 may have broke the thing, so I have substituted the other file with one I know works on a Play-Yan. Hold on... the special rom type was turned off! Let's try again.

Let's see if this thing can play some MP3, shall we? MP3s show up, but I don't hear the Play-Yan's UI beep or any sound whatsoever. Now, to play some Jump. It works, but I have a web browser opened and THAT might be the cause of the sound issue (and that it ran slower than usual). 

I will, however, keep testing it out. And MAN, the Play-Yan looks gorgeous on a 1600x900 computer screen... Now I can see him in detail.

I would like to thank whoever made this possible. Might have been the edge of emulation guy (see: Resources)

Update, 8/27/2025: I tried version 1.9 last night, which "allegedly" fixed some issues. 

However, the sound to the Play-Yan seems to not work on my Linux Mint rig. It keeps showing the no-files thing that the Play-Yan usually does when there aren't any files on the SD card. Couldn't hear the beep from the Play-Yan's UI either. Just a bunch of crackling sounds. And if I set the sound samples higher than one, I get a mish-mash of what I can describe is the sound of my brain trying to do math. On the other hand, I can hear sound when I load up Rhythm Tengoku. But NOT the Play-Yan. Plus, there isn't a Macintosh version of GBE+ that I know of. Couldn't find a contact email for the dev either... I would've been more than happy to help you test a possible Macintosh version. I might get the previous version and use that again. But honestly, I don't know. I might've done something wrong in setting it up again. If any of the devs (or is it just one guy?) seeing this, please test your software on Linux Mint 22.1 Xia (Cinnamon variety) running on an Inspiron One 2020.