Surfing a Game Boy With a Musician: Interview with Mike Huguenor

What the report says

Advertisement Interview Surfing a Game Boy With a Musician: Interview with Mike Huguenor by Neal Ronaghan - August 20, 2026, 8:54 am EDT Discuss in talkback! Mike Huguenor (guitarist from Jeff Rosenstock) spent the last year making a Game Boy game that turns being a touring musician into a retro-tinged narrative adventure.In the same week that Mike Huguenor announced his debut video game, he played guitar with Jeff Rosenstock for the band’s nine-show residency in Chicago, spending his only off night going to an area book store to discuss his new book about the history of DIY record label Asian Man Records.

As Huguenor told me when I talked to him in July, “sometimes when it rains, it pours.”It’s a wild thing to see all of these forms of media converge together, but that feels like the spirit of a lot of indie and DIY culture. Huguenor has been a part of Jeff Rosenstock’s band for more than a decade, while also being a mainstay of the DIY punk scene as a part of other bands such as Shinobu and Hard Girls. He also has history with Asian Man Records founder Mike Park, which led him to writing the 2026 music history tome Elvis Is Dead, I'm Still Alive: The Story of Asian Man Records.

And in between writing a book and touring with an active punk band, Huguenor also made a Game Boy game all by himself.His video game is a level-based adventure game called Surfing the Web With the Alien. It’s an adaptation of his instrumental album from last year (also titled Surfing the Web With the Alien) and draws inspiration from many Nintendo and retro gaming classics while also being narratively themed around existence as a touring musician. The game is imminently releasing on Steam and itch.io and it’s also available in a hand-crafted Game Boy cartridge (while supplies last).

Key details

He spent the last year using GB Studio to develop it. Asking him about a possible Switch release, it’s something Huguenor would love to see but this whole process is brand new to him. Less than a year ago, he was struggling to figure out development and just getting any of the levels to work. Now he’s hand-crafting Game Boy copies while launching on PC. With how much Huguenor has done in 2026, there’s part of me that expects a simultaneous console release in a few weeks.The origins of this idea started while Huguenor was touring his instrumental album last year.

At one of the shows, he talked to Lauren Records founder Aaron Kovacs (who put out the original version of Surfing the Web With the Alien). Kovacs brought up the idea of messing around with more small run special releases on the label. When Huguenor pitched the idea of a floppy disk with MIDI files of his music, Kovacs (who is younger than Huguenor) allegedly replied “what’s a floppy disk?” The age gap might have prevented a floppy disk limited run, but Kovacs brought up the idea of making a Game Boy game or something.

From there, Huguenor’s worlds converged. He’s a lifelong gamer, recalling fond memories of writing Nintendo as a kid to pitch Mega Man bosses, and this idea of turning his music into a playable video game took off.In August 2025, the idea took shape and Huguenor sought out how to make a Game Boy game. It took some trial and error, but eventually he came across GB Studio and hopped into the community’s Discord and started figuring out how to make his own video game. “A big thing for me making this game was that I feel like, I really wanted to make a game where there was no shooting involved.

More from the announcement

It was very interesting to me making this game because it seems somewhat problematically baked into the process of making games sometimes,” he said after noticing how, by default, “Launch Projectile” is one of GB Studio’s built-in commands.One of the earliest things he did for the game was taking his guitar-only album and turning it into an 8-bit Game Boy game soundtrack. He did all of this while on tour with Jeff Rosenstock and PUP last fall. That tour was also when the early design concepts for levels came about. It turns out that touring isn’t germane to game development so the deeper development didn’t start happening until he got back home.

Tour fed into the game’s plot and gameplay though, as it follows a touring musician throughout their day.