The MegaDuck is a handheld console released in 1993, built by Hong Kong-based Welback Holdings and distributed in Europe and South America under several names — in France it was known as the Cougar Boy. It is an unapologetic Game Boy clone, sold for markedly less money.
The cloning goes a long way: the processor, the screen and the sound circuitry are practically those of the Game Boy. Two differences nevertheless rule out any compatibility. First the cartridge connector, physically different, with an unrelated pinout. Second the hardware register mapping, reshuffled compared to Nintendo's: even with an adapter, a Game Boy game cannot run on a MegaDuck, and vice versa.
The library is limited to around thirty titles, nearly all unlicensed Asian productions, several of them arcade conversions or variations on existing concepts. The machine vanished very quickly and remains one of the most obscure handhelds of its era, but its hardware has been studied enough to be perfectly emulated today.
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro SameDuck | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The MegaDuck is available on every board supported by Recalbox.
SameDuck is the only emulator for this system and therefore the default one. It is a variant of SameBoy, a Game Boy emulator renowned for its accuracy, adapted to the specifics of the MegaDuck. Its compatibility is excellent and it runs at full speed on every machine. It supports neither netplay, nor softpatching, nor CRT display. RetroAchievements are supported on this system.
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/megaduck/
Supported extension: .bin
This is the only recognised extension:
.zipand.7zarchives are not supported on this system. Extract your roms and leave them as.binin the folder, otherwise they will not show up in the game list.