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But this is going to be a predefined input file anyway, so I don't need to run all of the actual code, I just need to run equivalent code that produces the same audio-visual effect as the original. At first I thought about streamlining the original code by cutting not needed code paths and priming it so that it produced the predetermined results I wanted (basically pre-computing the emulation and only running the resulting instructions), but I came up with an even more radical idea: I realized that all the instructions that really mattered are those that put tiles on the screen or played some sounds. So all I need to do is emulate the actual audio-visual output of the game with the right timing, without any internal game state.
This realization was the key to this run, as it opened many more possibilities: The source of the A/V doesn't need to be another game. It could be a hack of a game. Or the mash-up of different games. Or from a different system. Or literally arbitrary A/V. This made this run become not about running a game in another game, but more about pushing the limits of the Gameboy hardware and see what is possible.