I'm tinkering with a PlayStation homebrew (voxel space renderer) and development for fifth generation consoles has never been easier.
Modern toolchains, programming languages, dev cartridges and libraries from the community makes all the difference. Outside of some niceties like ICE (gotta write that GDB stub for target hardware at some point), it's not that different from what you'd experience with modern embedded work.
Super interesting article - thanks for sharing your journey. As AI slop takes over the internet, well written and original technical content like these will be important.
Also,
2026 web dev: 4MB of JavaScript to render a button.
2026 N64 dev: entire FPS in 1MB
I am in the process of using Claude Opus 5 to build an N64 game, and it really works. I've written no code and it is able to build a fully functional game.
I got it to write a skill for driving the Ares emulator via GDB Remote Serial Protocol and it uses that for its feedback loop.
if I am not wrong, the game described in this article, is presented in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOJUEcKYRk, from Palmer Luckey[1]. Wild this guy find time and energy for this side quest. That's passion.
Libdragon has been improved massively in the past year or so, there are now simple demo games that show capabilities far beyond the original N64 games (bump mapping textures, HDR, seamless loading of massive overworld maps, etc.) Really talented core team, fun to give them a follow.
Anyone know a vendor that might sell SummerCart in amateur quantities? Doesn't need to do that specifically, but maybe there's custom low volume board makers, like with 3D printer economics.
This is the same concept as "separating art from the artist". i.e. can you appreciate the creation without associating it with the personal foibles of the creator?
If you went around scrutinizing the personal failings of every single creator and deciding not to support their art, you would cut yourself off from a huge chunk of human creation. Creators and builders are disproportionately imperfect people.
Harvey Weinstein, for example, is a serial abuser and genuinely evil person. He also was involved in an enormous number of Hollywood productions. Do you go out of your way to make sure to never watch or consume media associated with him? My guess is probably not. It's impractical and also I think the net benefit of this mindset, where we only allow people with certain moral characteristics to succeed, is a loss for society.
I have mixed feelings about it. I don't agree with how my country often ends up using these technologies, but defense tech and weaponry still seems pretty necessary. The US is not the only one doing this. Should they wait for their adversaries to have the upper hand? I don't think it's such a bad thing, as long as they can put the right people in charge. That's a whole other problem.
I mean, that's just defense companies in general now. Would you rather have your own soldiers dying in a war, rather than robots? Ukraine is using AI in their targeting, is that something you condemn?
This is no different from the invention of machine guns or artillery. Yes, it's sad that these things will be used in war to kill (more) people. But intentionally avoiding that technology means you're just handicapping your own military and sacrificing others' lives for your principles.
He's not a war profiteer, he's a peace profiteer. His philosophy is peace through strength, not profit through death. He even strongly emphasizes saving lives through weapons with better precision, which has been the trajectory of US weapons design for many decades. Russia is over there killing everything in sight and leveling entire cities including thousands of schools.
Your claim is similar to saying nobody should own a gun, because it should be illegal to defend yourself or others. So everyone who owns any kind of weapon is evil and bad? Only bad people are allowed to own weapons and we should just roll over?
Nobody should defend Ukraine from Russia? Anduril has been helping Ukraine since very early on.
Good Lord. You know that Anduril industries will keep making drones no matter how many discussions about retro gaming you ruin right?
This backlash can hurt modretro, it can affect the author of this game, but the impact on the defense industry is zero. And this thread, fuck, you'd think running JavaScript on an n64 would be the safest place to avoid yelling about US politics in 2026 but here we are. And there's nothing to be gained. A smart person doing cool work published a game through a fun and ethical company that is owned by a person that also owns a defense company, so let's all scream about murdering children. As if that protects anyone from anything.
I consider all homebrew stuff very cool but the number of games emulating PS1 / N64 aesthetics is so massively oversaturated at this point that I'm kind of burned out on it.
But in general, the thing that really impresses me is what people come up with working within these various constraints. Less is more.
Megadrive / genesis homebrew is where it's at for me. But tbh I am honestly kind of clueless when it comes to this stuff. Still trying to get parallax scrolling and foreground occlusion figured out for my "game."
I’ve been building quite an ambitious flash cart menu system for the N64 recently, and it’s been an absolute joy! Would really recommend anyone with a curious, hacker mindset that grew up with these consoles to explore this platform - it’s fascinating!
Here’s what I’m working on - it contains a comprehensive retail game metadata library & cheats database, can screenshot running games and execute frame-perfect tool-assisted speedruns: https://youtu.be/UyqtU0hgGRA?si=_YisdNOrQrSpdpNT
What flash cart does your system run on? And do you have any docs about how to get it up and running? I'd love to get TAS stuff running on my N64, has been a dream for a while
40 comments
[ 0.82 ms ] story [ 49.8 ms ] threadModern toolchains, programming languages, dev cartridges and libraries from the community makes all the difference. Outside of some niceties like ICE (gotta write that GDB stub for target hardware at some point), it's not that different from what you'd experience with modern embedded work.
Also,
2026 web dev: 4MB of JavaScript to render a button. 2026 N64 dev: entire FPS in 1MB
I got it to write a skill for driving the Ares emulator via GDB Remote Serial Protocol and it uses that for its feedback loop.
References: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Luckey
https://modretro.com/products/xibalba-64
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bNN9XhGZ3Yw
(Also The Centre for Computing History YouTube channel is seriously underrated)
This makes me want to jump in. But also, I wonder how many people will ever buy and play your game.
Does Modretro's target market buy this type of stuff? Or are they the type to just download and emulator and ROM.
Demos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8g2ngHftY
If you went around scrutinizing the personal failings of every single creator and deciding not to support their art, you would cut yourself off from a huge chunk of human creation. Creators and builders are disproportionately imperfect people.
Harvey Weinstein, for example, is a serial abuser and genuinely evil person. He also was involved in an enormous number of Hollywood productions. Do you go out of your way to make sure to never watch or consume media associated with him? My guess is probably not. It's impractical and also I think the net benefit of this mindset, where we only allow people with certain moral characteristics to succeed, is a loss for society.
I mean, that's just defense companies in general now. Would you rather have your own soldiers dying in a war, rather than robots? Ukraine is using AI in their targeting, is that something you condemn?
This is no different from the invention of machine guns or artillery. Yes, it's sad that these things will be used in war to kill (more) people. But intentionally avoiding that technology means you're just handicapping your own military and sacrificing others' lives for your principles.
Your claim is similar to saying nobody should own a gun, because it should be illegal to defend yourself or others. So everyone who owns any kind of weapon is evil and bad? Only bad people are allowed to own weapons and we should just roll over?
Nobody should defend Ukraine from Russia? Anduril has been helping Ukraine since very early on.
Let the guy have his little side modding hobby.
Is SAAB bad making JAS Gripen being soon used against Russia?
I find your and similar views to be very childish. And somewhat suspicious.
Who would benefit from the west investing less in weapons systems? It boils down to what side you are on honestly.
This backlash can hurt modretro, it can affect the author of this game, but the impact on the defense industry is zero. And this thread, fuck, you'd think running JavaScript on an n64 would be the safest place to avoid yelling about US politics in 2026 but here we are. And there's nothing to be gained. A smart person doing cool work published a game through a fun and ethical company that is owned by a person that also owns a defense company, so let's all scream about murdering children. As if that protects anyone from anything.
But in general, the thing that really impresses me is what people come up with working within these various constraints. Less is more.
Megadrive / genesis homebrew is where it's at for me. But tbh I am honestly kind of clueless when it comes to this stuff. Still trying to get parallax scrolling and foreground occlusion figured out for my "game."
Here’s what I’m working on - it contains a comprehensive retail game metadata library & cheats database, can screenshot running games and execute frame-perfect tool-assisted speedruns: https://youtu.be/UyqtU0hgGRA?si=_YisdNOrQrSpdpNT