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- Hacker News
- Tried to see if it was possible to buy the Rom itself. But it seems like you would need to buy a physical copy at this point:by ninjin
- Does compatibility with M64 imply N64 compat?by rightbyte
- Strange choice to go for a raycaster with sprites on the N64. The hardware is basically begging to be fed textured polygons.by crest
- Raycasters in the modern age are generally an artistic decision, not a technical one.
- All geometry is rendered as textured polygons. The raycasting step only determines visibility.
But yes, the N64 isn't particularly well suited for this type of game (or anything 2D, really). I didn't know that when I started the project.
by phoboslab - 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
by ayanb - Have you seen .kkreiger?by inigyou
- 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.
References: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Luckey
by pelasaco - Each person that dies by his weapons of war makes him stronger.by msephton
- 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."
- > the number of games emulating PS1 / N64 aesthetics is so massively oversaturated at this point that I'm kind of burned out on it.
The point isn't just to be a novelty throwback aesthetic. It's the most accessible way for indie devs to make a 3D game without needing to worry about particularly high quality 3D models and animation.
by hbn - Wow the ModRetro units are really polished... Look great with more than a nod to the original system designs.
Anyone know what Nintendo's stance is on the companies making these kind of "brand inspired" retro products?
by lordfrito - Really? I think the ModRetro M64 is hideous compared to Analogue's 3D (their version of the N64)by roboror
- > Anyone know what Nintendo's stance is on the companies making these kind of "brand inspired" retro products?
Undoubtedly their legal team is at work 24/7 finding every angle at which to unleash legal hell upon it.
- Obligatory link to an interview with three of the Goldeneye developers about the development of the game. I found it very fascinating.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bNN9XhGZ3Yw
(Also The Centre for Computing History YouTube channel is seriously underrated)
- Great work! I didn't even know it was still possible to publish new games for old consoles like the N64.by FlavioMacedo
- It may be counterintuitive at first, but why wouldn't be possible? It's one of the perks of "offline" hardware without subscriptions or DRM. You build a piece of hardware (cartridge) that attaches to another one (console) and it works. As long as the console works, there shouldn't be a problem.by 101008
- "Modretro customer service address and, to my surprise, heard back from the head of publishing within a day."
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.
by coryadams - I wonder the dropoff for launch titles versus on-going new releases.by someperson
- > Does Modretro's target market buy this type of stuff? Or are they the type to just download and emulator and ROM.
Speaking as someone who spent all weekend playing his new M64: Yes, the target market often does buy the cartridge. I've got a brand new copy of Xeno Crisis sitting on my shelf, although Xibalba was a close 2nd. (Tied with Buck Bumble ;) )
That said, there's definitely a crowd that would rather buy a summercart and pirate all their roms. Personally, I'm interested in more thoughtful and intentional electronics, so I'm attracted to the idea of old school "buy the game on a cartridge" mentality.
- 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
by lmcd - 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 whileby redbonsai
- 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.
by boricj - How did they do it back in the day? Was basically everything from the tooling etc. just created inhouse from scratch?by dottjt
- I've been on-and-off writing a Zig library for writing N64 games and it's indeed pretty wild how getting working code was as simple as telling the compiler to use LLVM's MIPS III target.
Of course, getting working code that actually does anything useful is a much different story (it's taking multiple days just to write the wrappers for RDP commands, for example; lots of cross-referencing between N64Brew wiki pages v. official SGI docs v. libdragon source code v. Peter Lemon's assembly code to figure out what all the different bitpacked fields really mean and how to best represent them), but it still feels magical that I can just use an ordinary toolchain and not some ancient proprietary monstrosity.
by yellowapple - There is something so charming about the N64/PS1 era. They were so unique in their own right and you could tell at a passing glance which system was displaying on the screen even if you didn't know what game it was. Two radically different systems at the dawning of 3D console games.
I bought a MiSTer for me and my son and we played the heck out of Mario Kart 64 and Mario Golf. I think he picked up my "gaming is dead now" outlook since he doesn't really have any interest in new systems or games anymore
by shoobiedoo - I am still amazed my own minimalist PS1 tutorial series [1] became as popular as it did, given that prior to it basically all learning material on the internet was written around the decent-for-the-time-but-horrible-now Sony SDK and often based on 30-year-old example code full of 30-year-old C practices (in particular the complete disregard for aliasing and concurrency, which resulted in plenty of headaches once people started using those ancient libraries and example code with modern GCC). We even have bleeding-edge C++ SDK options [2] complete with an STL and coroutine support, so if anybody here wants to try their hand at PS1 homebrew development I would highly encourage checking out the modern tooling we have now.
[1] https://github.com/spicyjpeg/ps1-bare-metal
[2] https://github.com/grumpycoders/pcsx-redux/tree/main/src/mip...
by spicyjpeg - 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.by Mizza
- I recall seeing a demo of an N64 driving an Oculus Rift.by kridsdale1