Cave Story PSP: Release Candidate 1

By: Derek Yu

On: July 10th, 2007

There are some known bugs as a result of the PSP’s wider screen, but otherwise… oh boy! For the back story and some yelling back and forth, read this post.

(Source: Timmy)

Cave Story PSP (now more free and with less Variant)

By: Derek Yu

On: June 26th, 2007

Some of you may remember the hullabaloo surrounding the legality and morality surrounding Variant Interactive’s Cave Story PSP port (as well as the fatality of originality). It was never verified whether Variant got Pixel’s permission, or if they did, whether he would see any money, but something definitely stank up in there, and it was Variant that was whistling and looking in the other direction. Case in point:

“Faithful,” “upgrading the graphics and sound,” and “marketing concerns…” which one of these does not belong with the others? So yeah, I find it really hard to believe that Pixel would go for anything like that, and even if he did, I still say fuck ’em for doing it. “Upgrade the graphics and music?” Eat a shit sandwich, asshole.

Which is why it makes me really happy to announce that there’s a fan-made, homebrew PSP version in the works! Yay fans!

Word. You can download a buggy, early version of the port from the link above. And while you’re at it, check out this DS port as well (different author).

(Source: selectbutton.net)

XGameStation and Hydra

By: Derek Yu

On: June 26th, 2007

I think a lot of would-be game developers have heard the hallowed name of Andre LaMothe, author of “Tricks of the Game-Programming Gurus,” “Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus,” and “The Black Art of Seducing Women Through Game Programming.” (Followed quickly thereafter by a less popular 3-page pamphlet titled “The Not-So-Black Art of Seducing Men Through Game Programming.”)

In 2005 (or so), Andre released XGameStation, an old-school “a do-it-yourself video game system,” created for engineers to tinker with to learn the ins and outs of hardware and software development for games.

Jump forward to a few months ago, and apparently Andre has put out a new console, called Hydra, that’s more focused on software development and geared toward novices.

Now that’s kinda nifty! (Goes back to writing inefficient code that gobbles up memory the way that dude from Stephen King’s 1996 horror movie Thinner gobbles up pie.)

(Source: Sensible Erection [NSFWish])

Nickspoon’s GP2X Crap Games Competition

By: Derek Yu

On: May 3rd, 2007

The winner of this competition to make the crappiest game for the Korean open-source handheld GP2X was NOT the game depicted in this screenshot (Run, Hitler, Run!), but studies show that including a picture of Hitler on your website automatically increases the traffic by 0.001%, and quite frankly, that’s enough for me.

The way Hitler looks in the screenshot really reminds me of a Boris Artzybasheff painting!

(Source: Insert Credit)

Colocoro

By: Shabadage

On: January 15th, 2007

Well, it was only a matter of time before someone made a game for the PC that’s compatible with the hacked Wii-Mote. Colocoro is such a game, and like lots of Wii games; it’s very simplistic, and quite a bit of fun.

The goal of each level is to deliver your ball to the blue exit. It all sounds fairly simple and easy, until you realize that you need to bump, rotate, and move the playfield. Warps and enemies also try to ruin your day.

I haven’t gotten a change to play with a Wii-Mote sadly, but from what I’ve been seeing, it works flawlessly and adds a lot of fun. At less than a 1 meg download, there’s really no reason not to give this fun little game a try, even if you don’t plan on hacking your Wii-Mote. (There’s mouse control too).

Qwak

By: Derek Yu

On: January 3rd, 2007

Qwak is a pretty cool little homebrew platformer for the GBA, developed by Jamie Woodhouse. The first thing I noticed when I played the demo (requires a GBA emulator) is that the game is pretty fast-paced. The second thing I noticed is that you’re a duck who wears armor and throws its own eggs to kill furries. The third thing I noticed is that I was having a pretty good time.

Bottom line: 15 GBP for a fun platformer for your GBA (comes in an actual cartridge).

EDIT: Yes, this is a remake of the Amiga game from 1993.

Metalheads

By: Albert Lai

On: September 1st, 2006

This article
details how a few students have created "Metalheads", a neat indie
game that was built for the DS, despite the fact that there is no DS hardware
available – they mimick it using a tablet instead. There’s no demo available
(dang! It actually uses the touchscreen better than a slew of most games, from
what I read), but hey, maybe the people at Nintendo will take note!

(Source: Slashdot)

The State of DS Homebrew

By: Derek Yu

On: August 17th, 2006

Modojo has a nice article out called “”http://www.modojo.com/features/103/1/“>The State of DS Homebrew” which covers all the basic aspects of the DS homebrew scene, like vocabulary, emulators, games, and apps. It definitely is not detailed enough to get you up and running homebrew games on your DS, but it serves as kind of a nice entrypoint for further research.

The image on the left is from an independent DS game called “No Place To Hide!”

(Source: Joystiq)

In other news, I’ve got a huge amount of space left to write here, because I chose a ridiculously tall image to attach to this post. But I can’t think of anything to say… except “NHP 4 lyfe.”

no place to hide

By: dessgeega

On: June 26th, 2006

no place to hide is a rather shiny homebrew title for the nintendo ds. it gives off a sort of warioware vibe: your goal in each of its ten minigames is to avoid being touched by things for as long as you can using the stylus. for example, help a cat dodge the rain, keep a sketch ghost away from toothy pac-men, don’t let jesus get hit by dance dance revolution arrows. some of the games are kind of samey, but a couple are pretty good.

it’s wifi-compatible too, which doesn’t mean much for you if you don’t have a passme. i was able to get the game running on DeSmuME, allowing me to sate my need for jesus versus ddr action for one more day.