Fun & Games

Good resource for getting started in making your own DS games- Tutorial 1: Setting up the development evironment and building an example application that displays text output and reads the touch screen. Tutorial 2: Using the framebuffer mode of the Nintendo DS to draw to the screen. Also explains a bit about the Vertical Blank Interrupt. Tutorial 3: Detecting and acting on key presses. Link.

Handy for all those retro games, over 74,000 in their library- Have you ever rented a game that came with no instructions? Have you ever bought a used game and found out later that the package you received didn’t come with an essential map or answers to copy protection questions required to play the game? Have you ever bought a re-released game and then realized that they only included an Installation Guide, no game instructions at all? Link.

Ask Slashdot has a good post with a lot of helpful comments on making your own DIY arcade. “I’m looking into building my own MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), and for the most part the equipment and know-how to build one can be found via our good friend Google. However, the number of webpages dedicated to showing off complete machines or other gaming hardware hacks (turning an XBox into a full MAME, for example) are a little lacking. Link.

There seems to be a PSP update which makes the USA units go to 1.5.1, not sure what it does- but I’m really reluctant to install this- with all the PSP firmware hacks to run home-brew games perhaps Sony is proactively making it harder to change the USA units. If you’re willing to update your unit though, hit the wireless update menu.

A bunch of Japanese DIY’ers had a useless old Famicom console and decided to build their own PSP. They started by tearing the console apart…Pretty good photographic dissection and assembly. [via] Link.

IGN has a blurb about DSpeak at e3. DSpeak let’s DS users make Voice-Over IP calls to other DS owners. The DS has an icon for a headset so perhaps we’ll see something soon. I’d propose a Skype/SIP/Vonage cartridge or prepaid cartridge and turn it in to a real phone. We’re getting more homebrew DS things, so who knows. Link.

Grand Theftendo is a new homebrew game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is a tribute to Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto III running on the 8 bit, 256×240 resolution, 2 bit colour x 2 bit palette, 1.79 Mhz system, written entirely in 6502 Assembly Language! [via] Link.