ROM Hacking, Homebrew & Emulation

Before Christian Bauer owned a Commodore 64, he wrote programs on paper and tried them on the computers displayed in department stores. A few commands could draw a fractal or play some music. That was enough to get him hooked. Music also supplied the first reason to write Frodo. Bauer wanted to hear SID tunes while working on his Amiga, so he built a card that could hold a real SID chip… Read more

Michael Pavone paid around $2,000 for a copy of Outback Joey while trying to emulate its exercise peripheral. The first copy was a fake. After getting a refund and finding a genuine one, he still had to work backward from the game’s code because the bicycle sensor and heart-rate hardware were beyond his budget. That is one of the more expensive detours in a conversation that also gets into disappearing sprites, frozen… Read more

The first hand on Bernd Schmidt’s emulated Amiga screen was badly misshapen. It was supposed to be holding a Workbench disk, but his early blitter code still had bugs. Fixing those brought the picture closer to the familiar startup screen, and the next job was getting the rest of the machine to behave. Schmidt wanted to keep using Amiga software as he moved toward PCs, including the music from Turrican. Some Usenet… Read more

Before 42Bastian Schick and Lars Baumstark had official Lynx documentation, they had a damaged handheld, a dumped copy of Gauntlet, and a homemade SRAM cartridge. Changing the game usually left it frozen. Then one modification worked, and they had a clue: part of each cartridge sector was escaping the checksum. 42Bastian wrote a disassembler, then a small 65C02 simulator, while Lars worked on the hardware. Their experiments grew into a Lynx with… Read more

A broken font in Full Throttle brought Eugene Sandulenko to ScummVM. Fixing it revealed a larger problem: the bike-fighting sequences were not implemented. Someone needed to work out how they worked. Sandulenko already had years of reverse-engineering experience, so he took a look. It was quite a look. For the wider story, read The Complete History of ScummVM: 25 Years of Adventure, from the project’s early days to the games and engines… Read more

Super Mario Kart Horizons is one of the most ambitious ROM hacks in recent years, reimagining the classic SNES racer with twenty brand new tracks, four custom battle maps, an original soundtrack, and presentation elements like a custom manual and box art. The project, available at RomHacking.net and RomHackPlaza, represents the culmination of over a decade of tinkering, iteration, and dedication from its creator, Gridattack. Horizons has also been the subject of… Read more

When people talk about the greatest ROM hacks ever made, Super Mario Bros. 3Mix almost always comes up. Created by Southbird, this hack was more than just a simple remix of Nintendo’s NES classic... it became a sprawling tribute to Mario’s entire history. 3Mix included new mechanics like gravity flips, Yoshi integration, secret star coins, alternate exits, and even bosses and themes inspired by later entries such as Super Mario World and… Read more

The Super Mario World hacking scene is filled with passion projects, but few creators have managed to balance accessibility, creativity, and ambition quite like xMANGRAVYx, the driving force behind LetsTalkGames. I first came across his work through Castlemania II, a gothic and atmospheric sequel that brought Castlevania inspired storytelling into the Mario universe. That game opened my eyes to how far a ROM hack could push the SMW engine. The final boss… Read more

The ROM hacking community has produced countless creative projects, but few figures are as consistent and ambitious as pacnsacdave of Pacnsac Games. His library of NES hacks and homebrews stretches across genres, often transforming familiar titles into something entirely new. Dave has done A LOT! I first encountered his work through Mr. Gimmick 2, a fan-made sequel to Sunsoft’s cult platformer. You can read my full review of the game here, where… Read more

The Mother series has always held a special place in the hearts of retro role-playing game fans. In Japan it was known simply as Mother, while in the United States most people only experienced the second game in the series, which was released on the Super Nintendo under the title EarthBound. That game gained a reputation for its quirky humor, heartfelt storytelling, and unusual modern-day setting. Over time it became one of… Read more

Its safe to say HyperSpin is the best looking front end there is. We had a little chat (question and answer) with one of the hyperSpin authors BadBoyBill. You can also read our HyperSpin review here. 1. What are some of your first video game experiences? The first games I played were on the TI-99, we had a few in the house with a lot of cartridges. I remember games like Parsec,… Read more

Scott Jarvis is the creator of Puppy Arcade, a Live Distribution of Linux Geared towards making emulation under Linux fun, simple and easy. We grilled Scott with a few questions for fun. Before the interview we had a chance to review Puppy Arcade 8 and fell in love with it. Read the review here. >> 1. What are some of your first video game experiences? Amstrad CPC - we only had demo… Read more