11 ms·
How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026
- valorzard 2mo agoAt some point I reallly gotta sit down and play around with Pyrite64, it looks super cool
- boricj 2mo agoI'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.
- dottjt 2mo agoHow did they do it back in the day? Was basically everything from the tooling etc. just created inhouse from scratch?
- RugnirViking 2mo agohttps://www.retroreversing.com/playstation-2-development-hardware https://www.retroreversing.com/playstation-2-development-har...
- inigyou 2mo agoThey had stuff, but it was all proprietary. The N64 was a stripped-down implementation of the technology used on (high-end) SGI graphics workstations of the time. SGI certainly had all the required tools.
- inigyou 2mo agoThe N64 SDK docs, if not the SDK itself, leaked at one point. I would expect that by now the whole thing has leaked long ago. Come to think of it, it must have, because the bit-perfect recompilation projects are using the exact compilers from the SDK.
- monocasa 2mo agoYeah, the full SDK leaked decades ago when the system was still economically relevant to Nintendo.
- skelpmargyar 2mo agoYou can buy CDs of the SGI SDK on ebay. Recompilation projects aren't bit perfect, only decomps. They use a recompiled version of the compilers for Linux so that they don't need to emulated with QEMU like they used to, though.
- doublerabbit 2mo agoYeah, pretty much. They provide the devkit hardware, the specification technical documentation and the tool chain to compile the binary.
- Bad_CRC 2mo agoThe Dreamcast dev kits came with CodeWarrior as an IDE iirc.
- pjmlp 2mo agoVisual Studio surely, as they had a collaboration with Microsoft using Windows CE for the Dreamcast. https://jacobfilipp.com/MSJ/directx.html https://jacobfilipp.com/MSJ/directx.html "What happened to Windows CE on the SEGA Dreamcast?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKHSlBi5qok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKHSlBi5qok "Making Dreams Come True - Sega's Katana!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIr9YnMgExA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIr9YnMgExA Maybe it was for the Saturn and previous consoles?
- spicyjpeg 2mo agoThe same way it's done now with current generation consoles: the manufacturer would provide you with SDKs and development hardware once you paid them a decent chunk of money and signed an NDA. Prior to the fifth generation it was common for the SDK to be just an assembler, debugger and register-level hardware documentation, leaving the implementation of a kernel and game engine up to the game developer. Sony however decided to provide a full C toolchain based on GCC as well as a set of very high level libraries that abstracted away basically all aspects of the PS1 [1], all the way up to implementing a ready-to-go 3D engine and MIDI sequencer. This was an unpopular move as the libraries were slow, inefficient and most game developers were used to having full control over the hardware, but it also allowed inexperienced devs to get started quickly (as proven by the thousands of low budget PS1 titles that used the high level APIs) and eventually contributed to the popularity of the console over its peers with worse tooling. Sony would eventually go on to release some slightly lower level documentation for certain aspects of the console as well as APIs that better mapped to how the hardware actually worked under the hood. It wasn't however until years later that the hardware would be fully reverse engineered at the register level [2], and it took even longer for most homebrew to move away from the official SDK (which only really started happening a few years ago as accurate emulators and homebrew SDKs started popping up). [1] https://psx.schnappy.xyz/sdk/Psy-Q/DOCS/LibOver47.pdf https://psx.schnappy.xyz/sdk/Psy-Q/DOCS/LibOver47.pdf [2] https://psx-spx.consoledev.net/ https://psx-spx.consoledev.net/
- actionfromafar 2mo agoCrazy then that the Bleem and Bleemcast emulator were so early!
- inigyou 2mo agoIt may actually be helpful to emulation. There's a technique called High-Level Emulation, where instead of emulating the hardware registers that are twiddled by the SDK function, you recognize the call to the SDK function itself and emulate the whole function in one go. This can provide a massive speedup over low-level emulation, but relies on the game primarily using the SDK. This was also used to emulate the N64 on Windows 95.
- shoobiedoo 2mo agoThere 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
- kevinminehart 2mo agoI love that. My wife and I are hopefully having kids soon and that's one thing I really want to encourage. Not to say that modern games aren't any good, but there's an increasing lack of respect for the player's time and wallet. The goal is shifting to maximizing value because they're getting more expensive to produce, but increasing the game price itself is a cardinal sin. Not to mention that live service games just out-earn non-service ones. I hope it works out. I can see it working in the reverse: I play n64/ps1/ps2/gamecube games with my kid, they go to school and their friends are playing fortnight or valorant, and then you become the bad guy for trying to be an obstacle in that.
- inigyou 2mo agoLet your kid go over to their friend's house to play Fortnite or Valorant. And let your kid's friend come over to yours to play Mario Kart. I think as adults we get locked into a few things. I remember as a kid I would play anything I had access to and liked. Now it's more of one or two games at a time.
- operation_moose 2mo agoOne thing that's absolutely shocking is how "hard" it is to actually play games these days. Sit down with anything modern and between software updates, EULAs, load times, network congestion, etc. it can easily be 15-20 minutes before you actually do something; especially if you're an infrequent player. Pop in a game on N64/Gamecube and you're controlling the character within 10 seconds every time. The modern upgrades for those generations really make them great - the 8BitDo kit to make an N64 controller wireless, N64 Summercarts, replacing the optical drive in Gamecubes with a memory card reader...
- spicyjpeg 2mo agoI 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 https://github.com/spicyjpeg/ps1-bare-metal [2] https://github.com/grumpycoders/pcsx-redux/tree/main/src/mips/psyqo https://github.com/grumpycoders/pcsx-redux/tree/main/src/mip...
- pjmlp 2mo agoTo put this into perspective for youngsters, that horrible Sony SDK was considered a wonder for its time, and what kickstarted the movement away from Assembly into C for home console development, as main language. Until then, only arcades had already made the switch. On PS2, PS2Linux, Dreamcast there was already C++ support, by the way.
- kridsdale1 2mo agoI’ve started to adapt my historic accounting of gaming away from hardware centric (console generations) and toward languages and compilers, and the force-multiplication they provided to developers which is tangibly evident in the products. Though these do correlate strongly with orders of magnitude of RAM being made available. - Physical logic gate era of gaming. - Assembly era - C era - OOP era - Interpreted languages and game logic living in scripts on top of c++ engines - Fully Gen-AI era?
- ifjeicjwidj 2mo ago> Fully Gen-AI era? Yeah, no. Your historic accounting is not to be trusted by any means if “gen-AI era” is something that you really believe is happening.
- yellowapple 2mo agoI'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.
- ayanb 2mo agoSuper 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
- stewx 2mo agoI 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.
- Flashtoo 2mo agoWhat do you get out of that? The utility of having the end product (a generated game for an obsolete console) seems pretty small, and personally I would think the fun is in learning about the inner workings of the time capsule that is 90s hardware. Would you mind explaining?
- hnlmorg 2mo agoNot the OP, but when I was kid I used to draw game level for 8-bit systems back when I wasn’t allowed on a computer (screen time). My point is, people get enjoyment out of game design too. It’s not just about nerding out on technical specs.
- lucideer 2mo agoI guess the curiosity here is in why game design for a modern target platform wouldn't garner the same enjoyment.
- gambiting 2mo agoIt's just not the same. I made games for the PSP and Vita and it's "different" than making games for Windows or Playstation/Xbox. There's something about seeing your creation on a tiny handheld. I guess maybe nowadays we got desensitized to it because our phones are actual supercomputers which can run Fortnite without breaking a sweat, but making a device with 2MB of ram play your game as you imagined it is just hyper cool and (for me personally) is incredibly satisfying.
- 2mo ago
- songhonglei1985 2mo ago[flagged]
- Nancylily 2mo ago[dead]
- pelasaco 2mo agoif I am not wrong, the game described in this article, is presented in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOJUEcKYRk 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Luckey
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- msephton 2mo agoEach person that dies by his weapons of war makes him stronger.
- ninjin 2mo agoTried 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: https://modretro.com/products/xibalba-64 https://modretro.com/products/xibalba-64
- rightbyte 2mo agoDoes compatibility with M64 imply N64 compat?
- bakugo 2mo agoIf you go into the "Specs" tab on the right, it explicitly lists the original N64 as compatible.
- phoboslab 2mo agoYes. The game was mostly developed with an original N64. The cartridges from Modretro only work on NTSC N64s, though. I'm told the next production run should work on PAL, too.
- negative_zero 2mo agoObligatory 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 https://youtube.com/watch?v=bNN9XhGZ3Yw (Also The Centre for Computing History YouTube channel is seriously underrated)
- ndiddy 2mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- alberson 2mo agoNah this money came from selling Oculus. That’s what made him a billionaire…
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- throwawayben 2mo agowhat makes him/them a war criminal?
- inigyou 2mo agoSponsoring a genocide, I would guess?
- wolfgangK 2mo agoYou understand that drones are used for precision strikes instead of indiscriminate bombing, right ? It's the opposite of "sponsoring a genocide" (if there actually ever was one happening…)
- inigyou 2mo agoWhat?
- reasonabl_human 2mo agoWhich genocide are you referring to, and what method of sponsorship?
- 2mo ago
- ltsSmitty 2mo agoGreat writeup. Thanks author!
- FlavioMacedo 2mo agoGreat work! I didn't even know it was still possible to publish new games for old consoles like the N64.
- 101008 2mo agoIt 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.
- cubefox 2mo ago> It may be counterintuitive at first, but why wouldn't be possible? For the same reason it wasn't possible at the time for a third-party to make N64 cartridges themselves to avoid Nintendo's fees. But I assume these lockout chips are replicated or circumvented by now.
- inigyou 2mo agoFairly recently the chip was studied in detail and replicated. But like most systems of that era, I believe it was circumvented fairly quickly by pirates. The easiest way would be to piggyback a licensed cartridge - unlike the NES, it has to be one with the same region and bootloader as there are several lockout chip variants, but that basic technique still works.
- cubefox 2mo agoI never saw a piggyback cartridge at the time though, or one that was obviously unlicensed. Of course, this could have more to do with Nintendo's legal pressure than with technological possibility.
- inigyou 2mo agoI think a lot of the early flashcarts were piggybacks. I was never into that scene though.
- coryadams 2mo ago"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.
- dabluecaboose 2mo ago> 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.
- someperson 2mo agoI wonder the dropoff for launch titles versus on-going new releases.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- deton3991 2mo ago[flagged]
- Taikhoom2010 2mo agoSo is Nintendo Online a popular service? I'm curious if I should get it.
- crest 2mo agoStrange choice to go for a raycaster with sprites on the N64. The hardware is basically begging to be fed textured polygons.
- phoboslab 2mo agoAll 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.
- functionmouse 2mo agoRaycasters in the modern age are generally an artistic decision, not a technical one.
- Mizza 2mo agoLibdragon 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. Demos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8g2ngHftY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8g2ngHftY
- kridsdale1 2mo agoI recall seeing a demo of an N64 driving an Oculus Rift.
- phoboslab 2mo agoThat[1] was James Lambert, who was also responsible for Portal 64[2] and is now developing a completely new N64 game. His Youtube channel is worth a follow. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha3fDU-1wHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha3fDU-1wHk [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAkSHzR-P7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAkSHzR-P7M
- TZubiri 2mo agoAnyone 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.
- dabluecaboose 2mo agoAre you looking to make homemade homebrew carts? If the M64 carts are anything like ModRetro's chromatic carts, the boards will be flashable. ModRetro has also stated they're planning on open-sourcing the design, so if we're lucky there could be a large variety of people making flashable blank carts in the near future. I'm really looking forward to the Epilogue 64 Operator. I have the GB Operator, and it's been amazing to be able to flash romhacks onto carts and play on bona-fide hardware.
- someperson 2mo agoAs open-source hardware they are on AliExpress no problem
- jjen0206 2mo ago[flagged]
- eltondegeneres 2mo ago[flagged]
- typeofhuman 2mo ago[flagged]
- rattlesnakedave 2mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- nonethewiser 2mo ago[flagged]
- torlok 2mo ago[flagged]
- ecshafer 2mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- bogota 2mo ago[dead]
- reasonabl_human 2mo agoTech killing innocents? Citation needed.
- zuzululu 2mo agoI don't get it. Modretro is for retro gamers. What does that have to do with those things you listed ?
- Damjanski 2mo agowowowowowow
- chungusamongus 2mo agoI 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."
- hbn 2mo ago> 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.
- chungusamongus 2mo agoWell, youre trading quality for accessibility. For some, that's acceptable. To me, the number of steam games that emulate that aesthetic is so massive that its become oversaturated in my view. And in fairness, there was a major quality dip when 3d graphics started becoming viable. A lot of n64 games just look like shit to me. conversely a lot of those genesis games still look amazing, esp when playing them as intended.
- zuzululu 2mo agowhat about a playstation/sega saturn game in 2026 ?
- lmcd 2mo agoI’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 https://youtu.be/UyqtU0hgGRA?si=_YisdNOrQrSpdpNT
- redbonsai 2mo agoWhat 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
- lordfrito 2mo agoWow 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?
- RankingMember 2mo ago> 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.
- yellowapple 2mo agoCompanies have been building and selling clones of Nintendo consoles for many years now. I suspect if Nintendo had a legal angle against this they would've exercised it a long time ago.
- inigyou 2mo agoJust because they haven't found one doesn't mean they aren't looking.
- roboror 2mo agoReally? I think the ModRetro M64 is hideous compared to Analogue's 3D (their version of the N64)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- snvzz 2mo agoEh, you'd have to pay me to use anything from Analogue. ModRetro put their effort where it matters[0], whereas Analogue aren't even honest about their hardware, with baseless claims of 100% compatibility, recurring shipping delays or screwing preorders out of picking case shells. Which can't even be readily replaced. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOJUEcKYRk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOJUEcKYRk
- opengrass 2mo agoCould one of you geeks figure out controller input over IP for multiplayer please?