Homebrew Extra - Retro Gamer 270
- andrewrfisher
- Jun 12
- 16 min read
We have covered many different formats over the last three years of this revived homebrew column, and we checked out a new one this time – our Champion Coder is working on a new WonderSwan title. There’s a Mega Drive horror game in development, reviews of three 8-bit computer releases with various gameplay styles, and our main feature that looks at new handheld hardware specially designed for PICO-8 games.
QUICK LINKS:
PORTABLE PICO-8
Interview with Daniel and Maisha of Pex Team
[Andrew]
Hi, go ahead.
[Daniel]
Yeah, so I guess me and Maisha would introduce ourselves real quick. So we're fourth-year computer science, I'm computer science, Maisha is math, undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo in Canada. And what we have been doing for the last eight months, well, it started off as kind of like a side project where, like, since we're both more into software, we wanted to learn a bit more about the hardware side.
So like, what can we do to learn about hardware? And then, kind of the first things that we came up with was, let's build a console. So this started off as just grabbing some red boards of like off-the-shelf components, LCPs, microcontroller, and then we just hacked together like a really quick Pico-8 emulator, like over a weekend.
And kind of the reason I chose Pico-8 was, I'd been playing a couple of like, a lot of Pico-8 games at the time. And it just seems like, I don't know, it was just, let's, why not let's do it. So it went okay, it was just like a side project.
And then at a certain point, I was like, what if we sell like 100 of these, right? Like, completely naively, like, let's just sell 100. Like, how hard could it be?
We'll be done in like two months, right? And then eight months later, here we are, we're still going. We just got our first sales, which it's nice, but a bit different to how we anticipated.
But yeah, we've been through quite a lot in the process, but like, I'll leave it to you if you want to ask any questions.
[Andrew]
Yeah, yeah, certainly. So I mean, one of the main questions I wanted to ask about was, how much of the Pico-8 are you emulating, and how much are people able to use? So can they use the development tools, the built-in editors?
[Daniel]
Yeah, so we actually started off as, let's be a Pico-8 emulator. Because we were using a microcontroller, like a much cheaper piece of hardware. I wanted to, like, because Pico-8 only runs on desktop, it won't support the microcontroller.
So, although it was $2, I wanted to port the entire system to it. So, essentially, we were writing Pico-8 from scratch for this device. I thought that was the right choice.
But we were kind of marketing ourselves as the dedicated Pico-8 console, the best Pico-8 hardware experience you can get. And then if we're not running actual Pico-8, there's obviously going to be bugs and incompatibilities. And then we're going to be kind of racing with the original Pico-8 developer to also develop a version of Pico-8 that was compatible.
It took me a while to actually realise this is the wrong path. So I kept pushing forward. And at this time, we're also posting on Reddit and talking to everyone about it.
And everyone's like, no, I don't want this. And I'm like, trust me, guys, you want this. But eventually, I realised this is not the way.
[Maisha]
Yeah, not listening to customers and just doing our own thing.
[Daniel]
Yeah. So like, we kind of decided between, are we making the cheapest device possible or the best Pico-8 device possible? And then we realised that we're definitely going to choose the best Pico-8 device possible.
So to answer your question, like, we're not going to be emulating Pico-8, we're going to be actually supporting Pico-8. So everything that you would be able to do with Pico-8 would be possible on our console.
[Andrew]
Excellent. And so, sort of related to that is obviously one of the things I enjoy using on the Pico-8 is the Explore function. So you can connect to the BBS and check out new games.
Will that be supported on your console?
[Daniel]
Yeah, it will be supported. But what's actually interesting is that we realised that Explore was not actually very friendly to a mobile setting. For example, searching stuff you can't do on a handheld, like it just doesn't work.
So what we're actually doing is we're developing our own open-source-like wrapper. It's like, like, you know, like OnionOS, all those like, yeah, so we're kind of making our own version, but we're doing it in Pico-8. So the style of the launcher would be like Pico-8.
So, essentially, we're making our own Explore plus more from scratch. But it will also support Explore.
[Andrew]
Excellent.
[Maisha]
Yeah, we also have like, other features in our launcher, you can have your own music player. And yeah, we're still thinking of like more features to add.
[Andrew]
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So it will be doing more than just the Pico-8 games.
And in those terms, will that hardware be able to emulate to play anything else? Or is it just going to specialise in the Pico-8?
[Daniel]
Yeah, so our officially supported platform is Pico-8. So we really want to focus on one platform and deliver the best experience for Pico-8 players. But since we are based on Linux, there's like literally nothing stopping you from booting whatever stuff you want on our device and running anything you want.
[Andrew]
No, that's cool. So someone like side loading it, you know, someone wants to do that themselves, they'll be able to, yeah. And so what are some of the Pico-8 titles you've been playing on it a lot?
What are some of the Pico-8 games that you really like?
[Daniel]
My personal favourite is Birds of Guidance. Like, perfection. Love that game.
[Maisha]
Mine would probably be Celeste, but I'm really bad at playing games, so it's really funny. Yeah, I can't even record playing games because I'm so bad at it. It's just embarrassing to show everyone.
[Daniel]
I mean, for your own enjoyment. I also really like a lot of the demakes, like the ones that are technically challenging. I think Fred, like the person who wrote the Pico-8 demake of Doom, put out a blog article about how he actually made the game, and I'm just reading it, and it's like the most mind-blowing, like, I guess, like code ever.
Like, he just does like so many clever techniques. So it's like, it's just really impressive what people are able to accomplish on such a low-spec system.
[Andrew]
Yeah, yeah. I've just done an interview with a Pico-8 developer, Brian Vaughan, Morning Toast. He's done some very interesting games with it, but he says one of the things that he likes the most is the community aspect, and that there's a great, great Pico-8 community.
How are you going to, you know, are you approaching the community? Are you approaching people in that community right now?
[Daniel]
Yeah, I can let Maisha answer that.
[Maisha]
Yeah, so I think our main selling point, is also that we constantly listen to our customers, or the Pico-8 community. Our Discord has grown to over 150 members now, and it's extremely active, and we're constantly listening to our community members. It's so sick to grow this community, because there are people just doing UI designs for us, or giving us... We just recently we had our first public meeting, and it was really nice.
We're trying to kind of incorporate the Pico-8 community as much as possible, and I think, like, the community can also see that. We went from using an ESP32 to running Linux, and people have been seeing that we're actually listening to our customers. Yeah, the community has been great, and I think that's one of my favourite parts of this entire project.
[Daniel]
We have some cool people, like Nerdy Teachers is in, and he's chiming in. Yeah. I think a couple of other Pico-8 developers are also in.
[Maisha]
Yeah, we have some retro-handheld YouTubers that are asking for the console, so they can do a review, which is pretty sick.
[Daniel]
Not to be biased, but my favourite people are the Harvard Modders. These guys are crazy. They're so excited to get their hands on the files. I think one person is, like, trying to add Hello Kitty ears to the console. To see other people, like, print and mess with your designs is, like, the most rewarding thing ever.
[Andrew]
That is really cool. So, in terms of the other ways of playing Pico-8 out there, have you come across any other machines that you've used Pico-8 on, or that you are even perhaps taking tips from seeing how they do it?
[Daniel]
Yeah. So, the first one that I've actually owned is the GameShell, the Clockwork GameShell. The engineering is great.
Just having all of the parts on the render, being able to put it together yourself was awesome. Like, just the design just blew me away, and that was kind of my first experience of playing Pico-8 on an actual physical machine. But I would say there's still a couple of problems. I think the screen aspect ratio is still a bit too small. There's just a couple of small things. And then it also just runs Spore, which is not the most mobile-friendly. But still, great machine. Awesome buttons. I love it.
And then the second machine we got was the RGB30. And the first time I saw that display, it blew me away. I'm, like, okay, we need that display. That is, like, the perfect size. It looks awesome. So, we need that square display.
And also, the buttons were just great. Yeah. So, Pico-8 is already really awesome on these handhelds.
[Maisha]
Yeah. I'll give you some cons. There are some things that I did not like, and I did mention that. With the GameShell, even though it looks cool, I think it appeals to the hacker community. And not the general Pico-8, just plug and play that most people kind of want to do with Pico-8.
And then with the RGB, I think there were just too many buttons. And because it's not dedicated, that was my main problem. There's too many buttons, and I don't know which one to press.
But, the screen was great. And we took it apart because there were some charging issues. So, we do have some things to work on on our console, from learning from all these consoles.
[Andrew]
Are you going to stick with the initial design? Are you planning to, perhaps, release an updated version?
[Daniel]
So, for the enclosure design, I think we've sort of settled on the set of form factors. Of course, we're going to iterate through it a bit to just round out some issues we're having. But, by other form factor, do you mean a horizontal form factor or, like, a clamshell?
[Andrew]
So, yeah. Would there be a version 2 sort of thing?
[Daniel]
So, I guess for ultimate designs, at least, we're going to get this first version up before considering the other options. If we see a lot of people wanting a different option or have some other use case, we'll go for that. But otherwise, we're going to focus on this current version and just put all of our energy into making it really great.
I think another benefit of kind of sticking to one size and design is that we can design accessories for it. Something that we're really excited for is a dock. So, we're going to have some type of little thing that you can dock the text console onto.
And then they'll have an HDMI, so you can play on your TV, like the Nintendo Switch. And it's going to have a bunch of USB-C, USB-A ports. So we really want to bring back, like, couch gaming with, like, the wire controllers, like, that type of feel.
So, we're going to try to have up to four controllers, and then you can play all your favourite multiplayer Pico games. I think one relatively underused aspect of the Pico community is the multiplayer games. There's very little, surprisingly. I mean, just a couple of really nice ones. Pico Tennis is fun. There's this bomb one, I forgot what it's called, but I also really enjoy that one.
But there's a lot of gems, and there's, like, a whole different level of fun you can have by playing with your friends. So, we really want to explore that direction. And then to kind of counteract the lack of games, hopefully, our console would motivate other people to develop more multiplayer games.
Yeah, it's something exciting to be exploring.
[Andrew]
You say you've actually got some sales already. So, how do you see the project going from here?
What are your ambitions? What do you want to do next?
[Daniel]
This is actually our first fully completed version. We still have, like, a lot of features that we didn't include just so we can get one version out.
We actually kind of went for, let's ship fast and get feedback fast, so we can focus on improvements. Our obvious next step is to round out the corners, our known issues and also issues we'll be getting from our beta testers.
And then we're going to open up our beta batch to maybe a large audience, maybe 10 to 20 people. Currently, our beta batch is only three because we're actually giving them a discounted price.
But hopefully, the next batch, just a lot of people that want to get their hands on this console, hopefully, next batch will be feature complete enough that we will feel better for charging a bit more and shipping it to a wider audience. And then after that, we're going to try going in a larger scale. So, probably Kickstarter or any other means to get into our full waitlist because we do have a couple of hundred people that are signed up on a waitlist and are interested in buying this.
So, we're going to be scaling that up. As for the future of where we're going, I think the first obvious step would be to start doing accessories, like customisation options, the dock. One thing we didn't talk about is our cartridge system.
[Daniel showed me a 3D-printed cartridge on the video call]
So, this is just a 3D print or a resin print. But the idea is to have a cartridge slot right here. And then you can flash your own PICO-8 games onto this cartridge.
So, if you make your own game, the appeal is that you can have your game on a physical thing that you can hand to your friends, or you can sell it online. And something else that would be cool is maybe we can ship the console with some popular games in the community, and maybe support the original developers.
So, the console will ship with a couple of cartridges. There'll be a couple of popular games, and there'll also be a couple of blank ones. So, you can flash your own games on it.
And we have a little sticker sheet you can print on and put your own label on it.
[Andrew]
That's brilliant.
It makes it feel like a handheld console, you know. And if you're a developer, having that cartridge to be able to plug it in quickly and check it is great.
[Maisha]
A lot of people also mentioned that PICO-8 is also the go-to to start learning how to code.
So, we thought about this cartridge system also appealing to the education side, students or teachers. Imagine you're in middle school and you make your own game and just give it to your friends. That would be so sick.
I love the cartridge system. I think it's the thing we're really excited to play around with and expand on. There's so many wild ideas we keep thinking about.
[Daniel]
No promises, but something else that we're kind of thinking of is that this cartridge slot can be used as a generic upgrade interface, almost. So, rather than just playing games, you can design custom hardware for it. So, if you want LEDs, you plug them in, and you can program this custom hardware to flash or whatever.
If you want any other special functions, like more storage, you can just design some hardware and then have a plug-in to this universal interface. We're still exploring it, but it'd be cool to see if the community makes some custom hardware upgrades to this console as well.
[Andrew]
Fascinating. That's a really good idea.
For more on the Pex console, visit:
NEWS BYTES
AMIGA: ZR Games released a brilliant conversion of Yoomp, compatible with all Amiga models. https://bit.ly/yoomp-amiga
C64: Psytronik’s new double-game cartridge, Ladybird and Avalan, launched in February along with new cassette titles. https://www.psytronik.net/
DOS: Juan J Martinez’s Alien Intruder (pictured), is a great single-screen platformer (VGA graphics, i286 or later). https://bit.ly/intruder-dos
GAME BOY ADVANCE: Build your city in µCity Advance, ported from Game Boy Color. https://bit.ly/ucity-advance
INTELLIVISION: Check out new titles at Intellivision Revolution, including Pitfall 3 and Traffic Jam. https://intellivisionrevolution.square.site/
MEGA DRIVE: Fabio Fernandes is porting Cinemware’s slapstick comedy game The Three Stooges, with a demo available. https://bit.ly/stooges-md
NEO-GEO: Shinobi appears on the SNK console, thanks to Hoffman – and he’s now converting Golden Axe. https://bit.ly/shinobi-neogeo
NES: Michel Iwaniec has created the NES equivalent of GBStudio, a similar drag-and-drop environment for creating NES games. https://bit.ly/bbstudio-nes
ORIC: Syntax Error Software’s Pas6502, which compiles Pascal code for 6502 processors, has been updated to support the Oric range of machines. https://bit.ly/pas6502
PICO-8: Check out the PicoMax compilation of games from NuSan ( https://bit.ly/picomix ) and Solitomb by Jakub Wasilewski, which will get an enhanced Steam port. https://bit.ly/solitomb-p8
ZX SPECTRUM: Kempston is hosting the CSSCGG 2025 ( https://kempston.itch.io/cgc2025 ) and Clebin Games released Gilligan’s Mine. ( https://bit.ly/gilligan-zx )
VARIOUS: Play the demo versions of Cronela’s Mansion (see RG263) at https://bit.ly/cronela-demo
CHAMPION CODER - MATTHEW KERSEY
Matthew is working on a WonderSwan run & gun game featuring demon cats.
[Info]
From: Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA
Website: https://laconic.software
Format: WonderSwan
Previous games: Strife Sisters (PC Engine, Android)
Working on: Demon Cat Snatchers (WonderSwan)
How did you get into WonderSwan homebrew?
After I completed my last homebrew game, I looked for other platforms that were in need of some fresh new homebrew games. I had decided on either the PC-FX or the WonderSwan. I chose WonderSwan, ultimately, because there was an excellent toolchain available to get started working. Unfortunately, the tools for the PCFX just aren't there yet but there are people working on them!
What inspired the game Demon Cat Snatchers, and the game's plot?
The game is heavily inspired by two of my favourite PC Engine games, Horror Story and Youkai Douchuuki. Both involve demons and hell. I really love cats, so I thought it'd be funny if cats were originally demons from hell who tricked humans into allowing them to live among us.
What is your development setup?
For development, everything is solely done with Asie's Wonderful toolchain (see https://bit.ly/wonderful-ws ). Art is done with Aseprite, and the maps are kind of made with Tiled. I created my own tools that will export Tiled's maps and create data my game engine will understand.
Are you testing on real hardware as well as emulation?
Yes, absolutely. I use A Flash Masta to test on a WonderSwan Crystal.
How much more work have you got to finish the game, and can you estimate when it will be finished?
The game is pretty close to being finished. The engine is all there, the maps are all there, I just need to create a few more bosses and assets. I'm still considering adding a few more maps and some branching gameplay. Depending on how long some other things I'm waiting on take, I could finish the game as soon as a month or take as long as three or four months.
Are you planning a digital release or a physical cartridge, and how would such a cartridge be produced?
I'm really hoping I'll be able to do both.
Do you have any other retro projects in development?
I do, hopefully on the PCFX!
Have you been impressed by any other WonderSwan homebrew?
There really isn't much other WonderSwan homebrew out there unless we're considering Wonder Witch stuff. There is a really great Freecell game called "Wondercell" made by Joe Kennedy though - https://bit.ly/wondercell-ws. I'd catch myself playing that for hours at a time when I was supposed to be working on my game.
DATABURST REVIEWS
Mighty Steel Fighters
Format: Amstrad CPC with 512K RAM expansion
Credits: AmstradGGP (MaitreJoe code & graphics, Jack music & sound, Roudoudou samples)
Price: €4.99 (digital download)
Pick from one of eight global fighters and take on the others to win the Mighty Steel Tournament. The different characters are recognisable in miniature form and move fluently. The music is very good too, with sampled speech adding to the atmosphere. An enjoyable addition to the CPC catalogue if you have the hardware, but it may prove short-lived for skilled players.
[Score] 85%
Captain Ishtar VS The Federation’s Most Wanted
Format: C64 (PAL only, disk & cartridge)
Credits: Alf Yngve (design, graphics, sound), Richard Bayliss (music, enhancements), Martin Piper (enhancements)
Price: $3.99 or more (digital download) / physical TBC
Captain Ishtar tracks down three criminals in this multi-part game cleverly created with The Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit. The multiple gameplay styles are hugely ambitious, but certain sections feel stretched out. Gorgeous presentation screens, an animated ending, and a great soundtrack from Richard Bayliss make this worth playing.
[Score] 87%
Hafoc Tor
Format: ZX Spectrum (48K & 128K versions)
Credits: Red Zebra
Price: Name your own price (digital download)
The follow-up to Wycheweald (87%, RG246) sees Raedwulf cursed to turn him into a werewolf every full moon! The graphics are good, the various musical themes (on 128K) are short but well-made, and there is a significant challenge in this worthy sequel for RPG fans.
[Score] 88%
PROCESSING - THE BAGMAN (MEGA DRIVE)
Nathan Buckley's Mega Drive horror game The Bagman pays homage to the classic SNES title Clock Tower.
What inspired The Bagman?
I want to make horror games and move into that area. I've always wanted a game like Clock Tower, which came out on the SNES, to be on the Mega Drive. So I thought, "Hey, I want to make horror, and I want to make a retro game—why not do both!" So here I am! It's inspired by lots of horror narrative games, crossed with stealth and point-and-click mechanics!
What is your development environment?
I work with a Sega Mega Drive framework called SGDK, which is freaking awesome. SGDK provides a nice C wrapper around the low-level hardware. I also do a little bit of assembly. I've then written a little "engine" around this framework for my game. I actually use Unity and C# to build a lot of tools so I can push a button, and it spits out packed data, environment maps, collisions, etc, which works across Mega Drive and the native versions of the game - the native being another wrapper around the C stuff. I'm liking the setup, it's still a little ad-hoc, but I like tinkering when I have time.
I do all this from home, and I have a Mega Drive sitting next to me with an EverDrive X3 cart I can test builds on. I'm currently lacking a CRT TV, though!
What still needs to be done to finish the game?
At the moment, I'm working towards a small prologue that I hope to demo in a few months' time. There is A LOT TO DO in this game still. A lot of art, animations, environments, writing, and all that fun stuff, which takes time, as I can only move that forward when I have the funds to do so. The tech side is almost there, which is nice.
Will this be a physical cartridge or a digital download?
Both! My primary reason for doing all this is to appease the little child version of me that's stuck in my head for all eternity, and at least get him a physical cart out on his favourite console. However, I'm also constructing it in a way so it runs natively on PC and modern consoles. It currently runs on Mega Drive/Genesis, PC, and Switch.
For the modern platforms, I'm also planning to have two versions of the game — the Mega Drive version and a slightly "enhanced" version. It's an opportunity to work with some voice actors, so I would love to have VO on the enhanced version, along with perhaps some other enhancements around sound. Graphics would stay the same, beautiful 16-bit pixel art.
Do you have any other projects in progress?
Yeah! I run a small indie studio with a pal. That studio is called Creature Cauldron, and we are working on our next game called "Star Gunners," which he describes as Zelda with guns. It's got classic '90s cartoon energy vibes in a beautiful, hand-textured, colourful style.
Issue 270 of Retro Gamer was published on 13th March 2025
This blog was published on 12th June 2025
Comentários