r/homebrew

Hey everyone,

I'm a proud owner of a classic Mazda MX-5 Miata, and instead of installing modern aftermarket gauges that ruin the 90s interior look, I decided to give my old Nintendo DS Lite a permanent home on my dashboard.

The DS receives UDP packets from an ESP32 in the engine bay (reading Oil Temp, Oil Pressure and coolant Temp.) and displays everything in real-time. I'm writing this entirely in C using devkitARM and the gl2d library.

To keep the memory footprint extremely low and ensure a locked 60 FPS, I am drawing almost all UI elements, gauges, and graphs directly via code loops (glBox, glLine, etc.). I am using spritesheets only for the animated 3D car models (like the G-Force indicator and startup sequence); absolutely everything else is code-rendered.

However, I've hit a major roadblock regarding the Dual-Screen rendering and I'm hoping someone can help me Out.

Since the DS only has one 3D core, I am using the standard Display Capture method to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering on both screens. My main loop alternates rendering between the top and bottom screen every frame:

swiWaitForVBlank();

while(REG_DISPCAPCNT & DCAP_ENABLE);

if((frame & 1) == 0) {

lcdMainOnBottom();

vramSetBankC(VRAM_C_LCD);

vramSetBankD(VRAM_D_SUB_SPRITE);

REG_DISPCAPCNT = DCAP_BANK(2) | DCAP_ENABLE | DCAP_SIZE(3);

drawDashboard();

} else {

lcdMainOnTop();

vramSetBankD(VRAM_D_LCD);

vramSetBankC(VRAM_C_SUB_BG);

REG_DISPCAPCNT = DCAP_BANK(3) | DCAP_ENABLE | DCAP_SIZE(3);

drawMenu();

}

glFlush(0);

The Bug: I am experiencing severel "screen swapping" issues (both screens freezing, or the top and bottom screen rapidly flickering/swapping back and forth).

This only happens when the main loop gets stalled by blocking operations:

When I open my internal "Data Logger" menu, which uses libfat to fopen and parse a large .csv file from the SD card.

When the WiFi connection to the ESP32 drops and Wifi_InitDefault() or Wifi_AutoConnect() tries to re-initialize the connection in the background.

It seems that whenever the CPU is blocked by SD I/O or WiFi, swiWaitForVBlank() goes out of sync with the physical refresh rate, causing the VRAM bank swapping and REG_DISPCAPCNT to completely mess up the frame parity.

My Question: What is the standard/best-practice way to handle heavy, blocking FAT/WiFi I/O without breaking the strict (frame & 1) VBlank alternation required for dual-screen 3D capture? Do I need to move the FAT reads to an asynchronous timer, or is there a way to safely "pause" the screen swapping hardware registers before initiating a heavy SD card read, and resume it afterwards without corrupting the VRAM banks?

Any advice on how to handle synchronous stalls while doing display captures would be highly appreciated!

Olioni Games is experimenting with new games made in the style of old text-based computer games from the 1970s. We want your opinions on the game.

How to Play

Use numbers to choose actions

Survive, collect money, reach exits

The game still has two phases; you'll be venturing into this adventure inside a labyrinth with spiders and scattered money.

Game Beta1.1: https://www.mediafire.com/file/owiokc97knko401/maze_horror_beta1.1.bat/file

On 25 May 2026, a special online event focused on two PS1 homebrew games will begin.

Until then, a community challenge starts now 👀

Can you guess the two games?

Rules:

• Both are already released PS1 homebrew games.
• Both games were created by the same developer.
• You must correctly guess the full names of BOTH games.
• Guesses can be posted on Reddit or Twitter/X (follow here for earlier hints).
• Edited comments will not count.
• The first correct guess will be selected as the winner.
• The challenge closes on 24 May.

Daily visual hints will be posted until the reveal.

🏆 Prize

The first person to correctly guess both games will be permanently featured in the Awards section of psxhomebrewgames.com as “PSX Homebrew Detective Award 2026”.

This recognition is meant to highlight the player who actively explores and discovers hidden gems within the PS1 homebrew community, helping bring attention to creative homebrew projects that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Think you can solve it?

Back in 2020, we made a small top-down co-op shooter for a game jam, called Hell on Earth in Unity. Since we were children we always wanted to make a game for the PS2, so we spent the last few months porting it from scratch onto a patched version of the Tyra engine.

The game is a twin-stick co-op shooter for 1-2 players, with 5 weapons and waves of demon enemies. It works on real PS2 hardware (FMCB/OPL/wLE) or most likely in PCSX2 (we think, we've only tested on real PS2 hardware), drop the folder on a USB stick and boot the ELF.

Full disclosure: a lot of the port (C++ rewrite, engine patches, debugging) was done with a lot of AI assistance. The 2020 original was written by hand, and every asset and texture, models, sprites and audio was human-made, no AI generation.

GitHub (source + ready to play build): https://github.com/2AGamesOfficial/HOEPS2

Feedback and bug reports welcome.

Original PC game: https://gamejolt.com/games/Hell_On_Earth/654198

so I’ve been playing Pokemon kaizo platinum for about 50 hours now on my 3ds

ive had this message pop up a few times earlier in the game, but im up to the mansion and each time I defeat two of the four trainers inside, this error message comes up and it makes me restart

ive tried updating the game to the latest version, using different software etc

wondering if there’s anything I can do to fix this issue?

or if I can play on an emulator on the computer if I download the save file

thank you

Hi everyone!

After projects like Mario 64 PSX, Half-Life PSX, and the recent PSX Splash Game Jam (new article soon), we have a lot of projects to cover in the PS1 homebrew scene. Today, we are going to talk about Zelda: OOT for the PS1!

Zelda: OOT is still highly experimental, but it’s already playable and includes basic movement, collision, and a surprisingly modern dual-stick camera system (like Dark Souls). The prototype was built using PSYQo, and the developer (u/izzy88izzy) explained the project also serves as a way to better understand PS1 hardware and improve another engine project called BONNIE-32 (check it out).

Performance is still very rough and there are several graphical issues, but considering the scale of Ocarina of Time, it’s already a fascinating technical achievement.

We go into more detail about the project, its technical challenges, and the current state of the prototype in our full article:
👉 Zelda: Ocarina of Time on PS1 Sounds Impossible…

Since nobody seems to have covered the project on YouTube yet, and we don't know how to compile it ourselves, we wanted to help spread the word by uploading gameplay footage recorded by izzy88izzy (full credit goes to the developer) on our channel:
👉 A Zelda Game on PS1?! - Incredible Homebrew Project

In nature, there are no villains, only the eternal struggle for survival. You are a hungry frog trying to thrive in diverse ecosystems, from the tranquil lake to the dangerous Skull Swamp.

Olioni Games in partnership with 8 Bits Milli Games, we are launching the Food Chain game now on your Atari 2600 cartridge, don't miss this launch and others, with the title "Olioni Fun".

https://www.8bitmilligames.com/product/food-chain-atari-2600

I was playing on my friends homebrewed Wii when we discovered that this was what the New Super Mario Bros Wii game looks like, for some reason it’s just Wario and the game is purple, also we noticed that the levels were significantly harder too. My friend got the Wii done in Indonesia if that adds anything

Hello all! My name is Casriel and I am working on a project called “Project Sunshine,” a project that aims to port all of UNDERTALE, DELTARUNE, and maybe more games to consoles like the 3DS, Wii U, and GameCube!

Me and a few other people are currently working on DELTARUNE Wii U, and we have got all 4 chapters working ALMOST in their entirety!

Chapter 1 is able to be completed from start to finish with minor bugs. As of 05/11/26, it is still in development, but we plan to release it soon!!! :3

This is possible using our open source project called Cinnamon which is a GML runner in C for the 3DS, Wii U, and (maybe soon) GameCube, which basically “emulates” GameMaker games.

We have also been focused on our UNDERTALE Wii U port, which has been released on both our GitHub and Discord, and is completely playable on all 3 routes with minor bugs!

We hope that all you Wii U lovers come and join us!!

You can join our server and get news on the project, including early builds here: https://discord.gg/the-sunshine-sanctuary-1479198237528424673

You can check out our GitHub and get stable releases at: https://github.com/Project-Sunshine-Native/cinnamon

I’m brand new to the homebrew scene, like installed it on my Wii yesterday new. I love the forecast channel but find it lacking in detail. Is there any way or any prior projects that could add things like daily high and low temps and other weather data? Would it be better to write a channel from scratch instead of modding an existing one? What are my options here? Attached is my current setup

I recently finished a little minigame I've been working on over the last couple months as sort of a little break between bigger projects. I wanted to make a fun little game that could be endless, like those old arcade games where the objective is to get a high score.

A few years ago I had the idea of making a game based off of my wife. She was getting into roller blading at the time, and it was kind of funny watching her try to figure out how to skate backwards while wearing a huge pink helmet and pink roller blades. Combine that with her unhealthy love of coke and her equally unhealthy fear of chickens, and BOOM. RollerGabe was born.

The game is available for download as a .gbc rom at vorvy.itch.io, with a free demo and a full version. You can play it in the browser, too (the WR is 153, see if you can beat it!). Let me know what you guys think, thanks!

EDIT: Here's a little trailer for the game: “RollerGabe” Trailer (2026 Game Boy Color game)