💾 1990s survival horror games Ecstatica and Ecstatica II just got updated PC releases courtesy of publisher SNEG, modern controls and full controller support included.

Both games run entirely on the CPU without needing a GPU, letting you swap between original DOS, Windows 95, and modern high-resolution software graphics on the fly. They even added toggles for vintage quirks like the lower door frames and the classic leg jitter setting.

🔗 GamingOnLinux

#ecstatica #remaster #pc

👾 Developer Mike Bedsole has put out a demo for Corporate Rot, a room-clearing zombie action game built for the Game Boy Color.

You play as an office worker fighting down 100 floors of undead with whatever office gear is lying around, from staplers and golf clubs to computer monitors. Weapons break as you swing them, and it's full permadeath: three lives, no saves, no checkpoints. Defeated zombies drop cash for vending machine upgrades, assuming you survive long enough to reach one.

The playable demo is up on Itch.io while the game runs its Kickstarter campaign.

🔗 Retro Dodo

#gbc #homebrew

🏎️ The 1997 N64 racer Diddy Kong Racing has landed natively on the Nintendo Switch with Golden Balloon NX.

Developer besk adapted akratch's PC source port to run directly on the Switch's ARM64 CPU rather than under emulation, complete with custom audio buffering so TT's voice doesn't crackle. It even carries over support for the PC port's mod folder.

You'll need a homebrew-ready Switch, the port executable, and a US 1.1 ROM renamed to baserom.us.v80.z64 sitting in your SD card's switch/goldenballoon folder.

🔗 GBAtemp

#decomp #port #switch

🗡️ After nearly 15 years of work, Elmer and SamIam have released a complete Version 1.0 English fan translation for Nihon Falcom's 1994 PC Engine Super CD-ROM² RPG, The Legend of Xanadu.

You'll need an original Japanese CD image dump to apply the patch, which is up on GitLab. The team confirmed no AI code or machine translation touched the project. A patch for The Legend of Xanadu 2 should follow in a few weeks.

🔗 Time Extension

#translation #pcengine

🎮 Android Xbox emulator hakuX hit version 1.2.0 after a complete rebuild, swapping its old QEMU backend for a JIT compiler that brings Halo: Combat Evolved and Forza Motorsport to handhelds at full speed.

You don't need a dumped Xbox BIOS file, just the APK from developer rfandango and your own game dumps. Qualcomm Snapdragon devices run it best, provided you swap in custom Turnip drivers to keep Halo 2 from smearing visually.

The 1.2 release also adds System Link for Wi-Fi and VPN multiplayer, plus fixes for room crashes in Silent Hill 2.

🔗 videocardz.com

#emulation #xbox #android

🕹️ VMPuppy turns your phone screen into a live Dreamcast VMU over Wi-Fi when you're playing on Flycast 2.7+ or Hollycast.

It displays the mini LCD while docked, or you can eject it on your phone to play VMU minigames using touch controls on your save data. Hollycast even notices when you pull the card out like real hardware, while Flycast only checks when the game starts.

You just need Python 3.8 on your PC and the american_v1.05.bin BIOS file to play while ejected.

🔗 GitHub

#emulation #dreamcast #hardware

🕹️ Developer AnkushKun has released sh23ds, a native C reconstruction of Silent Hill 2 that runs the PC Director's Cut directly on 3DS hardware without emulation.

It incorporates fixes from the Enhanced Edition project, putting the gameplay on the top screen while maps, memos, and inventory sit on the touch screen. Everything works, including all 17 areas, 6 endings, and the Born From a Wish scenario.

You need your own copy of the 2002 PC files converted through a web tool. New 3DS models run full fog and character shadows, while original consoles drop shadows to keep 30 FPS.

🔗 GBAtemp

#silenthill #port #homebrew

🎮 Doom creator John Romero has found a new publisher for Romero Games’ next shooter after Xbox canceled the project last year during mass layoffs.

The studio owned all the IP, art, and code, so they redesigned the game for a much smaller team (from ~110 people down to 5, now around 15). It reuses a lot of the previous assets, characters, weapons, and code for a head start. Romero confirmed the deal in a VGC interview but can’t name the publisher or give an announce date yet.

🔗 Polygon / VGC
#johnromero #romerogames #fps #xbox

📼 FairyTale's 1992 Japanese PC-98 horror adventure Dead of the Brain: Day of the Living Dead just landed on Steam, GOG, and the FAKKU Store with its first official English translation.

Publisher FAKKU released it under their PC-98 Preservation Project. You get upscaled pixel art, the original FM music, and handy options like hover hints, visible QTE hitboxes, and instant scene restarts on game over. There's even an optional free patch to restore adult content from FairyTale's notorious pivot away from eroge.

🔗 Time Extension

#pc98 #translation #preservation

⚽ Developer xsaja has brought the original Xbox release of FIFA Street to the Nintendo Switch by statically recompiling its x86 machine code straight into C++.

Project street-nx skips emulation entirely, running as a native Switch .nro while translating Direct3D 8 graphics through deko3d or Vulkan. You'll need to supply your own USA Xbox game files, and you have to launch it in Title Mode so the Switch actually gives it enough memory to run.

🔗 GBAtemp

#recompilation #port #xbox

🕹️ Melted Electronics has launched the Glitch Boy, a hardware NES emulator and chiptune synth built to corrupt game memory in real time using onboard dials, MIDI, CV, or live audio inputs without crashing the system.

Creator Martino Maranzana built it as both a standalone handheld and a Eurorack module. You load your NES ROMs onto a microSD card and feed composite video out to a monitor. Line-level audio input lets music trigger the visual glitches, saving you the trouble of tilting your cartridges by hand.

The open-source firmware is hosted on GitHub if you want to map your own custom controls.

🔗 Time Extension

#emulation #nes #hardware

🚀 SMGCommunity has reached 100% decompilation on 2007's Super Mario Galaxy, and community group Luma's Workshop is using that code to build a native PC port named AstroCore.

Running native code instead of leaning on Wii emulation means targeting higher graphics rendering and better performance. You'll need your own dumped copy of the game to extract the assets for building it. Once cleanup wraps up, the team is moving straight on to Super Mario Galaxy 2.

🔗 GBAtemp

#decomp #port