How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026 • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#21

Post by shoobiedoo » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

boricj wrote: post #3

I'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 w…

There 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

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#22

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:15 AM UTC

dottjt wrote: post #14

boricj wrote: post #3

I'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 w…

How did they do it back in the day? Was basically everything from the tooling etc. just created inhouse from scratch?

They 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.

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#23

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:16 AM UTC

trescenzi wrote: post #19

gambiting wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'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 hype…

If you enjoy this sort of thing I’d highly recommend pico-8 and tic-80. Both have pretty full featured dev environments and have a set of restrictions that make developing for them fun.

But they aren't real hardware platforms.

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#24

Post by ninjin » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:18 AM UTC

Tried 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

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#25

Post by Hugsbox » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

dwroberts wrote: post #8

stewx wrote: post #5

I 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.

[flagged]

I saw a comment on HN a few weeks ago, can't remember the context but it was something along the lines of "listening to somebody talk about their vibecoded project is like listening to somebody describe a dream they had last night - you end up just tuning them out, because nobody gives a shit"

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#26

Post by doublerabbit » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

dottjt wrote: post #14

boricj wrote: post #3

I'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 w…

How did they do it back in the day? Was basically everything from the tooling etc. just created inhouse from scratch?

Yeah, pretty much.

They provide the devkit hardware, the specification technical documentation and the tool chain to compile the binary.

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#27

Post by rightbyte » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

ninjin wrote: post #24

Tried 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

Does compatibility with M64 imply N64 compat?

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#28

Post by GlacierFox » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

stewx wrote: post #5

I 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.

Urgh. Cool story...

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#29

Post by bilekas » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:28 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #13

Flashtoo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What 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?

I mean, there is plenty of people out there who enjoy the process of making a game(they have a really clear idea of gameplay mechanics they think would be fun when put together) but they really don't enjoy programming at all. I guess it's kinda the same - I Want to see my game happen, I don't want to code it. Which isn't that different from where all the other tools are leading us anyway. Nowadays you can make a vide…

> Nowadays you can make a video game by just downloading an engine and building everything using the included scripting language most of the time - no need to understand rendering, IO, input or anything else.

I don't disagree, but I don't see it as a positive, looking at the current game releases and their performance being shockingly unoptimised, there is a lot of lost real world value in knowing the lower level details, it's like anything really, sometimes you have to do the hard/unappealing work to create your best work.

Re: How to Make a Nintendo 64 Game in 2026

#30

Post by Bad_CRC » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 10:28 AM UTC

dottjt wrote: post #14

boricj wrote: post #3

I'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 w…

How did they do it back in the day? Was basically everything from the tooling etc. just created inhouse from scratch?

The Dreamcast dev kits came with CodeWarrior as an IDE iirc.