Handheld Homebrew

After having my fun with the Wii, I felt that the natural next step was to see if there was anything I could do with my handheld systems, and discovered the world of 3DS homebrew. I just so happened to own a 2DS, which is part of the 3DS family of systems, (same hardware, but no 3D support) and so after following a tutorial that worked for the current system version I was using, an incredibly easy and enjoyable process, I would finally be able to do… Well, to be truthful there isn’t much of a difference from what the Wii could do in terms of functionality, but there were absolutely some interesting exclusive features too, and if anything has made me curious about app development, it’s been seeing all of the utilities available for this tiny little device.

The 3DS hardware is made in such a way that, much like the Nintendo Wii having the ability to play Gamecube and Triforce Arcade games, it is backwards compatible with DS and DSi hardware, meaning that any games you could play on those systems you can also use on a 2DS, however there was a feature that Nintendo gave out exclusively to early buyers of the 3DS, that being its ability to use backwards compatibility to tap into the DS’s ability to play Game Boy Advance games. A few of these Game Boy Advance games were given out as compensation for people that bought an original model 3DS before Nintendo infamously cut the price down drastically, in what they called the “Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program”. But there was no other way to access the ability to play Game Boy Advance games through official means… That is until homebrew developers figured out the workings of the 3DS’s Game Boy Advance mode, and made a tool allowing users to make installable files of their backed up GBA games. The GBA VC Injector. This was an absolutely amazing tool to find out about, as one of my GBA games had a broken save battery, and this tool allowed me to finally save my progress and experience the latter half of it.

An app called Twilight Menu allows you to play backups of your DS game cartridges, which you can actually make on your 3DS via a tool called Godmode9, which is able to make backups of your 3DS games as well, meaning that you can preserve your cartridges so they don’t get damaged or misplaced. Twilight Menu allows for a very convenient way to play DS games, allowing you to make multiple save files, add useful (and silly) cheat codes to games, and is even able to play Game Boy Advance games as well (the tool to do so is called GBARunner2), and while being more buggy than the method described earlier, which offers a perfect gameplay experience for nearly every game, there are some quality of life options not available otherwise that make it a worthwhile alternative for the games it plays well.

The 3DS’s online services were discontinued by Nintendo a short while back, however a fan effort to revive them known as “Pretendo” exists, and while being a work in progress, has already brought back full, and near complete functionality for a wide variety of games, apps, and other features. As more time passes, Pretendo is going to become one of the most incredible apps available on the 3DS via homebrew, and I’m very excited to be able to experience online services for games that I otherwise never would have been able to use.

But most interestingly of all, the 2DS and 3DS seem interesting to develop games for, the hardware is definitely old, but the dual screens, touch screen, gyro sensor, camera, and even the limited microphone that the system has all make for a device with a plethora of fun and interesting features, and if I were to ever make a video game, I would absolutely try to make a 3DS version of it too just as a fun challenge. There are already people making their own unofficial 3DS games too, a version of Uno called 3DEins, an app called Orchestrina that lets you play instruments found in The Legend of Zelda series, a work in progress, ground up remake of the XBox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed, and very many more. Seeing all of these fun and impressive tools really makes 3DS development seem like something anyone patient enough can do, and it has definitely appealed to me, and inspired me to look into game development as a whole.

And for those of you curious, this guide will walk you through the entire guide of setting up your own 2DS with custom firmware