Attention homebrewers! Grab free money here!
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Aug 17th 2008 at 4:00PM }
Homebrew development has always been a pursuit with few tangible rewards -- personal satisfaction, a love for the hobby, and/or an eventual desire to enter the industry professionally is what drives most to brew home.So three cheers for GBATemp.net, which has announced the creation of a Monthly Homebrew Bounty. This is precisely what it sounds like: a monthly prize pool of cash that will be rewarded to the best new (or "significantly updated") DS homebrew game or application. For the opening month of the contest, the prize pot is currently over $600, including donations from readers (who can donate $10 towards the monthly prize for a right to vote), and sites such as NDSS.nl, Dev-fr.org, and Nentindo. Hey, $600 is better than a kick in the teeth. Quite a bit better, actually!
You've still got time to enter for the first month, but we'd advise you hurry -- the deadline is the end of August! Head here to learn more.
[Thanks, Archagon!]
Wacky Japanese games, emulation, DS Fanboy's recommendations, naughty homebrew: our recent week of homebrew coverage had it all. Don't be put off if you're a beginner, either -- we have guides and a glossary for the newest of newbs.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
StarFoxA @ Aug 17th 2008 8:07PM
I wish I had the knowledge to code homebrew, but I'm too sissy to even try homebrew on my Wii... :(
John @ Aug 17th 2008 8:55PM
Ur not the only one *cries*
Erik Stroud @ Aug 18th 2008 11:05AM
If you try, you can. Then, you realize, your idea sucked. So you go and cry in the corner. Happened to me, but I didn't cry. I just went back to computer programs.
Kralos @ Aug 17th 2008 8:34PM
I hope with this we get to see updates to apps like DSAIM and other stuff like that.
paul @ Aug 17th 2008 10:54PM
how do you develop games? where do i get tools???
aj @ Aug 18th 2008 2:27AM
Well, I would start with a great big book on computer science and/or programming. I took a few classes in C and C++ in high school, but damn if I'm any closer to knowing how to do homebrew myself. Do the kids even use C++ anymore?
I'd love a good list of resources for getting into it. Most of the time the 1337 programmers/hackers/crackers have their heads so far up their own asses that they believe that they possess special knowledge which must never be shared. It's a shame, really, that so many have that attitude.
Jayenkai @ Aug 18th 2008 7:20AM
http://socoder.net/index.php?article=9595
^ A nice "Jumpstart" tutorial on how to get right into the actual code/compile/run setup for DS Coding.
That'll get the thing compiling for you....
The actual "What to type, and how to make games", I'll leave up to you!
PALib's site has a half decent step-by-step tutorial.
Kerry Jones @ Aug 18th 2008 4:40AM
Easiest way to start with homebrew development is probably the PALib: http://www.palib.info/wiki/
To test your homebrew projects you'll either need an emulator or a "flash cart" (R4?) - I'm not too sure but I think both are considered illegal.
bull @ Aug 18th 2008 12:13PM
Hmm cash.
But somehow, a machine with 4mb of memory and no debugger seems to deter me.
I still prefer PC development, lots of tools, lots of support and PC has superior system resource.
Eleniel @ Aug 22nd 2008 9:43AM
Dude. Awesome!
@aj: Most game programming is still done in C++. DS homebrew certainly is (to my chagrin!).
Chris @ Aug 21st 2008 2:04AM
I agree with Kerry... PALib is an easy entry to homebrew development. It's a mighty powerful tool as well... You might want to check this one out: http:/www.videogameshero.com
A guitar hero style rhythme game done by Sumiguchi and myself - the same team that made anomaly wars/ geo wars last year http://sumiguchi.googlepages.com/geowars
Both games rely on PALib.
Why would R4 be illegal? You own the hardware, you should have the right to run alternative software on it.
Chris @ Aug 21st 2008 2:08AM
The first URL didn't show up as a link - hardly could with a "/" missing... here we go:
http://www.videogameshero.com