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Handjobs for Homebrew: Brawl Stage Studio

If you're like me, you probably subscribed to Masahiro Sakurai's Smash Bros Dojo blog hyping the release of Super Smash Bros Brawl over a year ago. On a daily basis, Sakurai and company revealed fun new features of the game, some of which were standard and blasé and some of which were mind-blowingly awesome. The two most amazing, without a doubt, were the inclusion of fan favorite Sonic the Hedgehog as a playable character and, of course, the level editor. Including a level editor in Super Smash Bros Brawl meant nearly infinite replay value, even moreso than the game's prior iterations which have long since owned the attention of gamers for years. The only problem was that controlling the level editor was finicky and many gamers, including myself, would often press the wrong button and delete all their hard work. Designing stages in the living room on the Wii was stressful. If it wasn't great, then you were deemed a failure by your roommates and loved ones. What started as a wonderful idea to extend the user interaction in a fan-favorite franchise had become a nerve-wracking and oft-ignored add-on.

Well no longer is this quite so harrowing an affair as programmer Xane has released the beta of his Brawl Stage Studio application, a homebrew program that allows you to build your Smash Bros stages from the comfort of your PC, save them to an SD card, and play them in Brawl. Fantastic! All the features are there, from conveyor belts and statues to the stage soundtrack, and even a few new features like setting the player spawn points and including your own custom thumbnail images. Plus, typing with a keyboard is much easier than using the virtual keypad on the Wii.

Posted Apr 15 2009, 10:00 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wii, super smash bros brawl, homebrew

Chiptune Friday: 8-Bit Daft Punk

Third Daft Punk post this month? Clearly March is all about robots dancing as far as I'm concerned.

You may have seen around the 'net that a new bit of NES homebrew was released last month in D-Pad Hero, a game that mimicked the now all-too-familiar Guitar Hero/Dance Dance Revolution style of tapping buttons in rhythm to a scrolling bar of icons, only it replaces the guitar controller/dance pad with a traditional NES game pad and high quality song recordings with size and medium appropriate chiptune. Gameplay is expectedly challenging, but the songs are divine, especially the chiptune version of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger".

Posted Mar 27 2009, 03:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: derrick sanskrit, nes, guitar hero, daft punk, chiptune friday, homebrew, d-pad hero

Daily DS Sutra - Position of the Nail

Today, we close our series of looks at the more interesting poses in amateur French developer Cid2Mizard's SutraDS, a homebrew Kama Sutra application for the Nintendo DS. Have we saved the best for last? Well, that really depends on what you consider "best."

One more time, if you are offended by imagery or discussion of a sexual nature, please do not continue reading this post and generally avoid the rest of Nerve.com

Just to be clear, even though we do not see this content as pornographic, it is most likely NSFW.

Posted Mar 27 2009, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, sex, education, homebrew, kama sutra

Daily DS Sutra - Union of the Elephant

Today, we look at another of the more interesting poses in amateur French developer Cid2Mizard's SutraDS, a homebrew Kama Sutra application for the Nintendo DS. Once again, if you are offended by imagery or discussion of a sexual nature, please do not continue reading this post and generally avoid the rest of Nerve.com

Today's position: Union of the Elephant

Posted Mar 26 2009, 02:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, sex, education, homebrew, kama sutra

Daily DS Sutra - The Big Opening

Posted Mar 25 2009, 02:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, sex, education, homebrew, kama sutra

Daily DS Sutra - Mobile of the Wheel

Posted Mar 24 2009, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, sex, education, homebrew, kama sutra

Daily DS Sutra - Union of the Amazon

Last week, amateur French developer Cid2Mizard released his homebrew application SutraDS which, as the name implies, is a representation of a timeless pocket guide Kama Sutra for the Nintendo DS. Putting aside all criticism for the application's lack of polish or practicality, I have to admire its mere existance, wonderfully embodying everything that's great about the DS homebrew community by creating a non-game that changes what the DS is used for. As this is the video game blog for a fairly prominent internet sex magazine, I feel it is my duty to report on and promote discussion of SutraDS, and as such I now present the first in a week-long series reviewing just a few of the 37 poses included in the application.

Note: If you are offended by imagery or discussion of a sexual nature, please do not continue reading this post. In fact, you probably shouldn't be on Nerve at all.

Posted Mar 23 2009, 02:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, sex, education, homebrew, kama sutra

For Love of the Game: The Legend of Zelda – The Shadowgazer

We could run a daily For Love of the Game feature on Zelda remakes alone. Zelda 1 with 16-bit graphics, Zelda 1 made out of Lego, two-dimensional Ocarina of Time, side-scrolling Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awakening running on Minish Cap’s engine, Twilight Princess dating sims, and on and on and on. People love Zelda, they always want more Zelda. But, and it’s a truth that’s taken a serious toll on the series, people tend to want Zelda exactly the way they’ve had it before, only slightly different. Fans aren’t the only ones who keep remaking Zelda; Eiji Aonuma’s been doing a bang-up job of it for almost a decade.

More interesting than homebrewers adding a special blend of basement hops to the same old quest-lager are those adventuresome folks making all new Zeldas. The re-appropriation of yesterday’s art can yield both inspired results, as with Zelda: Outlands, and well-meaning but forgettable outings like Parallel Worlds. It’s especially rare to see a homebrew Zelda filled with original sprites and scenarios. King Mob’s The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer, from the looks of this trailer, is especially becoming.

Posted Oct 28 2008, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, for love of the game, game boy, the legend of zelda, zelda II, the legend of zelda parallel worlds, homebrew, link to the past, zelda outlands, link’s awakening

Handjobs for Homebrew: Mario Paint Composer DS

There's never been a better time to be an independent software developer. College students are designing original concepts that are then developed by established publishers into big games like Portal and de Blob. Small teams working in bedrooms or coffee shops are developing downloadable console games like Braid and World of Goo. And then, of course, there are the homebrew developers, releasing their software often for free or a small donation. Widely seen in less-than-100%-legal light, homebrew software is often a means of "hacking" the platform of choice to add functionality that had not originally been intended. While there's never any guarantee of quality when it comes to these things, there are some fantastic pieces of homemade software out there, and we hope to spotlight a few of them here on "Handjobs for Homebrew" (this is Nerve, I can say "handjobs," can't I?)

Originally demoed just about a month ago, BassAceGold's homebrew of the Mario Paint Composer for the Nintendo DS was released to the internet masses last week. There have already been a number of homebrew applications to add the painting and animation components of the Super Nintendo classic Mario Paint to the touch-screen handheld, but MPC emulates the feature that always seemed to me (and, apparently, the YouTube community) to be the most engaging element, its cartoonish music composition score.

For those who've never played Mario Paint, allow me to explain…

Posted Oct 06 2008, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, portal, world of goo, korg ds-10, de blob, mario paint, braid, jam sessions, electroplankton, homebrew, lsdj

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.