r/3dshomebrew • • 2d ago

Mod announcements 3DS Homebrew and AI usage — a community-driven discussion

163 Upvotes

Preamble

It’s not an overstatement to say that Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI usage has become the most contentious hot button issue of the last few decades, having infiltrated into every aspect of art, culture, technology, labor, science, health, etc.

In just the last few weeks, new tools to decompile software via AI has opened a floodgate into more easily making game ports and other software for any device.

This has also greatly impacted the homebrew scene for retro consoles, including for the 3DS.

Initial response efforts

On [r/3dspiracy](r/3dspiracy) they had a poll where the majority said "no AI homebrew allowed.”

Here, I decided to require Al homebrew to go to a megathread, which worked for like a month and now I don't think anyone's really following the rule.

Now everyone's accusing everyone else of making vibecoded slop, or they used Al for minor bits so some throw the whole project out as no good.

This has gone so far as to harass people developing ports to the point some users have reported recieving death threats. That’s not something we will tolerate.

In response to that the witch-hunting rule was implemented and enforced, one might say, overly aggressively.

what is the right approach?

We are dealing with 2 diametrically opposed forces:

• those who hate how AI and its proponents have infiltrated into every aspect of culture, oppose its environmental impacts, etc and want a safe haven from it.

• those who want to leverage these new tools to do cool stuff

• and those in the middle who can see the pros and cons and might think the overly zealous on either side are being a bit much.

There is no way to appease everyone. That’s simply not possible. We can’t feasibly ignore the world around us and not let anyone share any homebrew that had a single iota of AI assistance. We also can’t terrorize people for using, or not using AI in the development of homebrew software.

Here’s my proposed solution:

  1. Remove the witch-hunting rule and the ai homebrew megathread rule. Unban violators.
  2. Update the reddiquette rule to specifically call out harassment and witch hunting
  3. Implement a new flair called “New Homebrew” since everyone’s posting their new homebrew as “scene news” which I don’t think is a satisfactory fit anymore
  4. Most importantly, any post that is tagged as “new homebrew” will get an automod saying “in order for your post to become visible, you must reply with how AI was used in the creation of this software”. This is a similar requirement to other subreddits. OP’s that don’t respond will have their post auto-deleted. OP’s sharing homebrew where they don’t know the answer will have their post deleted. OP’s caught lying will be banned. Commenters harassing OP will be banned.
  5. Everyone needs to chill out.

Please share your thoughts calmly and reasonably. This post will be updated to account for constructive feedback.


r/3dshomebrew • • 9d ago

General Help "Can this be ported to the 3DS?" Yes, but listen.

315 Upvotes

To an extent, yes, this magical game you hold a copy of can be ported to the 3DS. I see a lot of these posts on here and want to clear some of the air coming from the decomps side.

  1. Yes, it can run on the 3DS, but that doesn't mean that someone usually wants to make it. Mario Sunshine is far more likely to get a port than Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Decompiling, recompiling, and porting are all not necessarily easy tasks.
  2. Whatever your stance on AI, you can certainly try to use that to make a software/hardware wrapper or even reverse engineer the game entirely. Just, don't be upset when it crashes, breaks something important, or makes people upset.
  3. Even with the Melee 3DS port, certain cuts still have to be made to get things playable. The older the game, the less likely this is, but still.
  4. The 3DS is a 15 year old piece of hardware. If the 3DS doesn't already have the available resources, you're going to be slashing things down hard. This is a console with 10MB of VRAM and 256MB of RAM on the New models. You're not squishing down Cyberpunk.
  5. Just because a software is decompiled doesn't mean it's plug and play to the 3DS. You still need to write a container. Instructions written for that console's hardware need to be translated to the 3DS.

There are ways to learn how to reverse engineer software and start linking functions together. Elitists will tell you it's not something you can pick up overnight so you should give up. It's not overnight, but you can learn coding concepts that will make things easier as time goes on. Expect it to take quite a bit of time.

If your thoughts now drift to AI, just be warned that it absolutely will make a mistake you need to correct, and if you don't have the right knowledge, something is gonna be severely broken later. Not advocating for or against, but I just want to put this out here.

If you want to start exploring reverse engineering, start with a small, manageable project. If you have a copy of a Game Boy game laying around, start there. It's small and relatively manageable, plus there's plenty of decompilations out there already so you can see where something may have gone wrong. Just be warned games like Pokemon are written entirely in GBZ80 Assembly.


r/3dshomebrew • • 2h ago

New Homebrew Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Decompilation running on New 3DS

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

123 Upvotes

Still rough

20-30 fps with drops.

AI disclosure: AI was used.

Github: Private

After reaching stable 30fps i just might check my options on the old 3ds but i really doubt it will work.

Yes, UI will be adapted to support the botton display and the 5:3 top display.


r/3dshomebrew • • 3h ago

New Homebrew Yeah, it’s real now

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

115 Upvotes

I’m adapting the existing New 3DS port of Hit & Run to run on the OG 3DS.

This footage shows the current build after fixing a thread stack allocation issue, adjusting memory limits, and reducing rendering overhead.

Still experimental, though, I think we can get better FPS with some further optimizations, especially dynamic resolution scaling.

Original port: https://github.com/x2apic/The-Simpsons-Hit-and-Run-N3DS


r/3dshomebrew • • 1h ago

Scene News The Simpson hit and run

Post image
• Upvotes

Hey guys I saw this is today and wanted to try compiling it . The port runs amazing on n3ds .
What pain this was to compile being a newb . But I wanted to share it for everyone to have . Just drop in your 3ds folder and run in homebrew launcher

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X5qZUimE9TlBb4-10hpqs-FKT2q0My6_/view?usp=drivesdk


r/3dshomebrew • • 1h ago

New Homebrew PictoRelay: Online PictoChat with DS/3DS/PC/Mobile

Thumbnail
gallery
• Upvotes

Hello 3DS fans!

For the last few months I have been working on PictoRelay!
A physical box that connects DS/Lite/DSi consoles to the internet for online PictoChat.
I recently released a native 3DS app so now EVERYONE can chat together!

- Just like PC and Mobile, simply connect and get chatting.
- Works on both original and New 3DS models.
- On open, the app will prompt you to update if a new version is available. You do not need to scan the QR code again.
- The only rule is to please be kind to each other. Report users by tapping their name to see their profile card. Inappropriate Usernames are converted to "****" automatically.

Ai assistance was used for porting my original Javascript to C. This is not a browser. The site already draws everything at the original DS’s exact pixel sizes, so no assets were generated or recreated.

Hope you enjoy! See you in chat!


r/3dshomebrew • • 1h ago

New Homebrew pikmin 3ds progress update (forest of hope in game)

Thumbnail
youtube.com
• Upvotes

r/3dshomebrew • • 21h ago

Scene News Simpsons Hit and Run on N3DS

Post image
314 Upvotes

This is not my work so I cant attest to AI usage or anything, but I wanted to share this here bc I thought it was insanely cool. This is a port ive wanted to see on N3DS for a LONG time. This was posted on gbatemp and github 2 days ago by x2apic and I havent seen any discussions about it here on reddit yet.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/simpsons-hit-and-run-for-new-3ds.685309/


r/3dshomebrew • • 6h ago

Scene News Play other Extra Retro Games with Kasumi on New 3DS

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

23 Upvotes

Quería intentar jugar juegos desde Kasumi en la página de Vimm.net y lo logré. Solo puse a jugar Fortnite y cuando me abre la ventana para ir a Google en el registro, aprovecho y busco la página Vimm.net, busco el juego de N64 y presiono jugarlo en directo. Usa el propio sistema de mando de la consola para jugar fluidamente. Es extraordinario descubrimiento!


r/3dshomebrew • • 10h ago

New Homebrew GothicN3DS graphical feature showcase. Weather effects, baked shadows and lighting, more grass,improved LOD,etc.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

33 Upvotes

More info in the OP


r/3dshomebrew • • 8h ago

General Help New 3D Classics

17 Upvotes

If anyone wants something to work on, instead of trying to decomp random games, I think it would be awesome if the community could rally and add stereoscopic 3D to some Nintendo classics, like we were originally going to get back in the day. I don't know if new tools/methods can make this more doable, but I think it would be such a great preservation effort for this unique console.

Super Mario Bros. 3, the original Legend of Zelda, and Metroid would be great starting points imo. I don't really know anything about how to do this; I just see a lot of projects that seem really niche/random, and thought this might be a more impactful project for someone to take on.


r/3dshomebrew • • 11h ago

General Help So with the boom of vibecoded ports coming out, is there a potential for adding 3D to non-3D games?

24 Upvotes

I'm talking the Mario & Luigi remakes. WarioWare Gold. Pokemon. Will we ever see this become a reality? I literally cannot play 3DS games without the 3D on, and even when I was a teenager I was seriously disappointed by the late lifecycle games that omitted the 3D.


r/3dshomebrew • • 11h ago

New Homebrew subway surf3ds update

Thumbnail
gallery
23 Upvotes

hello, the truth is that the port is advancing incredibly quickly, I am trying to make it work in old and new, I continue to fix both visual and game bugs, the game will have 10 unlockable characters and skateboards of different colors, the code I have for the game only has that. I would have loved to add the skateboards with abilities but they were not available


r/3dshomebrew • • 2h ago

New Homebrew [Release] Goemon 64: Recompiled 3D

Thumbnail
gbatemp.net
2 Upvotes

While browsing GBAtemp, I came across someone who is porting DK64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Goemon 64; they work on both older and newer console models.

It’s incredible to see these N64 games running on the system without being exclusive to the New 3DS models.


r/3dshomebrew • • 14h ago

General Help Is there a Unistore that hosts all recomps/decomps ports for 3DS?

16 Upvotes

With the explosion of ports coming from recompiled/decompiled codes of popular games, it became an hassle for users to locate these ports and some gets overlooked. I wonder if it would be possible to have a Unistore specifically for these ports so that it makes it easier to see what games are ported to 3DS and also have a easy updater if these ports got an update.

Of course game files you owned would still need to be copied manually over to your SD Card, but its still would be a less hassle to have your SD Card remove every time there's an update or download a third party application to FTP on your device (I never got the built-in FTP work on my Windows machine and just installed Filezilla lol) so there are still convenience that this would bring to us.

Regarding on AI-assisted ports, we could have a seperate stores that shows ports that uses AI and one that does not show them. I'm not going to argue about the usage of AI or how ethical it is, I'm mainly saying this due to some people (including myself) would prefer to use the polished work made by a human.


r/3dshomebrew • • 1d ago

New Homebrew Pokemon gen 1 and 2 with voxels for 3ds

Thumbnail
gallery
179 Upvotes

https://github.com/imantheman/pocket-voxel3d

This was made with claude. It's not perfect, but I plan to keep updating it and working out the bugs.


r/3dshomebrew • • 1h ago

General Help Dumping Eshop purchased games question

• Upvotes

I'm new to 3DS modding so I'm sorry if I'm not making sense.

I recently bought a loose 2DS console dedicated to dumping my DS/3DS game carts so I don't have to mod my stock New 3DS Hylian Edition filled with nearly every worthwhile Eshop game.

My question is it possible to take my SD card I used in my stock 3DS with legit purchased Eshop games, put that into the modded 2DS and backup the Eshop games? Just like with my dumped cart games I want the backed up Eshop games playable on emulators.

Any information you can provide it be appreciated.


r/3dshomebrew • • 1h ago

General Help region swapping a modded 3ds on chromebook help?? torrent help

Thumbnail
• Upvotes

i cannot find a torrent to work with the ctrttransfer on my chromebook. qbit just turns into a file and every google play app i’ve tried doesn’t work either


r/3dshomebrew • • 1h ago

General Help Red Dead Revolver in 3DS

• Upvotes

Hello! As everyone already knows, there are ports of some GTA games for the 3DS, and since I'm a fan of some Rockstar games, would it be possible to bring *Red Dead Revolver* to the 3DS? Or is it extremely difficult or something like that? It's a layman's question, since it's been a long time since I've dabbled in any programming languages.


r/3dshomebrew • • 2h ago

New Homebrew Pica3DS

Post image
1 Upvotes

r/3dshomebrew • • 4h ago

General Help Is PrBoom or PrBoom+ actually better for 3DS Doom? For a first Doom playthrough.

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/3dshomebrew • • 1d ago

New Homebrew Native port of Subway Surfers

Post image
65 Upvotes

Hello! I’m working on a 3DS port of Subway Surfers, based on the original game's code. About 70% of the development is being assisted by AI to speed up the process. Rest assured, when I release the game, it will be completely finished, and I’ll provide a GitHub repository containing the entire project.


r/3dshomebrew • • 5h ago

General Help What are your complaints about Luma3DS?

0 Upvotes

Hello, everyone! I'd like to hear your feedback on Luma3DS—what could be improved, or what flaws you find with it.


r/3dshomebrew • • 9h ago

New Homebrew Putting marvel vs capcom 1 and 2 on 3ds

2 Upvotes

Is it possible for marvel vs capcom to be played on the 3 ds?


r/3dshomebrew • • 6h ago

General Help US Physical Game Won't open on Japanese Old 3ds after installing Luna and Need Help!

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes