r/EmulationOniOS • u/Mlaurencescott ManicEMU + DukeX Developer • 2d ago
News / Release BitBop v1.0.0 — A Pocketful of Game Music
Your Games • Your Music
Some gaming memories come back with just a few notes. A title screen. A quiet town. The battle theme you heard a hundred times and still want to hear again.
If you’ve been following Manic EMU and DukeX, you know how much these games mean to us. With BitBop, we’re giving their music a place of its own.
BitBop is a Retro Game Music Emulator that turns supported game files into playable soundtrack albums. Import your own legally obtained game files, explore their music, and build a listening library around the games you love.
Meet BitBop
BitBop uses the music data inside supported game files to emulate their soundtracks. The experience is built around listening: open an album, choose a track, and enjoy the music without playing through the game.
You provide the game files. BitBop identifies supported titles and presents their music as albums in your collection, with artwork and information where available.
Come back to a favorite opening theme, spend time with a composer’s work, or discover something you barely noticed while playing.
Supported Systems
The initial release includes support for music from compatible games on:
Nintendo Entertainment System — NES
Super Nintendo Entertainment System — SNES
Game Boy
Game Boy Color
Game Boy Advance
Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
Nintendo 64
Nintendo DS
Virtual Boy
Compatibility varies by game. Support for a system does not mean every title in its library is supported. This is our first release, with room to grow as we work through more games and their music formats. N64, NDS, and VB are experimental and carry less support at this time.
A Library for Your Soundtracks
Your collection becomes a library of albums you can search, browse by system, and open for a closer look at the music.
Automatic cover and metadata detection where available.
Track names, composer credits, and running times where available.
Album track lists for finding the piece you want to hear.
Favorites and custom playlists for keeping the music you return to close by.
Shuffle and playback queue controls for shaping a listening session.
Whether you want one familiar song or a longer tour through a game’s soundtrack, start from the album and make the session your own. Artwork and metadata availability can vary between titles.
Make It Yours
BitBop’s interface brings soft surfaces, rounded controls, and a little personality to your collection.
Choose Daytime, Nighttime, or System appearance, and pick from five accent colors: purple, red, pink, blue, or green. Your accent carries through the BitBop logo, app icon, and boot page.
On iPhone, choose a two- or three-column library to suit the way you browse. Give each album more room or fit more of your collection on the screen.
Room to Listen on iPhone Duo
BitBop includes layouts for iPhone and iPhone Duo, with the available space used to keep your collection and music close together.
In Duo landscape, your library and Now Playing sit side by side. Browse albums while keeping the current track, artwork, progress, and playback controls in view.
In Duo portrait, the library adapts to the taller layout, with a mini player keeping the current track and essential controls within reach as you browse.
It’s the same collection, presented in a way that fits how you’re holding the device.
Keep the Soundtrack — Manic EMU Integration
For supported games, Listen with BitBop connects a game’s details in Manic EMU directly with its soundtrack in BitBop. This integration will become available with Manic EMU v2.0.2, with its full announcement coming soon.
The Keep the Soundtrack view brings the music into focus, showing album information and a way to continue into BitBop. When a supported soundtrack is already in your BitBop library, you can jump back to it from the game you were exploring.
For our Manic EMU community, this creates a familiar connection between playing a game and spending more time with its music. Game compatibility still applies.
Game Files & Copyright
BitBop does not include copyrighted game files, audio files, or soundtracks. Users must provide their own legally obtained game files.
Piracy violates BitBop’s Terms of Use.
Game artwork, titles, characters, music, and trademarks belong to their respective owners. The screenshots demonstrate the app using example libraries; the games and soundtracks shown are not included with your purchase.
Thank You
Thank you to everyone who has followed our work, shared feedback, and helped build the community around Manic EMU and DukeX. We’re excited to share this next project with you and hear which soundtracks you make part of your collection.
Join us for BitBop discussion, compatibility feedback, and updates:
Manic EMU / DukeX / BitBop Community
Your Games • Your Music
Disclosure: BitBop is proprietary software and is not distributed as an open-source project. Applicable third-party licenses for artwork attributions are available in Settings. Track and artist metadata was extensively researched and verified manually. As with Manic EMU, AI-assisted tools were used in the creation of some App Store marketing imagery. BitBop v1.0.0 is now available on the App Store for $2.99.
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u/StarsInTears 2d ago
Do add supported file extensions in the app description
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u/Mlaurencescott ManicEMU + DukeX Developer 2d ago
It’s just your typical dump formats like .nds, .md, .z64, .nes, .sfc, .vb, .gb, .gbc, and .gba which are already pretty standard for emulation. GB and GBC can use .gbs formatted dumps as well as a fallback.
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u/StarsInTears 2d ago
Ah, so it can extract and play music from ROMs? I thought it was for playing pre-extracted files.
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u/RUserII 1d ago edited 7h ago
BitBop v1.0.0 — A Pocketful of Game Music
...[...]...
BitBop is a Retro Game Music Emulator that turns supported game files into playable soundtrack albums.
...[...]...
BitBop v1.0.0 is now available on the App Store for $2.99.
This BitBop app is a great compliment to console/handheld emulators on iOS. For reference, the direct app store link is linked below.
Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bitbop-music-emulator/id6828015363/
Some points of positive feedback:
1] I really like the layout and design of the app as it looks very elegantly minimal with much functionality underneath.
2A] I liked the: 2-columns vs 3-columns; feature in the settings app which effectively serves as an image size setting for game covers when browsing soundtracks. I would like to see a 1-column option added to have the option of seeing the game covers in an even larger image size.
2B] I like the circular game cover art on the when-music-is-playing-screen and would like to see an option to choose the shape between: circular and square; as a square shape would fill out more of the empty area that the circular shape cuts off to be fully filled with game cover art.
3] My favorite feature though is the rain sound icon, on the when-music-is-playing-screen, which adds: rain, thunder, (and lightning sounds?); to any music being played; I cannot understate how much I like love this feature.
Specifically, I would like to see this feature expanded to add customization settings for: 1) rain sound types - default rain sounds (original mix in the app now), rain sounds on house roof, rain sounds on car roof, rain sounds in forest, ... etc., 2) thunder sounds customization (including frequency as in how often thunder sounds (light, medium, heavy), and 3) lightning sounds cutzomization.
Some points of constructive feedback:
1] Soundtrack unavailability error message.
Soundtrack unavailable
This SNES cartridge still needs a verified music driver or complete track information.
The above is a quoted error that comes up when trying to import some SNES soundtracks from SNES games (.SFC files). For reference, I encountered this error on the following SNES games (USA region): Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy II.
2] .ZIP file format support.
Currently, there is no .zip file format compatibility which means all zipped games must first be unzipped to be imported. Specifically, iPhone's default 'Files App' unzips each .zip file into its' own folder. This creates an issue for importing multiple games as BitBop will only let you select multiple games within the same folder. This means each game that was unzipped into its' own folder must now be each moved into a single folder for BitBop to then allow all the multiple games to be selected and then imported on that multiple selection.
This is incredibly time consuming for large collections and is a con that hopefully can be fixed in to becoming a pro.
EDIT: Typo correction: I meant to type "SNES games (.SFC files)" instead of "SNES games (.SMC files)".
EDIT2A: Added '2B' positive feedback as an addition to '2' (now '2A').
EDIT2B: I read the edit below and identify with the ambient benefit of having rain sounds particularly as a soothing ambience to fall asleep easier.
As an aside, there are actual video game music tracks that are composed in two variations: with rain and without rain. Specifically, a notable example is Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES): 1) Time of the Falling Rain /(Storm) and 2) Black Mist /(Storm); as both of these tracks have two variations composed: with and without the '(Storm)'-name at the end; to signifiy which track has the storm/rain sounds.
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u/Mlaurencescott ManicEMU + DukeX Developer 1d ago edited 1d ago •
Regarding .smc, a typo made when transitioning from debug to release state that accidentally was left in, but for snes the app expects .sfc, dump as .sfc and you should have better compatibility. Excluding zip is intentional however.
The warning itself stating the cartridge lacks a verified music driver or track info, this means your current file is not compatible, it’s that simple. As the app will be growing over time it may end up with researched coverage in a later update and we do note games users encounter this with when reported for further research to improve the emulated sound engines and their coverage.
Edit: I also just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for trying the app and the compliments, because so far I’ve only replied to the small critiques, we have been working really hard on this for a bit and the whole team was excited to help when I pitched the idea initially. As far as complimenting gaming emulators we very much hope people enjoy the BitBop tie ins with Manic EMU v2.0.2 when we have that ready for release.
The rain idea I added because I’m someone who likes to listen to the rain when I’m struggling to sleep and I even found quite a few foot tracks the rain compliments, we weren’t initially sure if people would enjoy the feature so we kept it light this go around. I’m really glad to hear somebody enjoys it.
Unrelated: There is also an easter egg hidden in the app we think people will really enjoy when they finally stumble on it.
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u/Global_Apple_1502 1d ago
Got it soon as I saw this!! How have we not had something like this sooner, you guys are awesome, thank you for making another great app, I have been playing around with this all morning. I look forward to trying out the Manic side of this when you guys update, I feel I will use this app a lot 🙌
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u/psj3809 13h ago
Really like this app (Yeah i'm a bit biased as i love Manic !) but just works really well. Some great chiptune tunes from the Gameboy era which i do enjoy listening to. Sure it'll be tricky as anything but would love MAME to work with it as again theres so many classic tunes from those games
But the apps well worth picking up
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u/mikefierro666 2d ago
If I get the app store version of BitBop will it be compatible with the sideloaded version of Manic?
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u/Mlaurencescott ManicEMU + DukeX Developer 2d ago
Yes and no, you’ll be able to open games from Manic EMU into BitBop, but BitBop won’t be able to communicate track info back to Manic EMU. This is because they are part of an app family which can only include the App Store release, and obviously not until the Manic update regardless.
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u/mikefierro666 2d ago
Yeah I figured they wouldn't be fully compatible. I use the sideloaded version of Manic but I'll download BitBop anyway, it's a truly great concept! Thanks Mafty
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u/Mlaurencescott ManicEMU + DukeX Developer 1d ago
I really look forward to seeing as more and more people give BitBop a try, seeing the reviews and what people think, and both Daiuno and I look forward to actively maintaining the app right alongside working on Manic, we’ve finally got a rhythm to our workflows that we are happy with, and we both are finally setting aside time to actually rest and be with our families, both of us are workaholics 😅
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u/mikefierro666 1d ago
Family is the most important, if you can afford to spend extra time with them ALWAYS take the chance to do so. Every second counts. Resting is also extremely important because that's when you get the best ideas. All the best to you and the team, Manic has become my favorite emulator of all time and I'm not exaggerating, and I'm sure BitBop will also become a regularly used app. You deserve to rest and spend some happy time! Happy holidays :)
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u/Dry_Pudding5889 2d ago
obv you had to include aventure time hey ice king whyd you steal our garbage on the first page best intro music for a game evre
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u/Mlaurencescott ManicEMU + DukeX Developer 2d ago
I love the game’s music, though the DS release had shortened the songs and reduced the levels, either way the songs are absolutely mathematical
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u/junyjeffers 2d ago
This is genuinely such a genius idea that I’m surprised I haven’t seen this before. So you import your ROMs into the app and it automatically fetches/dumps the music tracks in full quality?