Dr. NEO's NeoFlash Spring Coding Competition 2008 has finally come to a close with the announcement of the winning homebrew applications and games for the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS. Some 76 homebrew applications and games were entered into the contest. Head over the full article to see the cream of the crop.

While rummaging through several 2008 Neoflash Spring Coding Competition entries, we've plucked another great homebrew game for your PlayStation Portable: Bugz. Sony PSP coder Insert_Witty_Name "professionalized" a simple game concept with collection of features similar to those from a commercial casual title. But find out how the game plays out and other reasons why this game's worth a peek at the full story.



Download: Bugz
Visit: QJ.NET's PSP Development Forums

 

Insert_Witty_Name dropped by our forums to announce the release of the pgeFont Bitmap Font Library, a font library based on his upcoming Phoenix Game Engine. As Insert_Witty_Name notes, "The library loads a TrueType font and generates a swizzled 4-bit paletted bitmap font texture for use when drawing text."

Homebrew makers can use the library for when they want some snazzy texture to spice up their lettering. As such, there are also some samples people can use:

There are two samples included, one for raw GU and the other using the graphics library from Yeldarb's tutorials on psp-programming.com If you're using the graphics library then you may need to reset the sceGuTex* states to what they are defaulted to in the initGraphics() functions, after using the pgeFont* functions.

He also notes that the library has a dependency on FreeType, so if you want to use it properly, you can follow this forum link here to learn how to install FreeType. In any case, give it a try, remember to check the readme for rules on proper citation of his work in your programs, and smile, because this also means that Insert_Witty_Name's Phoenix Game Engine is coming soon.

Download: pgeFont Bitmap Font Library
Visit: PSP Development Forums

And so NeoFlash's Spring Coding Competition 2007 begins. We believe that you are all excited about this event as it's sure to provide all of us a helluva lot of quality homebrew games. For our first stop, we take a look at Space Escape.

Basically, the aim of this space shooter homebrew game is for players to survive as long as they can in a dangerous asteroid field. As the name of the game suggests, there are no real enemies here except for the asteroids themselves. Your ship is equipped with three different kinds of laser that can be activated depending on your level.

The game also has a system of power-ups which allows you to refill the charge of either your shield or your fire power. There's another power-up that adds a multiplier to your points, if you're the type of player who is concerned with scoring high in games. As for graphics and interface, we are hands down. We have to say, Space Escape is a strong contender.

Anyway, the controls for the game, alongside other pertinent game details, can be found inside the readme file so be sure to browse through that carefully. But to give you guys a head start, here's a video clip showing Space Escape in all its glorious beauty.

Space Escape was mainly created by homebrew developers Grimfate126 and InsertWittyName. The music was provided by Abhoth.

Download: Space Escape

The video follows after the jump!

Insert_Witty_Name has just rolled out Revision B for his PSP brew VSH Analog, which allows you to use the analog stick for movement in the VSH. This enables your analog stick to function as D-pad, and vice versa.

Known bugs in this version include the PSP crashing when items from the game menu are launched on non-3.10 OE firmwares. He hasn't been able to fix this so he reminds us that only 3.10 OE is fully supported.

Changelog:

• Analog stops working after using some VSH options (FIXED)
• Analog/D-pad messed up when using VSH options that actually use analog (FIXED)
• Added option to enable/disable the button swap in VSH
• Added short message displaying current status when enabled/disabled
• HOLD key will stop analog movement
• Added a power tick to keep PSP awake
  

Installation instructions, credits, and other vital info can be found in the readme which was put there for a reason, so go use it. Again, for those who will ask, installation instructions are in the readme. Got that? Good. Nothing left to do for you but to...

Download: [VSH Analog Revision B]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]