If you love side-scrolling shooters, then you may want to check out the demo of Battle Star, homebrew developer Kingromain's work-in-progress title programmed in lua. Surprisingly, he game already looks like a classic arcade shooter, pretty impressive for something only in its early stages. More details in the full article!


Download: Battle Star Demo

For those of you who dare to tread the realm of the two-dimensional, homebrew developer Yan2Yan challenges you to take on his latest Tetris-like puzzle game for the PSP.

While the game is still in its demo version, Elemental takes all the elements of what made other blocky puzzle games such a hit and throws its own unique twist into it. Read more about this game after the jump!

Download: Elemental demo

Emeric0101 of the XtreamLua forums has come up with a patched version of Lua Player that runs under Team M33's 3.71 M33 custom firmware.

For those new to the PSP homebrew scene, Lua Player is an app that interprets Lua scripts for the PlayStation Portable. It allows PSP users to use applications or play games coded in Lua. Now you guys won't have to go through great lengths to get your Lua programs to work on the PSP Slim.

If you need more help or information, you can either click on the Via link below (if you understand French) or head on over to our PSP Development forums. Keep checking back here on QJ.NET for more homebrew news and updates.

Download: Lua Player for Team M33's 3.71 CFW

 

Homebrew has a lot of uses - but how about homebrew that helps you download homebrew? If you're surprised, then don't be, as that's what Poison_xtreamlua's latest release, Easy Homebrew Downloader v4, does. It's coded so that it helps you download almost any kind of homebrew for the PSP out there today - and helps you install them, too. Neat!

As the downloadable archive itself has no readme file, here's a snippet of the information you should take to heart before doing anything with the homebrew:

Informations:

• Time of downloading and installing depend on your wifi connexion and the size of the homebrew downloaded.
• Hombrews are download in ../EHD/download/ folder.
• If want your homebrew appear in EHD , please contact me via Private Message on QJ or Xtreamlua.
• If you want to download a homebrew already located in the ../EHD/download folder , the download will not begin.
• If there is no update , a text appear to notice you.
• Once the download and the install are done, a text appear (during 20sec) to notice you.
• For each version available, it's possible to install it manually (via a Personal Computer), or automatically (via EHD).
• The homebrew database increase each week or month (to each version of EHD)

Convenient, right? Not only does it download the homebrew file you want automatically, but it also does the same with the homebrew's later versions, and installs it on its own. No more tedious copy-pasting and USB connection malarkey, your PSP does all the work for you!

And even though the homebrew's text is in French, Poison_xtreamlua reassures readers that Easy Homebrew Downloader is, well, easy to use despite the language barrier. And if you're still confused, you can check the mini-glossary Poison_xtreamlua included in his info-heavy post in the forums link below. Which you should really read before installing this homebrew.

Kudos to Poison_xtreamlua for making the homebrew scene just a bit more accessible for everyone!

Download: Easy Homebrew Downloader
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forums

 

benja32 (creator of PSP Racer) over at the QJ.Net forums dropped us a line regarding a homebrew game recently released by the trio of Gibus (coding), Genevois Romuald (graphics), and Alexel (music). It's titled Panic Paradyz, where the player's goal is to guide a swarm of hearts (aka souls) through a series of obstacles. The game currently has 12 stages and 4 decorations/themes, with various power-ups to be found as you fly through each stage.

Here are the controls:

• Joystick/analog nub: Move your vessel
• R: Activate the magnet
• L: Deactivate the magnet
• START: /Menu pauses

As a further point of clarification, the magnet allows you to draw the souls to where you cursor is on the screen - we'll leave it to your creativity regarding how this can be used. As requested by the original authors, we advice readers to drop by the (French) xtreamlua forums to give their feedback for Panic Paradyz. Or, you can also opt to drop by the release thread here at QJ's PSP dev forums to check out who else picked up on the game.

Download: Panic Paradyz
Visit: QJ's PSP Development Forums

A couple of days ago, the XtreamLua.com and Gx-MOD.com sites announced the finalists for their XtreamLua/Gx-MOD contest, which showcased several interesting homebrew applications and games for the PSP homebrew community to see, enjoy, and use.

Now, in case you've already picked up game pack #1, we're letting you know about the release of the XtreamLua/Gx-MOD Lua contest 2007 finalist's Game Pack #2, which features four more homebrews: Vortex Battle Arena Release 1, Elemental, and Morshock v0.1, and DestroyDust v0.5.

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Vortex Battle Arena Release 1
Developer: Akabane87

This game will have two players competing at destroying the most balls of the same color a their own sprite. Players gain additional points for destroying balls matching their color, but will lose points if they destroy balls of the same color as their opponent. Interestingly enough, it appears that both players will play on the same PSP, at least according to the controls:

• Player 1 (located on the left and having the red ball):
• D-Pad (up and down arrows): Move the gun
• Left trigger: To draw
• Player 2 (located on the right and having the green ball)
• Triangle and X: Move the gun
• Right trigger: Draw
• Start: To leave the part
  

Download: Vortex Battle Arena Release 1


Elemental, and Morshock v0.1, and DestroyDust v0.5 are available in the Full Article

The first XtreamLua/Gx-MOD Lua contest held last December by sites XtreamLua.com and Gx-MOD.com was considered a big success, so the two teamed up again to bring us XtreamLua/Gx-MOD contest 2007. Developers sent in their homebrew games and applications for the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS. Gx-MOD has provided the prizes this time around: 125 EUR for the first placer, 75 EUR for the second placer, and the third placer gets a UMD of GTA: Vice City Stories.

We're giving you the first batch of the contest finalists, so check them out and see how these homebrew games play for you.

XtremBattle v0.1
Developer: sabbator

This is designed like a fighting game where the characters are taken from various manga series. In the screenshots here, we see Monkey D. Luffy and Kurosaki Ichigo getting ready for battle. Try out the game and tell us what you think.

Download: XtremBattle v0.1

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Darkyrinth v0.1
Developer: Nicovideo

In this game, players have to find the exit out of various labyrinths, all the while trying to avoid obstacles as they go through the mazes. Nicovideo's creation comes in 2 versions, one for PSPs running on FW 1.50, and one for those using OE custom firmware. Before trying this game out, read this disclaimer from the dev first: "This version contains four different levels and an introduction for the firmware 1.50 (not for mow firmwares OE in order to avoid a bug, the author who has not been able to test its play on these firmwares)."

Enjoy the game!

Download: Darkyrinth v0.1 for FW 1.50
Download: Darkyrinth v0.1 for OE FW

The rest of the homebrew games at the Full Article.

A French coder who goes by the name of Xero has released a demo version of 2D Halo homebrew game for the Sony PSP handheld system on the XtreamLua forums.

The demo utilizes a side-scrolling view and comes with two gameplay modes: Killer and Survivor. In Killer, you have to kill all the grunts that appear on-screen while avoiding their fire. In Survivor, the objective is to avoid as many plasmas as you can without using your own gun.

Since it's a first release, there are a few bugs left in the game. Crashes have been reported by other users, and it doesn't seem to work for PSPs running firmware 1.5. A safe bet would be running it under custom firmware 3.10 OE or firmware 1.0. Hopefully Xero will keep working on this piece of homebrew until it becomes bug-free.

   

Download: Halo 2D demo

   

Over at French online site PSPGen, developer tryolivier released the first version of homebrew game Rayman PSP. The creation is actually a 2D platformer where Rayman evades various holes on the ground and gather power ups. Version 0.1 serves as the tutorial stage for the future versions.

Like we've mentioned, this game will have future versions and tryolivier added that there will be a lot of improvements and additions to them. Some of which include various levels, bosses, enemies, and monsters which are being planned for v0.2. For now, all players have to take care of is keep Rayman alive by not falling through the holes on the ground.

Rayman PSP v0.1 was part of the homebrew competitions XtreamLua and gx-MOD. The download link below contains both versions for FW 1.5 and CFW 3.xx OE.

Download: Rayman PSP v0.1

Xtreamlua; behind ReglePSP project">Poison_xtreamlua dropped by our PSP development forums to inform us of his team's (Xtreamlua) project - ReglePSP. Now don't expect this to be one of your average PSP homebrew as this one's specifically made to aid PSP developers in coding games/applications/emulators for us.

Poison claims that ReglePSP is a "homebrew that allow you to move a pixel, picture, background on the screen of you PSP and to show the coordinates (x and y)" adding that the application's "aim is to make programmation (about picture) easier for developers".

We gave this application a go and found out that it is indeed quite a useful tool specially for coders looking into making an entirely new homebrew for PSP. I suppose some of you can actually use it in making the basic foundations of your game/application, but I'm betting most of us will have better use for it on GUIs and welcome menus.

Download's below and you're all free to give it a tweak. The good guys from Xtreamlua also made the source code available so you guys can take a peek at all the coding that's been done on this application. Unfortunately, we weren't able to host the file here but you can visit the PSP development forum thread below to gain access to it. Have fun!

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UPDATE: How fast does the team xtreamlua work? Very, very fast. They've provided another update on their ReglePSP application and added a Linux version. This nifty application can help you find your coordinates for easier the faster development of homebrew games, emulators, and what-not.

Download: ReglePSP for Linux
Download: ReglePSP for Linux source code
Visit: PSP Development Forums

More details on the application's controls along with some navigational tips await after the jump!