Best Homebrew Games for Retro Consoles: Original Games Worth Playing

Nintendo stopped making the NES in the mid-1990s, yet fresh cartridges for it still appear every year. Independent developers write these games in assembly or build them with tools such as GB Studio, for hardware its makers abandoned long ago. Most are experiments; only the very good ones made this list. Below are the best homebrew games, picked for how they play rather than how much they squeeze out of old chips, and each entry notes where the game falls short and how to get it legally.

What Are Homebrew Games?

Homebrew is a term for new software built for a console without the platform holder’s involvement. This page covers only original games with fresh characters and worlds, developed to run on the real system. That rules out three related groups. ROM hacks are modified versions of an existing commercial game. Fan games use characters that belong to someone else. Indie games with a retro feel mimic 8-bit or 16-bit graphics, but they run on modern PCs and consoles. A proper homebrew release works within the original system’s memory, color palette, and sound chip, and it can run from a cartridge in an unaltered console.

Best Homebrew Games Worth Playing

NES Homebrew Games

Micro Mages (Morphcat Games, 2019)

Micro Mages is a vertical platformer for up to four players at once, and the entire game fits in 40 KB. Each stage is a climb past traps and enemies to a boss, and you die in one hit. It’s here because it’s made for multiplayer. A fallen mage returns as a ghost who can freeze enemies and smash crates to find a resurrection item, and the team loses no lives as long as at least one player survives, so a weaker friend always has a task. That structure is also its weakness: played alone, it is thinner, as Seafoam Gaming’s review noted. Its 26 stages go by swiftly, and the harder Second Quest is the reason to come back.

From Below (Matt Hughson, 2020)

From Below adds an adversary to the falling-block puzzle. In Kraken Battle Mode, tentacles pop out every few seconds and push your stack upwards. Clearing lines becomes a way to fight back instead of chasing a score. Classic Mode removes the kraken completely, while a turn-based version moves the tentacle only when you drop a piece. With hard drops, lock delay, and wall kicks, the controls feel more like present-day puzzle games than Nintendo’s 1989 NES Tetris. The scope is limited: three modes and no multiplayer on the NES, although the later Game Boy edition, From Below Pocket, offers two-player games.

Nova the Squirrel (NovaSquirrel, 2018)

Nova steals ten skills from enemies and, across 33 levels split over five worlds, uses them as much to solve puzzles as to fight. Seven bosses, a collectible in each stage, and post-game challenge levels give it plenty to do. There are no lives or time limits, and checkpoints are frequent. This invites newcomers while taking away the pressure that gives a classic NES run its edge.

Game Boy Homebrew Games

Deadeus (IZMA, 2019)

A boy dreams that everyone in his village will die in three days, and Deadeus leaves what to do about it up to you. This GB Studio overhead adventure is about exploration, conversation, and choice, and those choices lead to 11 endings with no set path. The terror comes from what you learn about the locals, not from enemies, and the monochrome screen matches that restraint. The trade-off is interaction: movement and dialog are rudimentary, and seeing most endings requires walking the same little town over and over again. Think of it as a small interactive tale.

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe (Tangram Games)

The original Tobu Tobu Girl came out in December 2017 as a free Game Boy ROM, but Deluxe, crowdfunded in 2019, is the version to play. You climb each stage to rescue your runaway cat by bouncing off foes, using up to three eight-direction dashes that recharge on landing, and a flap that consumes an energy bar. A hard timer and a drop at the bottom of the screen mean you can’t afford to dawdle. Nintendo Life found even the first level tough, and hitting an enemy from below ends the attempt, so expect numerous retries despite infinite lives. Deluxe features Game Boy Color palettes, Super Game Boy support, and the never-ending Infinite mode.

GBA Homebrew Games

Goodboy Galaxy (Rik Nicol and Jeremy Clarke, 2023)

The biggest project here is Goodboy Galaxy. As stranded space dog Maxwell, you explore multi-route levels, befriend 50+ characters to collect their friendship cards, and get a blaster and jetpack. The planet gates are the best idea, making you sacrifice one of your three skills before entering, so familiar regions have to be rethought. The cost is backtracking, which Way Too Many Games found heavy despite on-screen prompts, and combat that punishes poor reflexes. Scoring 9 out of 10 from Time Extension, it makes the best case that GBA homebrew can stand beside commercial releases.

Anguna (Nathan Tolbert, 2008)

Anguna is a top-down action-adventure set in a wide overworld, with dungeons protected by bosses. The player has a kit including a bow, bear traps, dynamite, and magic boots. The presentation is more basic than newer GBA homebrew, but the game is complete, and it never tells you where to go. That independence will be attractive to players who prefer to map a world in their heads. Anyone desiring direction will find it annoying.

Sega Genesis Homebrew Games

Tanglewood (Big Evil Corporation, 2018)

Matt Phillips wrote Tanglewood in 68000 assembly using a 1990s Sega development kit over six years. Nymn is a little fox-like creature who has no attack, so you have to rely on Fuzzls, creatures that give you powers like flight, enemy control, or halted time. Sega-16 gave it 9/10, and Retro Video Gamer gave it 8/10, but both reviewers hit deaths that feel like trial and error, in part because adversaries wait below landing areas you can’t see. The sparse music suits the night-time setting, yet there are long stretches in near silence.

Where to Find and Play Homebrew Games

Every game here is released by its own developer, so get each one from the official page. A free download is permission to play your copy, but not to re-upload it. An open-source code license does not automatically cover art or music: Nova the Squirrel’s code is GPLv3, but its graphics and audio are non-commercial Creative Commons.

There are three ways to play. An emulator on a PC or retro handheld is simplest, and the developers themselves suggest BGB for Deadeus and Mesen for From Below. A flash cartridge such as an EverDrive runs the same files on original hardware. A boxed cartridge is the most authentic choice, but runs are small and sell out. Need a device first? Our budget retro gaming setup guide compares them, and our list of retro games you can play legally without emulators covers classic commercial titles still sold today.

Are Homebrew Games Worth Playing?

Yes, the best of them are. Goodboy Galaxy and Micro Mages don’t need the “for a homebrew game” qualifier, while Deadeus and From Below each revolve around an idea of their own rather than a copy of a 1990s success. Co-op groups should start with Micro Mages, puzzle enthusiasts with From Below, and story lovers with Deadeus. If you’re just buying one, get Goodboy Galaxy. To test the scene first, the two free games cost nothing but an evening.