Ever wanted a handy-dandy giant robot to destroy your enemies without any assistance from you? Well, this definitely isn't the app that'll help you fulfill that burning desire for robotic revenge, but it's an interesting diversion while you amass the technology to build a mech.

This, dear friends, is Picto Cube. Phantom X made his first LUA application on one of these well-known designer cubes. Early on, we had Alatnet with his 3D Cube app on LUA. Months later, Insomniac197 made a demo for 3D cube rendering on TIFF. Well, Phantom X's Picto Cube, while being a new version of the said application genre, has its own little claim to fame.

In the case of Picto Cube, it serves as a basic image viewer. As you can see from the two screenshots above, it does a pretty nice rendition of the pictures he's included. More than anything else, the ice cube looks rather relaxing to look at. You'll need to set the pictures as 256x256 pixels though, or you'll be getting a pretty ugly looking cube.

Of course, Picto Cube isn't without its shortcomings, especially for a new LUA app. There currently isn't any capability for zooming in to get a better view of the pictures. The basic picture set into the system is the tutorial that tells you to choose a d-pad direction to view a picture, but without a zoom function, it can be pretty hard to read. If you've checked out the above mentioned predecessors of the Picto Cube, you'll also be hoping that future versions will include functions for changing the size of the cube and the spin. Perhaps more importantly, it's not really a cube if you can only see four of the sides. Then again, those are things that the homebrew community can help with.

To install this LUA application, unzip the file, and then place the unzipped folder into the Applications subfolder of the LUA Player folder in your PSP. Other than that, just be careful and always check with the forums to see what you'll need to run your version of LUA Player. Other than that, congratulations to Phantom X on his first try! Enjoy the download, and let him know what you think on the forums.

Download: [Picto Cube]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

  

On the eighth of this month, Insomniac197 released 48 Hour Pong after 48 hours of work. Now as October comes to a close, he announces Revision D, the latest update to this homebrew game. Following up on the previous two updates to 48 Hour Pong, Revision D offers these following changes and improvements:

• Music format changed from OGG to MP3
• Loads random music from /PSP/MUSIC/ (and sub directories if present) - If no music is found default music is played
• New game mode "Survival" - keep the ball in play for as long as possible (score upload and database upgraded to cater for changes)
• "Arcade" mode to replace previous "Vs. CPU" mode

The BGM changes really rock (pun intended). Should be a lot easier to create a custom soundtrack to Pong just by swapping out your mp3 files in your PSP/MUSIC folder. (Me? I find that using the mp3 rips from Sonic Spinball's first level is really catchy with 48 Hour Pong.)

The new game mode, Survival, really is a challenge of survival. See how long you can keep the ball in play in this one-player version of squash (or jai alai?). Maybe even as long as 48 hours?

Download: [48 Hour Pong Rev-D FW1.0]
Download: [48 Hour Pong Rev-D FW1.5]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

It's the Mona Lisa on the go, MaTiAz's PSPpaint v0.5 (not to be confused with Aerol33t's PSPaint). This initial build features a sizeable brush and a color palette, and picture save and clear functions. Initial build's good enough to draw a few basic pictures, like the nude painting of Paris Hilton vase we tried out.

Basic controls:

• UP - Makes the brush shorter vertically
• DOWN - Makes the brush longer vertically
• LEFT - Makes the brush shorter horizontally
• RIGHT - Makes the brush longer horizontally
• X - Paints with the selected color (hold to draw longer)
• TRIANGLE - Shows the color selection menu
• START - Asks if you want to clear the image
• SELECT - Saves the image (always creates a new image) to ms0:/PSP/PHOTO/PSPpaint/
• L - Use it with the analog stick to move the brush faster (makes ugly jaggies)
• R - Paints with white, acts as the eraser

PSPpaint v0.5 was developed and tested with FW 2.71 as the original platform, but MaTiAz says it should work on other versions through eLoader or other ways. Insomniac197 tested it on 1.5 and he says it works.

Thanks to Insomniac197 for the tip!

Download: [PSPpaint v0.5 (Kxploit FW 1.5)]
Download: [PSPpaint v0.5 (other FW)]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

UPDATE: MaTiAz made a quick update to his app, bringing it to version 0.51. According to him, he needed to fix "some minor annoyances" and has also decided to add a new palette that now totes grayscales feature. Links are below.

Download: [PSPpaint c0.51]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Developers tend to get a little restless when something just won't work right, or something has to look better than it should in the current 'brew they're working on. We won't blame Insomniac197 for coming up with one update after another very quickly. 48 Hour Pong's 3D rendition has really gotten under our skin. The great news is that he's had another batch of fixes for the previous update of 48 Hour Pong in 3D. Check out the changelog:   

• New background music
• TRIANGLE button changes background effect between: lines, visualizer (synched to music), static image or none
• SQUARE and CIRCLE now move your paddle as well as LEFT/RIGHT or the analog
• Slams added. To slam the ball simply push UP when the ball is near your paddle and it will slam into the ball. You get 3 slams per game.
• START button pauses and unpauses the game
  

Insomniac197 adds that you can change the background music by replacing the music.ogg file with one of your own. Same goes for the static background image, which can be changed by replacing the background.png file with a different one (480x272). And oh, if you look at the screens here, you might wonder if they look as hot as the gameplay itself. Fact: It's way hotter.

   

Download: [48 Hour Pong for Firmware 1.0]
Download: [48 Hour Pong for Firmware 1.5]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Insomniac197 from our forum made 48 Hour Pong (3D) during 48 hours. Commenters said that it looked nice and we were intrigued by the fact that the game allowed you to modify things (graphics, textures, and audio). Now Insomniac197 has released an update. Here's what Insomniac197 has to say:

"I had to update the game. I hated the graphics and it was starting to get to me. I've made the following improvements:

• Graphics: Lighting, Reflection, Color changes, New menu textures, lots of things...
• Extra sound effects have been added
• New menu option 'View Stats'
• Gameplay slightly more easier
• Camera views edited to give a better perspective"

All these is in addition to the original features:

• Full 3D
• Ability to change view
• WiFi transmission of player scores to a database to see how good you are compared to other players.
• Player stats are saved
• Ability to modify the graphics and audio
• When on the menu screen a demo of 2 AI opponents plays

All that makes for a mighty fine and mighty enjoyable homebrew. Yes, it's "just Pong", but hey, Pong is fun. This is one fast-paced game. Just check out these pictures we took using IR Shell.

Download: [48 Hour Pong Revamp FW1.0]
Download: [48 Hour Pong Revamp FW1.5]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Over the centuries, we have been made to believe that we're incapable of doing certain things. Most of our forefathers didn't believe that women can be on the same leverage as men, and probably before the Civil War, most didn't think that slavery can be wiped out from being a common practice in society. There were those who thought that we can never go beyond planet Earth, and that the moon was actually made of green cheese.

And there are also those who thought that making homebrew is something that's next to impossible.

Of course, the burgeoning PSP homebrew community is proof enough that the said statement isn't true. And they're continually stretching the PSP homebrew's capabilities with the innovations they churn out each day.

An example would be Insomniac197's TIFF 3D Cube demo, which he made "just to prove that 3D is possible using the TIFF SDK."
Want to take a look at his creation? The download link's just below. Here are the controls:

• RIGHT TRIGGER - Zoom In
• LEFT TRIGGER - Zoom Out
• HOME - Exit

Download: [TIFF 3D Cube demo]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

There has to be some sort of award for dedication like this. This is Insomniac197's newest homebrew game, 48-hour Pong (3D). Why 48 hours? He took a weekend off from his other projects (like AniMate and Wavloader) and decided, what the hey, could he create a full game in that 48-hour period?

The answer is yeah, if we're playing it in our PSPs right now! It's a fully functional 3D Pong game with features that include changing your point of view in the game, and the ability to upload your score via Wi-Fi to a database. All this in 48 hours of work... that has to be a record.

Now read on to instructions and additional info from Insomniac197, as well as download the game for yourself, while one of our writers attempts to set a new record: a 48-hour session of 48-hour Pong (3D). Break out the coffee!

Features include:

• Full 3D
• Ability to change view
• WiFi transmission of player scores to a database to see how good you are compared to other players.
• Player stats are saved
• Ability to modify the graphics and audio
• When on the menu screen a demo of 2 AI opponents plays

Click "Full Article" to see what else is in store.

Download: [48-hour Pong (3D) for FW1.5]
Download: [48-hour Pong (3D) for FW1.0]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

From our very own forums comes out today another build of an updated version of the Lua Player for Windows. One of our staunch members, Insomniac197, expressed the work and updates that has been done to support v0.20 functions. These things include so far, it being updated to Lua 5.1 and the freetype now being supported.

Also, the file System.rename is now working. Insomniac197 has put in Wlan functions and 3D GU functions, but mentioned not to do anything with it yet. As Shine already brought up the topic of moving Lua Player over to PSPGL, Insomniac197 wishes not to take the 3D any further. System.loadModule and anything to do with it on the other hand, are unlikely to be supported.

LUA Player makes development of games and applications easier and is non-coders friendly. At this point, download is available below for Lua PLayer v0.20. Feedback and bug reports are highly appreciated.

Download: [Lua Player .20 Mod By Insomniac197]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

After its initial announcement back in May, Insomniac197 has finally released v0.1 of his homebrew game, Animal Mate or AniMate for short. Using the familiar blue Kacheek, one of the creatures from the online game Neopets (I played that game for years...), as the main sprite for his game, Insomniac197 has been polishing his tamagotchi-like creation.

The goal of the game is basically to take care of your pet, but instead of the usual old way of feeding it, taking it to the vet, bathing it and putting it to sleep, this time around, you will have to play mini-games in order to get those tasks done.

For example, when your pet suddenly generates a thought bubble which implies that it wants/needs a bath, in order to do this, you will have to play the mini-game "Turtle Dodge". To feed it, you'll have to complete "Leaf Feast", and to play with it, you'll be having a go with "Dance Off". Completing (or failing) these games will affect your pet's attributes.

At the moment, there are only three available mini-games, one for each action (eat, play and wash). However, there are extra spaces that have been included which we are assuming will be taken up by future mini-games that the game's maker comes up with.

After playing the game for a few minutes, I have personally found the clean lines of the graphics very pleasant. The mini-games themselves have also loaded and ended very smoothly with proper transition screens in between each. You also don't have to worry about getting lost in this game as instructions and controls can be easily found, thus making this game very easy to get into. It has also not frozen up our resident PSP so far.

The general controls of the game are very basic, with the D-Pad used for navigation, the X button to select an option, the circle button to cancel or go back a screen, the Start button to pause the game and the Select button to take screenshots. Mini-games have their own controls which will be shown to you at the beginning of each game.

In the meantime, some of the things that Insomniac197 has added to this 'brew to includes the following:

• TrueType font support added (see my fontloader library)
• 'Leaf Feast', 'Dance Off' & 'Turtle Dodge' mini games completed!
• Sounds/Music added
• 'Dance Off' now allows custom music tracks to be added (in .ogg format)
• SND0.AT3 added to the EBOOT
• Stat table added to the game menu
• Screen for WiFi functions added (nothing implemented yet)
• New screenshots added to the Screenshots page
• Various polishing all round
• Thought bubbles added to the game menu to help you decide what your pet wants you to do

But then don't just take our word for it, but download it right here and tell us what you think.

Download: [AniMate v0.1]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Insomniac197 over at our QJ Forums has posted his Wav Loader (Wavloader) for the PSP. It is a simple interface for using the MikMod library to play WAV files. This is version 0.1 - an initial release.

How does it work? From the readme.txt:

At a Cygwin prompt type:

svn checkout svn://svn.ps2dev.org/psp/trunk/mikmodlib

When the files have finished downloading type:

cd mikmodlib
make install

There are also samples included in the download. Again, from the readme.txt:

In the 'Samples' directory within this archive there is example code on how to integrate wavloader.
There are two examples currently.
simple - Shows only the basic functions needed to load and play a WAV.
advanced - Illustrates how to change the volume, pan and stopping a playing WAV.
(When compiling these samples do not forget to put the 'sound.wav' file in the same folder as the EBOOT when moving onto the PSP)
The samples and the wavloader.h are well commented so implementation should be simple.
MikMod will only play MONO uncompressed WAV files.

Download: [Wavloader 0.1 for PSP]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]