Homebrew New 3DS Homebrew game - Ballistica

[Steddy]

Hey everyone

This is my first post in this forum, I am amazed by the number of posts and levels of engagement for a platform Nintendo has abandoned.

A few weeks ago I watched a few videos about how popular the 3DS has become with the advent of hShop and the Homebrew launcher, so I dug out my 3DS XL and started playing.

I made a game in 1994 for PC VGA called Murderball (terrible name I know). It was only released among friends and workmates, because it was a bit too soon for the Internet and Open Source.

I decided to have a go at porting it to the 3DS, and expanding the game to make use of both screens. I'm now about 90% of the way done, and wanted to share my progress.

I've love to get some feedback on it, and perhaps even get interested users designing levels to go into the final published version.

I have now Open Sourced the project. You can contribute levels using Github for now, and eventually using an online portal: https://github.com/steddyman/Ballistica

Some screenshots from the game:

 

[Steddy]

Anyone interested in me uploading the .3dsx for people to have a play with? Can't seem to figure out how to get bannertool on Mac for creating a CIA.

 

[HPR]

1994? Woah.

 

[Flame]

Anyone interested in me uploading the .3dsx for people to have a play with? Can't seem to figure out how to get bannertool on Mac for creating a CIA.

yes please. would love to try it.

 

[Steddy]

Great to hear. I have now open sourced the project, the latest release is available to download from:

https://github.com/steddyman/Ballistica/releases/tag/v0.1.14

See the readme in the repo for usage instructions.

Post automatically merged: Oct 1, 2025

Mods. How do I add the Homebrew tag?

 

[Steddy]

This might be a stupid question, but how do I add the Homebrew prefix to my post?

 

[Asia81]

It remind a very old game called DX Ball that I loved

 

[Steddy]

It remind a very old game called DX Ball that I loved

Looks pretty.

I recommend everyone plays it via the Level Editor at the moment, just to find the levels you like. Right now they are not in a structured progressing order, and there are about 100 levels across the different level files.

Would love to get users playing and creating their own levels, then contributing them to the github repo to share with others.

 

[UsernamesAreWeird]

This might be a stupid question, but how do I add the Homebrew prefix to my post?

You have to ask a mod to do it for you

 

[bigheadbighead]

Anyone interested in me uploading the .3dsx for people to have a play with? Can't seem to figure out how to get bannertool on Mac for creating a CIA.

If you are using Mac arm64 then you can use http://github.com/iamcco/bannertool/releases

 

[Steddy]

If you are using Mac arm64 then you can use http://github.com/iamcco/bannertool/releases

Great, thanks. I'll update the build scripts tonight to publish a CIA file too.

 

[TheStonedModder]

This might be a stupid question, but how do I add the Homebrew prefix to my post?

Click the report button on your post and ask the mods to add one for you

A simple “please add the homebrew prefix to my thread” should be enough

 

[Steddy]

I've now added automated CIA build generation to the repo.

Latest release which includes CIA: https://github.com/steddyman/Ballistica/releases/tag/v0.1.20