Hacking Homebrew Pico Cheat Menu

[Esentasse]

Pico Cheat Menu
Toggle cheats in-game on DSpico.​

Note: This is an early release. Some things may not work correctly yet, so please report any issue you find.

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Pico Cheat Menu

Oct 25, 2026

In-game cheat menu for Pico Loader.

• Esentasse
• Miscellaneous & Mini Applications

What is it?
Pico Cheat Menu adds an in-game cheat menu to Pico Loader on the DSpico. While a game is running, press L + R + Down + Select to open it.
It lists every cheat of the game from usrcheat.dat, with folders and descriptions. Works with games running in both DS mode and DSi mode.

Not a Pico Loader mod
Pico Cheat Menu does not modify Pico Loader. It is a chainloader: it starts first, sets up the cheat menu and then hands over to your unmodified Pico Loader in _pico/loader/.
This means it should also work with future Pico Loader versions and with its forks, without patching or rebuilding them. Just drop the Pico Loader binaries you want into _pico/loader/.

While a game starts, a short status screen shows whether the cheat menu is ready, or why it is not (for example, if the game is not in usrcheat.dat). _picoboot.nds is always started directly, without the cheat menu.

Compatibility
Tested on a DSpico. The files in the attached zip are built for the DSpico flashcart only. Other flashcarts supported by Pico Loader are not supported by these files, and there is no guarantee that it works on them.

Controls

• Up / Down – move through the list (hold to scroll)
• Left / Right – page up / page down (hold to repeat)
• A – toggle a cheat / open a folder
• B – go back / close the menu
• Select – show the cheat's description
• Start – turn off all cheats (only the open folder, if you are inside one)

To turn the cheat menu off, create an empty file named parasite-transparent in _pico/.

Source code
https://github.com/MattiaSt1/Pico-Cheat-Menu

Credits

• Pico Loader by the LNH team, whose code this project builds on
• libtwl by Gericom
• FatFs by ChaN

Made By Claude (Opus 5.5 UltraCode)
Yes, this project was made with AI. If that bothers you, feel free to skip it. I'm not interested in debating it. Feedback about the tool itself and bug reports are always welcome.