Gameplay (under emulation) video: https://youtu.be/bN14BqbE3cM?is=F7LHC7RBShQbBvsb

I've been working on bringing the original DOS version of Prince of Persia to the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and after a huge amount of experimentation, it's finally getting close to release! I originally took my first post down because there was a moment where it looked unlikely to do. But this is no longer the case

First, I want to be transparent that this project has been heavily AI-assisted, particularly with the porting, debugging and optimisation work. I've been directing the development, testing builds on actual NGPC hardware and making adjustments based on the results.

Getting the game running was one thing. Getting it to run at a playable speed was an entirely different challenge! A few changes had to be made but it's still very much the dos port

The early builds were painfully slow, especially around animated doors, spikes, chompers and other moving objects. At times, the game was practically unplayable. After countless tweaks, rewrites and optimisations to the original DOS-derived logic, things have improved enormously.

I've now completed a full playthrough of all 14 levels on real NGPC hardware, and I'm pleased to say the game is in a playable state.

A quick note about the trailer (link again https://youtu.be/bN14BqbE3cM?is=F7LHC7RBShQbBvsb)

The footage was recorded through emulation, where the game runs quite smoothly with very little noticeable slowdown. On actual hardware, there are still some short stutters in particularly demanding areas, especially when multiple animated hazards are active. I don't want the trailer to give anyone the wrong impression, so it's important to mention that.

Also after being informed about ngpc-dev.com and its online high-score leaderboard system, I was inspired to introduce a points system to this port, thanking (HardhatWarrior) for the support and sharing this. I think Prince of Persia really benefits from this feature, as it adds replay value to improve performance and beat previous scores and compete with others.

Here's how scoring works:

Level completion: Earn points based on how quickly you finish each level. Each level has its own time target, so faster completions earn more.

Small health potion: +50 points.

Large health potion: +200 points.

Taking a sword hit: −25 points.

Dying: −100 points.

The idea is to encourage speed, exploration and survival, rather than simply racing to the exit. Players can also view their run statistics and compete for better scores.

A special thanks to the folks behind SDLPoP and the original Prince of Persia DOS disassembly project. Their reverse-engineering work on the original DOS game has been invaluable and made a project like this possible.

I'd also like to thank ngpc-dev.com. The high-score leaderboard project genuinely motivated me to keep working on this port (it's embedded but will be moving onto testing v soon).

There's still a little polishing and testing left, but the project has come a very long way from those early painfully slow builds.

The game is now quite close to release, and I'll also be setting up a GitHub repository for the project very soon!

For now, here's a trailer showing the current state of the port.

Looking forward to sharing it with the NGPC community!

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Hi everyone,I’ve been working on this for a while and it’s finally ready to share. NgpCraft Studio is a fork of GB Studio 4.3.2 that builds actual Neo Geo Pocket Color ROMs.

I’d already built my own engine for the NGPC before this, but it ended up being pretty complex to use. After a few attempts I went another way: instead of reinventing everything, I forked GB Studio. That way you get the whole GB Studio ecosystem for free, the tutorials, the docs, the community, all of it.

So if you know GB Studio, you already know how to use it. Same editor, same scenes, actors and scripts. You just get an NGPC ROM at the end instead of a Game Boy one, and it runs on real hardware.

It’s still a work in progress, so you’ll probably hit some bugs. If you do, let me know on GitHub or on the Discord.

GitHub: https://github.com/Tixul/Ngpcraft-studio

MIT licensed, not affiliated with GB Studio, Chris Maltby or SNK. Big thanks to Chris Maltby and everyone who worked on GB Studio, none of this would exist without them.

Since the assets in the demo are from Capcom, the game will not be distributed, it serves merely as a technical demo.

It’s been a while, but this project really wore me down at times.

After over 400 hours and plenty of grey hairs, the first level is now finished and playable. I’ll polish a few small things over the next few days, then it’s good for now. For over two months it’s been nothing but NGPC Xenon 2 as soon as the kid was in bed, and I’d honestly like to watch a good Netflix series again. But the project had to be finished, and I’m a bit proud of myself, even though I only orchestrated and Claude did most of the actual work. Claude also managed to blow up the entire project twice and couldn’t put it back together on its own.

At times I was fishing in the dark. These are the points that cost me the most time.

First: getting the status bar at the bottom to stay static.

Second: Collin, the alien in the shop, stands behind a gate in the original that slides open. I wasted a whole day adjusting the graphic for that, then concluded it wouldn’t fit into the sprite pool, and reluctantly left it out.

Third: Collin’s animated hand. Since it comes from below and both map tile layers were already in use, I couldn’t hide it behind them. So I layered a sprite over the tiles and raised its priority, which didn’t work either because no sprites were free. In the end I had only four sprites to work with and now load the lower half of the hand dynamically, once the upper half is visible.

Fourth: I asked for a small smiley in the code, Claude blew everything up, and it was gone. Luckily I had a backup that was only a day old.

Fifth: while digging through the documentation, I came across the possibility of using the DAC on the Toshiba chip. Naturally I wanted to test it right away, and it worked. But switching between Z80 and DAC wasn’t easy and cost me almost two weeks of packing everything into the ROM so it runs cleanly. What can I say, Collin can talk, and on a handheld that’s just plain cool.

Sixth: optimizing the code so it runs reasonably smoothly.

Since most optimizations can’t be tested in the emulator, I’ve lost count of how often I plugged and unplugged the microSD card, and it looks pretty beat up by now. I have 317 test ROMs for performance tuning alone and well over 160 versions of the game.

If anyone is interested in continuing to work on this project, feel free to reach out. Otherwise, a huge thank you to:

Sodthor from the FreeplayTech forum, a true programming god.

Tixul, for the outstanding work on the emulator and the development environment, along with all the tools and the MCP.

JackRGreasley, for the help with the original code.

Ahchay, for great support and the excellent overview at www.ahchay.com.

On real hardware Collin can actually talk, and the current ROM can be downloaded here:
https://www.ngpc-dev.com/xn/
Have fun testing!

Having just started Card Fighters Clash on a NeoPocket Game Drive and loving it, I wanna grab an official cartridge. However I know that the NGPC cartridges don't use the standard ROM and Save setup that other cartridges use and instead use a combined ROM memory.

Is it still possible to write saves from a Game Drive (if I can even get the save separate from the game when backing up) or should I put a hold on playing till I can get an official cart and start fresh?

Seriously this game is simple yet fun as hell. But man with a bad hand the CPU will stomp me sometimes. What's the best way to get my deck built up?

I’ve been fixing up some NGPCs to the best of my amateur ability and noticed that all of my NGPCs operate just fine with 1.2 Volt rechargeable batteries (NiNH). My two slim models do not boot at all but function fine with 1.5 volt regular old AAs. One of the slims was recapped recently.

Just wanted to post this to see if anyone else had noticed or could speak to this with more technical knowledge than I’ve got, but it seems like Slim models may be less tolerant of lower voltages. Might be important if you’re adding IPS screens.

Edit:
I did get eneloops so instead of the basic energizer rechargeables and they seem to work perfectly fine. My guess is eneloops perform better under load.

*work in progress*

Using AI, this is a work in progress and works on hardware (tested on a retrohq flash art).

Hi! Here is a racing game for the NGPC, you can download the ROM at https://www.ngpc-dev.com/. It’s a full game featuring 16 tracks, 9 vehicles, a story mode, and other things to discover have fun!

If you find any bugs, please don't hesitate to contact me, and anyone wishing to help improve the localizations is welcome to do so.

As of lately, I’ve seen nothing but these A.I. projects slowly take over some of my favorite game console subreddits, and to my surprise it seems more and more people are beginning to advocate for it.

I will forever speak my stance against this technology, however personal opinions aside, I’ve been curious to ask the people of this community.

What are your thoughts on A.I. ? And perhaps what would be the talks if new projects of the Neo Geo Pocket utilized it to the fullest?

I purchased the 9 and 1 card and there's a fighting game called Moon Swordsman. I was not familiar with this title and have not found much about it. There was some reference that it was associated with last blade and finishing that game opened up a new game? Does anyone have information about this title?

Hi everyone!

Over the past few weeks I've ported Furry to the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

It's a small run-and-gun platformer by Hamish McLeod (Fallen Angel Industries), released for the PC in 2002. To be clear up front: this is not my game.

The idea, levels, graphics and gameplay all come from the original – I just brought it to the NGPC as faithfully as I could.

What's in it:

• All 12 levels across 4 worlds (Happy Forest, Scary Volcano, Wacky Mountain, Zany Moon Base), including the final boss
• Enemies, weapons (machine gun, flamethrower), bombs, piranhas, conveyor belts, crumbling bridges and water, just like the original
• Music and sound effects on the NGPC sound chip
• Steady 20 fps

What I added for the handheld:

• Options: music and sound effect volume, swappable button layout, three difficulty levels
• Pause menu
• Save data: unlocked worlds and a star per difficulty for each completed world
• Arcade mode: always starts at level 1 on medium difficulty. At the end you get a results screen (causes of death, gems, kills, score) and a QR code. Scan it with your phone to put your run on the leaderboard at ngpc-dev.com.

Download: https://www.ngpc-dev.com/fu/

Feedback is very welcome, especially from anyone trying it on real hardware or a flash cart. And if anyone knows Hamish McLeod: greetings, and thanks for the game!

Dyed the shell pink myself, as they don't make any other third party shell colors ironically. New IPS screen so I can actually SEE my beautiful games.

It's originally from Aliexpress, as I couldn't find one anywhere else. Other ones seem to have clear OSD contacts to solder to, but this one doesn't. I've emailed the maker but they haven't responded.

I've been working on a little project for the Neo Geo Pocket Color — NGPC-DEV.COM, a live leaderboard system for NGPC games.

Games can generate a QR code with your score, you scan it with your phone, and your score gets added to the online leaderboard. The games are also playable on PC and mobile, and scores can be submitted there as well.

While the games are available to play through the website, the primary intention is to play them on real Neo Geo Pocket Color hardware whenever possible. The browser versions are there to make the games accessible to more people and provide another way to participate in the leaderboards.

You can participate right away, but your submitted scores will not be made public on the leaderboards until your account has been approved.

A few other NGPC developers are already helping test it out, including Achay (Gardenia), Tixul (Over Rev), and Napomex (Xenon 2). A big thanks to them for helping test things, find issues, and work through some of the bugs along the way.

It's still very much a work in progress, but I'm hoping to eventually open the system up to more NGPC developers and games.

If you're into NGPC homebrew, come check it out:

www.ngpc-dev.com

Please note: The site and its contents are all still a work in progress, so things are likely to change. This includes leaderboard resets as developers continue to tune and update their games.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

For a more in-depth look, check out www.ngpc-dev.com/about/

I have owned this unit and its two carts for just over a decade now (bought in a lightly used lot ~Oct '15). They haven't given me trouble since then, including literally less than 24 hours ago, when I played a quite lovely game of Sonic Pocket Adventure in the sun, until the battery died.

Today I swapped in two new Duracell AA batteries (exp. 2036) and a new Duracell CR2032. Suddenly, it refuses to boot Sonic Pocket Adventure, and boots Puzzle Link with major graphical glitches. The main menu appears fine, and as far as I can tell it's booting the exact same BIOS as ever.

I have replaced the AA batteries with new-new ones, fished the old CR2032 out of the trash and swapped it back in, cleaned the cartridges and contacts with isopropyl, tilted the carts, put business cards behind them, and ofc blown on them all to no avail.

PLEASE don't let the answer be that my beloved NGPC is dead!!!

Put in an IPS mod + soldered the wires for the OSD menu and I’m so happy with the results. Probably the best IPS mod job I’ve ever done. The pixelization effect is fantastic and being able to see all the colorful details in some of these games is incredible. Have been wanting to play this thing while laying in bed and am excited to do so tonight!

Hi everyone, so anyways i have a issue with a monochrome neogeo pocket i bought from ebay a while ago so whenever I feel like turning it on. It turns off & goes to the set language and date screen. + here's the thing that made me mad. It doesn't read the dang games I own! Even isopropyl alcohol isnt doing the trick. Even on my other monochrome ngp console my games work.

So does anyone have any ideas on how to fix the thing? Thx and have a wonderful day

PS: even the games that are monochrome + color (eg. KOF R2) won't work on the thing. Jsyk guys.

Welcome to Gardenia

A new single-sheet shooter for the NGPC - 30+ waves of classic arcade action, inspired by Galaxian, Phoenix, Gyruss and, believe-it-or-not breakout

PWYW, including free at itch.io and Indie Retro Games

Physical copies available for pre-order and will be shipped at the end of the month once final testing is complete (and I've finished writing the manual)

Hi there all, I am working on several homebrew projects and was wondering if anyone here would be interested in helping out with sprite, graphics and sound? My preference would be collaboration of efforts and credit for the work but would be open to purchasing assets too. If interested, please let me know and we can connect.

Clicky stick rules, happy to finally have one of these bad boys!

I’ve seen many reviews to where people have bought these very discreetly labeled Neo geo pocket repros.

Very tough to see people so oblivious, It seems because of the scarce info on Neo Geo Pockets repros to the general public, it only makes sense people don’t know any better than to see these “decent” prices for these games and then bite the bullet.

It seems this seller is aware of that, and is taking advantage of it.
Seller uses AI as well, along with the other listings of what seem to be stuff you’d find on AliExpress, so it only contributes further to my theory of the fact that this seller is aware of the fact these are repros.

They seem to play dumb in every description, along with some listing lacking the “READ” in title.

I hope this post helps spread awareness on this matter!

So what are my alternative options, exactly?

- Neo Pocket GameDrive by Retro HQ (Sold out literally everywhere, likely no longer in production)

- AliExpress bootlegs (that appear to be re-flashable?)

- ????

Are there any other flash carts for this thing, or do the AliExpress bootlegs seem like my only real choice at games? There's only about less than 10 games for this thing that appeal to me.

Open to suggestions.

My most very (very) humble ngp collection thus far.

Been aware of this handheld for the past half decade. Finally now truly taking in the beauty of what this handheld truly is. By far my most favorite device to bring with me everywhere I go.

I’m expecting a Mexican copy of KoF R-“2” coming in soon, may do some coverage on that since info is scarce.
Also expecting PAL Picture Puzzle soon, very excited as I love picross.

There’s so much I’ve learned about this handheld and its history, and there’s still more I’m yet to discover.

Soon, I plan to hold a complete collection, even if all loose.

My gratitude to all whom has contributed to the community, with new hardware advances, and homebrew development.

:>

EDIT 2: Problem "solved" My solution required a few things and they all needed to be done to meet my standard, since no single one worked by itself well enough. First, I moved the display slightly away from the inside frame part of the shell (since it was touching on the bottom side) to avoid any possible shell warp pushing on it, then I placed some padding on top of the same frame (left and right sides), then I only screwed the screws in about 80%, enough to not have too much opening on the sides of the console. All this helped to get the problem about 98% fixed.

Original post: I installed an LCD display bought from the Cloud Game store on Aliexpress, and it works perfectly fine, but whenever the screen is black, most of the corners are very noticeably lighter. All other colors are just fine and normal non-dark games look great, but I would imagine playing a game with a dark level would be annoying. Is this what happens with IPS LCDs? Could I maybe have the display in there too tight?

EDIT 1: Thanks for the help. It was pressure like everyone mentioned. It's a newer model NGPC, so the smaller type. I looked at reviews for the screen and someone mentioned the smaller model having this issue with the display. I'll try shell cutting and removing the adhesive tape it sits on and see how it goes. Maybe not in that order.

Have been seen a bit of stores in Japan, on the countryside mostly, expecting to replace the NGPC that died on me last year.

Have seen very steep prices and the only console that I found was 200nzd, feel like I should have bought another console for 5usd back in Nagoya en 2010... the world we grew up no longer exists.