The Wiibrew Weekend Warrior: the dawn of a new Twilight Hack
Heigh ho, Wiibrewers! Welcome to the very first edition of the Wiibrew Weekend Warrior. This is where we talk about the best and latest homebrew the community has to offer. To start off the Weekend Warrior with a bang, we have the skinny on the Wii Brew SD Installer for those who are new to Wii homebrew, and we also have news on WiiRD and GeckoSD, invaluable debugging tools for devs! That, and much, much more after the link!
Hey there, hi there, ho there, Wiibrewers! Welcome to the first ever edition of the Wiibrew Weekend Warrior, where we have the latest news and updates on the Wiibrew front, and where we offer you some of the best homebrew the community has to offer!
First off, I’d like to explain that the Wiibrew Weekend Warrior is only an extension of its Wii counterpart. Right now there’s a whole lot of Wiibrew coming at us left and right that we don’t know how to put them all up on the site. At times like these, one Weekend Warrior just isn’t enough, so we split them in two, just for Wiibrew (hey that rhymes!).
We have new programs for you, as well as new games and emulators. We also have several updates that Wiibrew coders out there may find useful. We have a lot of ground to cover, folks, so let’s get started!
Wiibrew Programs
Kicking off the first ever Weekend Warrior is the Wii Brew SD Installer from Big Bang Theory. If you’re unfamiliar with Wiibrew, or you simply don’t want to bother with looking for all the necessary files for installation, this homebrew’s for you. It installs everything you need to run Wiibrew on your console.
The installer includes the latest Twilight Hack files, as well as the latest version of the Homebrew Channel. It even has several programs included in the package, including games and emulators.
Link: Wii Brew SD Installer – installs everything you need to run Wii homebrew
Here are some applications you might find useful. First up is GeeXboX from coder farter, based on the program of the same name that lets PCs have Media Center capabilities. The program lets you run audio and video files, and supports numerous formats.
GeeXboX is still in its prototype stage, so if you’re looking for just a simple program to run your music files, you can try MiniMP3. It’s a compact – yet effective – MP3 player for the Wii which has both Wiimote and Front SD support.
Link: GeeXboX – Media Center prototype for the Wii
Link: Wiibrew: MiniMP3 Player v0.2, with Wiimote and Front SD support
If you find your Wiibrew library getting a little too big , you might want to take a look at FTPii. This homebrew is essentially an FTP server for the Wii, if the name of the title didn’t already give it away. One of its more practical applications is to let you transfer files to and from your console and your PC without having to eject your SD card from the Wii.
Based off the code of FTPii comes Wiihttpd, which is an HTTP Web server for the Wii. The program supports both HTTP 1.0 and 1.1, as well as dynamic HTTP Headers.
Link:Wii homebrew: FTPii v0.0.7
Link: Wiihttpd: HTTP web server for the Wii
Wiibrew Games
What’s the fun of homebrew if you don’t have a selection of games? This week we have an exciting release from coder SquidMan. I don’t know if a lot of you are familiar with the Touhou Project, but it was an extremely hard, extremely beautiful manic shooter series that was developed entirely by one man.
SquidMan now wants to bring the game to the Wii and has released Touhou Fangame. The game is now on its second beta release, and its progress looks pretty promising. It even has multiplayer and save features.
Link: Touhou Fangame Beta 2 – bullet hell Wiibrew game
Aside from Touhou, two retro games also appear on Wiibrew this week: Duck Hunt and Missile Command. You should get ’em if only for the nostalgic factor – assuming you lived during their times of course. They’re still fun nonetheless though.
Link: Duck Hunt v1.81 – added intro sound, various bug fixes
Link: Missile Command v0.4a – Wii-fied classic arcade action
Wiibrew Emulators
Several emulators have also been updated this week. First on the checklist is snes9xgx143, an emulator of the SNES. The program supports saving SRAM and state files to the Wii SD, memory card, as well as SD Gecko. It can also read games directly from those sources as well.
RIN, an emulator for the GameBoy Color, was also updated this week to support saving to the front SD card. Yabause Wii is a new entry to the list of emulators for the Wii. Yabause is an emulator for the Sega Saturn, but it’s still in its Alpha build so it’s currently running games at a slow frame rate. Still, we’re hoping to see more of this one.
Link: snes9xgx143 beta version rev. 70: Wii port of snes9x emulator
Link: RIN version 20080620 for Wii, now also for GC
Link: Yabause Wii unofficial alpha 1 (Sega Saturn emulator)
Dev’s Corner
For Wiibrew coders out there, here are GRRLib and libwiisprite, two development libraries you’ll find useful when developing programs and games for the Wii. GRRLib is particularly useful for those who are only starting out on coding for the platform, as the author also provides a detailed tutorial that teaches you how to use the library.
Also this week is the first public release of WiiRD and GeckoSD. In tandem, these two programs allows users to boot and debug a number of games, even some of those from the Homebrew Channel.
Link: Get started with Wiibrew: GRRLib v3.0, development library
Link: GRRLib 3.0.1 Alpha – added fixes for bugs from version 3.0
Link: Debug your games: WiiRD/GeckoOS first public release
Link: libwiisprite 0.2.1 – sprite and image optimizations, new bug fixes
News from the Wiibrew Front
With the release of version 3.3 of its Wii System Menu firmware, it stirred up the Wiibrew community as it seemed Nintendo was finally making a move against Wii homebrew. Wii Menu Update v3.3 evidently had some security updates that not only blocked the Twilight Hack, but it also stopped Datel‘s Freeloader.
Thankfully, Team Twiizer found a workaround to this, and released v0.1 beta 1 of the Twilight Hack. Along with this, it was also found that Homebrew Channel beta8 also works safely with Wii System Menu v3.3. Datel’s Freeloader, on the other hand, remains a casualty, and its product page listing has been removed from the Codejunkies’ website.
Link: Twilight Hack v0.1beta1 released: Wii Menu Update v3.3 now compatible
Link: Homebrew Channel beta8 safely works with Wii System Menu v3.3
Link: Datel’s Freeloader product page removed from site
Aaaaand break! That’s it for this week’s Wiibrew updates folks! As I always say, the Wiibrew community’s really booming, and if this keeps up, the Wii and Wiibrew Weekend Warrior updates will always be separate. And that’s the way I like it. If you have your own Wiibrew programs, you can release your programs in our forums and we’ll try our best to get it up as soon as possible. See you all next week folks, and happy brewing!
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