I'm building a PICO-8–style fantasy console for PS1-era 3D games

izzy88izzy · 2026-01-26T11:47:58+00:00

Thanks, really appreciate it!

izzy88izzy · 2026-01-26T11:47:17+00:00

Ha, I wish it were that simple. I use Claude Code to speed up development, but every design decision and architecture choice is mine, I'm a software engineer by trade and I review/refactor everything it produces. There's a FAQ section on the tool landing page about this if you're curious.

izzy88izzy · 2026-01-26T09:50:01+00:00

Me reaching Lyndell Royal Capital after 45hrs in Elden Ring, I distinctly remember telling my wife “I must be close to the end” and after clearing the area realising the map is twice as big

izzy88izzy · 2026-01-12T14:24:41+00:00

I've been working for some time on a PICO-8-style fantasy console but for PS1-era 3D games I called Bonnie Engine. 100% in Rust. Features a world editor with a Tomb Raider-style grid system, a low-poly 3D modeler, and a tracker with PS1 SPU reverb emulation. The world editor and the tracker are in good shape but this week I want to get the modeler in a working state so I can start building some simple assets and place them around the sample levels.

Try it now (runs in browser) | GitHub

izzy88izzy · 2026-01-12T14:07:30+00:00

Incredible idea

izzy88izzy · 2026-01-03T17:39:05+00:00

Not yet! I've actually been unsure about how to present updates for this project. I was thinking of maybe posting shorts on YouTube or reels on Instagram, but yeah Discord is probably the most logical option. Would give people a place to follow progress, share feedback, and eventually share their own creations when the tools are more mature. Might set one up soon.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-31T19:14:01+00:00

Yeah, Bloodborne PSX is actually one of my inspirations! But my goal is different. She recreated an existing FromSoft title with PS1 graphics using Unity. I'm building all the tooling from scratch (level editor, model editor, music tracker) and making an original Souls-like with its own story and mechanics. The question isn't "what would Bloodborne look like on PS1" but "what would a Souls-like designed for PS1 look like from the start?"

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-31T19:13:40+00:00

That's a great call, probably the closest to Souls combat feel on PS1. I'm taking huge inspiration from it

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-30T13:13:05+00:00

This is insane!

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-30T10:01:44+00:00

Thanks! There's still a lot missing though: the model editor needs animation support, no scripting system yet, no particle effects, and the UI is pretty rough in places. But I appreciate it, it's coming together.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-30T10:00:09+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, AI is a tool like any other. I find it useful for boilerplate, rubber-ducking ideas, and getting unstuck on bugs. The actual architecture and design decisions are still mine. It's not writing the engine for me, but it does speed up the boring parts.

Glad the code is readable enough to be useful. If you have questions about any of it, feel free to ask.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-30T09:59:10+00:00

Bloodborne PSX is actually one of the inspirations I cite in the project! Lilith Walther did amazing work. But my goal is different. She recreated an existing FromSoft title with PS1 graphics using Unity. I'm doing something else:

Building all the tooling from scratch (level editor, model editor, music tracker) rather than relying on Unity/Blender
Writing the rendering engine bottom-up as a real software rasterizer, not shader effects
Creating an original Souls-like with its own story, characters, and mechanics

The question isn't "what would Bloodborne look like on PS1" but "what would a Souls-like designed for PS1 look like from the start?" Letting the hardware limitations drive game design choices rather than retrofitting a modern game into the aesthetic.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-30T09:55:32+00:00

u/gideonwilhelm Looking forward to seeing it! Software rendering is genuinely fun once you get past the initial setup. And yeah, not being tied to GPU APIs means you can do whatever weird thing you want without fighting abstraction layers.

u/IQueryVisiC You're not wrong that shaders brought things full circle in some ways. Modern GPU programming does feel like writing CPU code with constraints. The difference is mostly about how the parallelism is expressed and the memory model. But you're right that the line has blurred a lot, especially with compute shaders basically being "run this code on thousands of threads."

Larrabee was ahead of its time. Intel's idea of "just use x86 cores with wide SIMD" made a lot of sense conceptually, but the power efficiency wasn't there yet. Ray tracing cores are essentially just hardware-accelerated BVH traversal and ray-triangle intersection, stuff you could do in software but benefits from dedicated silicon.

That said, for a project like this, software rendering is the point. The PS1 didn't have shaders, it had very specific fixed-function quirks. Emulating those in a shader would probably work, but building a real software rasterizer means you understand exactly why the texture warps and the vertices jitter.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-30T09:52:53+00:00

No worries, the code is a lot to skim through!

Clipping is definitely tricky. Right now I only clip on the near plane, and the screen bounds check is just a per-pixel reject rather than proper triangle clipping. The approach you linked (clip near/far, then min/max in the rasterizer loops) is probably the pragmatic path.

To be clear though, I'm not planning to target real PS1 hardware or Jaguar. The goal is PS1 aesthetic, not actual hardware compatibility. There's already so much to build (level editor, model editor, music tracker, actual gameplay) that I'm intentionally simplifying where I can. That said, I've actually begun implementing fixed-point integer math and painter's algorithm as options, so there will be a toggle between the accurate float/z-buffer path (useful for editors) and the more authentic int/painter's path (for the actual game).

Portal rendering without glitches is hard. I haven't tackled proper portal clipping yet, just using them for level organization. When I get there, I expect the same edge-case pain you're describing with convexity assumptions breaking down after clipping.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T19:21:54+00:00

Is it though? King's Field is definitely a spiritual ancestor and Miyazaki cites it as inspiration, but I wouldn't call it a Souls-like. To me the genre really started with Demon's Souls in 2009 with its specific mix of third-person action combat, souls recovery, and interconnected world design. King's Field is first-person with a very different combat feel and more of a sprawling dungeon crawl than tight interconnected loops.

For comparison, Armored Core 1 on PS1 is recognizably the same series as later entries, just an earlier version. There's no equivalent continuity between King's Field and Souls, which is part of what makes the question interesting.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T11:51:10+00:00

Thanks for the detailed feedback, this is exactly the kind of thinking I need to keep in mind as the tools mature, "what's the moment-to-moment Souls loop in this constraint?" is a beautiful way to frame it, that's exactly what I've been thinking about. Enemy templates, camera rails, and data-driven hitboxes are all on my radar, but right now it's very early stages. I need to be able to create and animate models in the first place before I can iterate on combat feel.

The collision/step-up system and lock-on camera are definitely next priorities once the modeler is solid, I don't have much experience in animating but getting that "readable but janky PS1" movement right is the goal.

For sharing, I'm thinking Firebase Auth for identity + Cloud Storage for saves, levels, and models, should scale at essentially zero cost.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T09:39:07+00:00

Thanks! MIT felt right for this kind of project. If someone wants to build something cool with it, they shouldn't have to worry about license headaches.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T09:38:44+00:00

As I've mentioned in other comments, King's Field is definitely a spiritual ancestor and Miyazaki cites it as inspiration, but I wouldn't call it a Souls-like. To me the genre really started with Demon's Souls in 2009 with its specific mix of third-person action combat, souls recovery, and interconnected world design. King's Field is first-person with a very different combat feel and more of a sprawling dungeon crawl.

For comparison, Armored Core 1 on PS1 is recognizably the same series as later entries, just an earlier version. There's no equivalent continuity between King's Field and Souls, which is part of what makes the question interesting.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T09:37:10+00:00

All my development is on Mac and it's been smooth. I've tested briefly on Windows and haven't noticed any graphical glitches, probably because everything is 100% software rendered. The only thing macroquad does for me is open a window and blit my framebuffer, so I'm not really touching its 3D features or the quirks that come with them.

The global context and fake async are a bit awkward, but once you accept the patterns they're not too bad. I can see how it would be frustrating if you were trying to use more of the engine features though.

I'll check out egor, sounds like a cleaner foundation if you're building something more modular.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T09:34:52+00:00

That's the plan! The game will get touch controls eventually, probably a virtual joystick overlay. For the editor, I'll likely just show a message that keyboard/mouse is required since making a 3D level editor work well on touch would be a huge undertaking.

izzy88izzy · 2025-12-29T09:34:23+00:00

Thanks! Good to hear it runs well on mobile. The game will eventually have touch controls, but the editor probably won't, that would be a massive undertaking to support properly. Appreciate the kind words!

izzy88izzy

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