The SNESticle Liberation Project

Looks like the original author uploaded the source recently:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;iaddis&#x2F;SNESticle" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;iaddis&#x2F;SNESticle</a>

This project was based on a discovery from a piece I wrote back in 2017, a backstory on the NESticle era of emulation. I essentially dug into a rumor about SNESticle appearing in an EA boxing game for the GameCube, and once I did, there it was.<p>I wrote something about this reverse-engineering effort, including an interview with the developer who created this page: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;akvkyb&#x2F;programmer-uses-nsa-tool-to-liberate-legendary-super-nintendo-emulator-from-ea" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;akvkyb&#x2F;programmer-uses-nsa-t...</a><p>For those curious about how it runs, this video does a good job highlighting how it works in a variety of games: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2fXQbWm2iMg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2fXQbWm2iMg</a>

&gt; Data mining revealed the strings &quot;SNESticle&quot; and &quot;Copyright (c) 1997-2004 Icer Addis&quot; (Addis being Sardu&#x27;s real name) on the game disc. This raises a lot of questions, perhaps most importantly (and unanswerably): did he really have SNESticle ready to go back in 1997 and then chose to sit on it just to spite the people who were bugging him for it? Or is the 1997 date just a joke, to spite the very same people now? Or is the whole thing a joke? Who knows, ...<p>Author of this emulator really sounds like a man with an insane amount of skills and an even larger grudge assuming he actually did either of the two things just out of spite. Got to respect his dedication either way.

The author of this page doesn&#x27;t seem aware that the nesticle author&#x27;s PC was hacked way back then, and the source code released against his will which led him to never release SNESticle.

I went a little ways down the rabbit hole with some of the links in this article and ended up looking at the trailer for &quot;The Knobbly Crook&quot;, a very peculiar point-and-click game by the art half of Bloodlust Software. Who, after drifting away from the programming half, apparently ended up at a Canadian game team called &quot;Strategy First&quot;, then as a level designer and writer at Ubisoft.<p>It&#x27;s free but Windows-only so I can&#x27;t check it out. Looks pretty crazy.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;378300&#x2F;The_Knobbly_Crook&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;378300&#x2F;The_Knobbly_Crook&#x2F;</a>

NESticle has nearly as much nostalgia for me as plugging in the NES. There was this magical feeling at the time. I can play my favorite games on my computer? Don’t have to blow in the cartridge? Save states???

I have so many fond memories of running Genecyst on college machines when I should have been working. At the time it felt like a super power running software that emulated an entire games console on a computer that could barely run Windows 95. And those games ran well too. I don&#x27;t recall seeing any slowdown on Sonic The Hedgehog.<p>It was actually Genecyst that lead me to Windows software development (before then I was mainly focused on older micro computers, DOS and a little bit of web development if I was bored). But I wanted a way to hide my gaming activities on college machines so wrote some Windows software to hide Genecyst from the task bare, &quot;boss screens&quot; and such like. This lead me onto Win32 APIs and a whole other rabbit hole of fun and nefarious projects that would have likely lead to a criminal record if it happened today. But it was a great learning experience and lead to the reputable career I have today.

I played nesticle&#x2F;snesitle&#x2F;genecyst on my earlier Windows PCs and absolutely loved the emulation. The UI wasn’t the greatest but IIRC they were DOS 4g based and ran well under Windows.

So is it any good?<p>This is the second article on SNESticle to reach the front page within the last few weeks and neither talks about whether the emulator is actually any good, only that it’s legendary.

excellent SNES emulators exist and are open source, including bsnes which is probably as good as is possible, and is certainly as good as is needed. it&#x27;s 100% compatible.<p>is &quot;liberating&quot; another emulator going to get anyone anything new?