Having spent quite some time (alot of time actually) getting various homebrew applications and games to work on my PSP running firmware 2.6, I’ve got admit I’ve been come addicted to a couple of games.

The two games in question are Attack of the Mutants and Squarez, both of which are infuriatingly annoyingly addictive, and have that ‘one more go’ appeal that so many published games lack.

These games aren’t overly complex, require a manual, or graphically stunning (although Attack of the Mutants does look semi-professional in appearance), but I keep coming back to them because they have that challenge nature that just nags the back of your brain to try and beat that last high score you got.

In an era when games companies want to put as much flash and dazzle into their games as they can, often forgetting the gameplay itself as being the important factor, its great to see the homebrew community creating games that keep players coming back time after time.

Beats of Rage

There are a few other PSP homebrew games that have caught my attention over the last few days as well, which are worth a mention. I’ve particularly enjoyed playing Beats of Rage, which reminds me of playing Double Dragon in the arcades, only its better (and runs with little or no slowdown), and also Mahjong (using the LuaPlayer interface), again a sweet little conversion onto the PSP that can while away a few moments.

I downloaded the Agenaworld game yesterday having seen the news on PSP Updates that it had been converted to a PSP friendly version. I’ve not had chance to play it extensively, and it perhaps needs some studying to get the most out of it, but visually it looks very good with the photorealistic backgrounds.

Homebrew Issues

There are a few games that I’ve been keen to get working on the PSP and have had no luck with so far, the most important of these is some form of Sudoko. I’ve tried various versions, including a couple written in Lua, but I’ve yet to have any success. If anyone has got Sudoko working on a PSP running firmware 2.6, I’d love to hear from you.

Working homebrew (2.6)

Working Homebrew Games/Apps on Firmware 2.6

• Agenaworld
• Beats of Rage
• Doom
• LuaPlayer*
• PSP Chess
• PSP Quake
• Tetris
• Squarez
• Various Emulators

*On the LuaPlayer I’ve had various difficulties getting some games and applications to run, I’m using version 0.16 with an update config file. Although some things work fine, including Mahjong, others like the 3DCube and Sudoko don’t.

Your Favourites?

I guess that the majority of people will have their own favourites when it comes to homebrew games, some will prefer the emulator software and their associated roms, some will like the standalone games that are ports of games from other systems, and some will like the totally original games written for the PSP using Lua.

Let me know what your favourite homebrew games are, especially if you are running firmware 2.6, so I can check them out.