More than 1,100 games were released at retail for the Sega Saturn. But its library is more than that — dozens of fan-made homebrew games have been created in the decades since the Saturn left store shelves. While they’re usually smaller in scale than professional efforts, many of them are nonetheless creative, fun, technically impressive … and worthy of players’ attention and time.
To that end, all this week SHIRO! has celebrated Sega Saturn Homebrew Week across its social media channels, focusing on the console’s fan-made additions to its library each day with posts and videos. In this piece, I’ve consolidated those posts along with some extra thoughts.
Before we begin, I’d like to point out that I intentionally did not mention any fan translations. While those do require a lot of effort, creativity and technical prowess, I feel like translations get a lot of attention already while original homebrew games and mods are somewhat ignored. So I wanted to shine a light the parts of the homebrew community that could use a little extra love.
The earliest homebrew games
Some of the earliest homebrew games for the Saturn were made for the coding competitions held on the SegaXtreme forum. The first one, called the Sega Saturn Coding Contest, ran from March to September 2003, with subsequent contests over the next several years called the C4 — Classic Console Coding Contest, although they all focused exclusively on a single classic console, the Saturn.
We kicked off Saturn Homebrew Week with a look at a handful of games from the contests held in 2003 through 2007, including the ones that won.
These are the 10 games featured in the video above:
- VBT’s Sega Master System emulator (running Bubble Bobble) (2003)
- Rockin’-B’s Minesweeper (2003)
- Cafe-alpha’s Planet de Pon (2005)
- Stephano Karate Maitre by Vreuzon (of the Sega Saturn Multiplayer Task Force) (2005)
- Bubble Invasion by Amon (2005)
- Super Mario Bros. port by VBT (2006)
- Bounty Getters by Zaksund (2006)
- Charette a Bestiaux by Vreuzon (of the Sega Saturn Multiplayer Task Force) (2006)
- Gaganoid by VBT (2007)
- Police Officer Smith by Arnold and Rockin’-B (2007)
The homebrew games entered into these competitions were compiled into demo discs so people could burn just one CD — the only way to play homebrew games on real hardware at the time, as it would be years before optical drive emulators would be created for the Saturn. While those discs are preserved on the Internet Archive, they’re in formats that may be difficult to run on emulators and ODEs of today.
So SHIRO! is hosting bin/cue versions of these discs, with the exception of CC2003, which is an ISO. You can download them here:
Mods for retail games
Sega Saturn Homebrew Week continued with a look at some of the mods made for retail games. While they’re less heralded than other forms of homebrew development, they can really breathe new life into a well-worn title, from adding new characters and items to recreating whole expansions. The community has done amazing things with their favorite games.
In the video above, we look at six game mods:
- Tomb Raider: Unfinished Business by Retro Raider John (2023)
- Sega Worldwide Soccer 23 by Retro Dad and Modern Lad (2023)
- Radiant Silvergun Extra by Alex “trap15” Marshall (2024)
- NBA Jam: Walrus Edition by Malenko (2022)
- Shining Force III mods by the SFIII Translation team (2024)
- Burning Rangers Co-Op by Bo “memory_fallen” Bayles (2024)
2D original games
On Day 3 of Sega Saturn Homebrew Week, we highlighted the most celebrated 2D original games that fans have made in recent years. Whether you’re in the mood for a neon-tinted shmup, a 12-player melee or some cat-themed Pong, homebrew devs have you covered.
The video above shows off six games:
- Sky Blaster by SuperReye (2022)
- Pixel Poppy Pong by Hassmaschine (2025)
- Sickle by Ervilsoft (2020)
- Balloonatics by Slinga (of the Sega Saturn Multiplayer Task Force) (2021)
- Sartist by Ervilsoft (2022)
- Red Moon: Lost Days by Sansigolo (of Neuromage Studio) (2023)
3D original games
On Thursday of Sega Saturn Homebrew Week, we spotlighted some of the most acclaimed 3D original games. Platformers, FPSes, flight sims, adventure games … Saturn homebrew devs have flexed the system’s 3D chops in a variety of genres.
The video above showcases six games:
- HellSlave by XL2 (2022)
- Cubecat by 7shades (2024)
- Cold Case by JBeretta (2024)
- Bridget Bishop by Fran Matsusaka (2022)
- Blue Skies by Team Starlane (2022)
- Slide Hop by Ponut (2024)
Homebrew development tools
We closed out Sega Saturn Homebrew Week with a look at the tools developed to make creating homebrew games easier. Many games wouldn’t have been possible without Jo Engine, Yaul, PonéSound, FILM Tools and the Z-Treme engine model importer.
It’s hard to show these off in a video, so I’ve just got some screenshots above instead.
And the community is on the verge of getting another powerful tool: the Saturn Rings Library, a wrapper for the Saturn Game Library made by ReyeMe that’s set for public release by tomorrow. Written in C++, the Rings Library is intended to make Saturn homebrew development easier than ever.
If you want to check out anything we featured above, SHIRO! has a pretty comprehensive listing of Saturn homebrew games and tools right here on our site.
And if you’ve got a homebrew project in the works, you should enter it into the SegaXtreme SEGA Saturn 30th Anniversary Game Competition! But there’s not much time left before this year’s deadline, which is April 11. Check out the competition’s thread for details.
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