So a few weeks back my friend klops: the lead dev of PortMaster, introduced me to a developer called bmdhacks (who was once, long ago, a dev on a couple PS2 games!). bmdhacks had a crazy plan (well by the time I got to chat to him, that plan was very close to complete!) of bringing Dead Cells to the inexpensive R36S retro handheld. Which maybe you’ll know, if you’re a retro handheld fan, is a device that was never designed to run games of that scale.
What started as a impossible request in the PortMaster world (they had it rated as “Low” in feasibility) turned into a stupidly difficult technical project involving a custom ARM JIT compiler for HashLink, an LLVM-based ahead-of-time compilation backend, and an entirely new decompiler pipeline capable of reconstructing structured code from bytecode.
And did I understand everything he told me when telling me what he did, how he did it, and what was next? No. Not at all.
My article I got to write on it (from all bmdhacks told me) covers the whole process, so if you’re into the technical side of porting games? Then you’re in for a treat!
Here’s my link:
https://gardinerbryant.com/the-anatomy-of-an-impossible-port/
Little edit: bmdhacks is in the comments below, if anyone has any specific question to ask, or comment to share! Yay!
I really enjoyed this article and own a R36s myself which is used almost exclusively for portmaster. The variety of games available is mind blowing - I recall someone mentioning on a YT comment that their R36s has taken the place of a steam deck for them and even though that seems hard to believe, its the case for me as well. Nearly all my portable gaming I do is on my R36s playing a portmaster title. The compact form factor and cost of entry really can’t be beat.
Not unbelievable at all!
The R36S achieved a strange sort of cult status a long time ago. They managed to break out of a very niche hobby and appeal to regular people. They’re sold in kiosks, on TikTok, in regular phone stores around Asia and are now easily the most bought retro handheld (in many variations)
That they bring gaming to so many is a great thing, and now thanks to bmdhacks you can add one more game to the list!