There's never been a better time to be an independent software developer. College students are designing original concepts that are then developed by established publishers into big games like Portal and de Blob. Small teams working in bedrooms or coffee shops are developing downloadable console games like Braid and World of Goo. And then, of course, there are the homebrew developers, releasing their software often for free or a small donation. Widely seen in less-than-100%-legal light, homebrew software is often a means of "hacking" the platform of choice to add functionality that had not originally been intended. While there's never any guarantee of quality when it comes to these things, there are some fantastic pieces of homemade software out there, and we hope to spotlight a few of them here on "Handjobs for Homebrew" (this is Hooksexup, I can say "handjobs," can't I?)
Originally demoed just about a month ago, BassAceGold's homebrew of the Mario Paint Composer for the Nintendo DS was released to the internet masses last week. There have already been a number of homebrew applications to add the painting and animation components of the Super Nintendo classic Mario Paint to the touch-screen handheld, but MPC emulates the feature that always seemed to me (and, apparently, the YouTube community) to be the most engaging element, its cartoonish music composition score.
For those who've never played Mario Paint, allow me to explain…
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