Emulators
An emulator is software that behaves like old hardware. Writing, sharing and using one — like RetroCYD — is legal in most countries.
Insert coin? No need.
Free & legal games
People are still making brand-new games for the NES, Game Boy, Sega Master System, Game Gear and CHIP-8 — thousands of them, many free. Here's where to find them, how to tell what you're allowed to do with them, and how to get them onto your RetroCYD.
The short legal version
Not legal advice — just the plain facts most people get wrong.
Downloading commercial ROMs you don't own
Copying commercial games you haven't bought is copyright infringement in most countries — even if the game is decades old or no longer sold. “Abandonware” isn't a legal category.
Homebrew, public domain, free licences, your own backups
New games released by their authors for free, public-domain programs, openly licensed projects — and backups of cartridges you own, where your local law allows it.
RetroCYD ships with no games, and this site only links to sources where authors chose to share their work. We will never link to ROM-piracy sites — please don't ask.
Easiest way · built into the firmware
Let RetroCYD download them
Choose your Wi-Fi in Settings → Wi-Fi, then tap Settings → Game downloads → Download new games now, or leave Download at startup on. RetroCYD fetches every game below straight from its source, checks it, and puts it in the right folder. How it works
Loading the game list…
Show:
| Game | System | Author | Licence | Size |
|---|
Sources: Homebrew Hub (the community NES and Game Boy homebrew databases), SMS Power! (Master System and Game Gear homebrew) and the CHIP-8 Archive (all CC0). “free download” means the author published the game for free without naming a licence: enjoy it, and ask the author before sharing copies. Authors who want a game removed can ask the source database; the list here is rebuilt from it every week.
Curated · every link checked
Where to get games
Each source says what you'll find and what the licence situation is. Always check the individual game's page — the author's terms win.
Show:
Homebrew Hub hh.gbdev.io
The biggest searchable archive of Game Boy and Game Boy Color homebrew — well over a thousand games, demos and tools, plus a small but growing NES section.
Community-run by gbdev to collect and preserve homebrew. Entries list their author and, where known, licence and source; many are open source. Check each entry before re-sharing files.
SMS Power! smspower.org
The home of Sega 8-bit homebrew since the 1990s: hundreds of Master System and Game Gear games, many from its yearly coding competition, each with screenshots and often source code.
Authors publish their games there as free downloads; most don't name a licence, so ask the author before re-sharing files. RetroCYD's game download fetches the Master System and Game Gear games straight from SMS Power.
gbdev & awesome-gbdev gbdev.io
The home of the Game Boy development community. The awesome-gbdev list collects notable homebrew games, demos and tools alongside documentation.
A directory rather than a download site — follow each link to the game's own page and licence.
GB Compo gbdev game jam
gbdev's own competition for new Game Boy software. Each edition produces dozens of polished games — a great “best of” to start with.
Entries are hosted on itch.io and each author sets their own terms there. Many are free downloads and many publish their source.
NESdev nesdev.org
The long-running NES development community: wiki, forums and a list of homebrew projects. Its yearly NESdev Compo is where many of the best new NES games debut.
Many compo entries can be downloaded from their itch.io pages. Some later get commercial cartridge releases — if you love one, support the developer.
itch.io itch.io
Where many homebrew developers publish today. Lots of free and pay-what-you-want ROMs, plus game-jam entries.
Free, pay-what-you-want and paid games sit side by side — respect each game's licence, and buying a game you enjoy directly supports its developer. Tip: some “Game Boy-style” games are PC games, not ROMs; look for a .gb, .gbc, .nes or .ch8 download.
Pin Eight pineight.com
Damian Yerrick's site, home of well-known NES homebrew such as Thwaite, Concentration Room and RHDE, with source code.
Free downloads from the author. Check each project page for its specific licence.
CHIP-8 Archive John Earnest
A curated collection of modern CHIP-8 and SUPER-CHIP games, all playable online first. Each program lists its platform and the game jam it was made for, if any.
Everything is released under CC0 (“no rights reserved”) — copy freely. Pick programs marked chip8 or schip; xochip ones won't run on RetroCYD.
Octojam CHIP-8 game jam
The annual October jam for CHIP-8 games, made with the Octo toolchain. Dozens of tiny, inventive games per year.
Many recent entries target XO-CHIP, which RetroCYD doesn't run — check each entry's platform. Licences are set per entry on itch.io.
Awesome CHIP-8 chip-8.github.io
A community-curated list of CHIP-8 documentation, tools, emulators and game collections — the place to go deeper.
A directory of links. Of its game collections, the CC0 CHIP-8 Archive is the one with a clearly stated licence.
PDRoms pdroms.de
A homebrew news and download site running since the late 1990s, with thousands of files across dozens of platforms — including NES and Game Boy (Color).
Hosts homebrew released for free by its authors. Read each release's notes for its terms.
RetroBrews retrobrews.github.io
Freeware homebrew organised by system, one GitHub repository per console — full games rather than demos. Built with RetroPie in mind, but the files are ordinary ROMs.
Games are shared with their authors' approval as freeware: downloading is allowed, selling isn't.
Zophar's Domain — PD ROMs zophar.net
A veteran emulation site's public-domain section: classic demos and small homebrew games, plus the old CHIP-8 and SUPER-CHIP game packs.
Older archive with mixed provenance — a few oddities slipped in (the NES list even contains a copyrighted Game Genie menu ROM). Read each entry's notes and skip anything that isn't clearly free.
Checklist
How to add games
- The game is free to download (homebrew, public domain, open licence) — or a backup of a cartridge you own.
- Unzipping is optional. A
.zipcontaining a single ROM works as-is. - Drop it into the right folder:
/roms/nes,/roms/gb,/roms/gbcor/roms/chip8. - File names are shown as titles — rename
astro_drift_v1.2_final.gbtoAstro Drift.gb. - Huge library? Use subfolders. The first visit to a big folder builds an index (a few seconds for ~10,000 files), then it's instant.
- Keep each ROM ≤ 2 MB (the size of the flash ROM cache).
- CHIP-8: only CHIP-8 and SUPER-CHIP programs — not XO-CHIP.
- Eject the card safely. Missing something? Settings → Rescan library.
Where it goes
SD card map
microSD (FAT32)
└── roms/
├── nes/ .nes .zip
│ └── puzzle/ subfolders OK
├── gb/ .gb .gbc .zip
├── gbc/ .gbc .gb .zip
└── chip8/ .ch8 .c8 .sc8 .zipThe folders are created automatically the first time RetroCYD boots with the card inserted. Full details in the guide.
Reading licences in 30 seconds
“Free to download” doesn't always mean “free to re-upload”. Here's what the common labels let you do.
| Label | Play it? | Share the file? |
|---|---|---|
| Public domain / CC0 | Yes | Yes — no conditions at all. |
| Open source (MIT, zlib, GPL, CC-BY…) | Yes | Yes, under the licence's conditions — usually keep the credits and licence text. |
| Freeware | Yes | Often restricted — link to the author's page instead of re-uploading. |
| Pay what you want | Yes | Same as freeware. $0 is allowed; paying something is how authors keep making games. |
| Commercial homebrew | After buying it | No. If it's for sale, buy it — that's how the scene survives. |
Own the cartridge?
Back up your own cartridges
Cartridge dumpers plug into your computer over USB and copy a cartridge's ROM (and often its save) to a file.
GBxCart RW
A reader/writer for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges, sold through insideGadgets and used with the FlashGBX software. Backs up ROMs and save data.
INL Retro Programmer-Dumper
An open-source cartridge dumper/programmer from InfiniteNESLives that reads NES / Famicom cartridges (among others). Similar dumpers exist from other makers.
Personal backups: check your local law
Whether you may copy a cartridge you own varies by country — some allow private backups, some don't, and some only under conditions. Check what applies where you live. Either way: keep your dumps to yourself and never share them.
Player 2: you
Or make your own
The most legal game of all is the one you wrote. These tools produce ROMs that run on RetroCYD.
GB Studio
Free, visual game maker for the Game Boy — no coding needed. Exports real ROMs.
Octo
A CHIP-8 / SUPER-CHIP IDE that runs in your browser. Write, test and export in minutes.
NESdev Wiki
The reference for NES programming: hardware docs, tutorials and tools.
gbdev resources
Documentation, toolchains and tutorials for Game Boy and Game Boy Color development.