Here’s a collection of the most common questions I get, and their answers.

Q: How do I make [a specific game/project]?

A: Follow the tutorials and/or GitHub repository for the item you want to make. If you want to make a SNES game, for example, follow the How to Make a SNES Cartridge tutorial.

Q: Can you make this game for me?

A: No. If you ever find or buy any licensed games that were made with my boards, either donor or original, that game was not made by me. I do not sell games, not even ROM hacks – I never have, and I never will. And you shouldn’t either, unless you have permission from the originator to sell their work. This goes double for independent creators, who make translations and hacks and homebrew games.

Please do not ask me to do this for you 🙂

Q: Can you build a DMGC/MGBC for me?

A: No. The only things I am selling are in my Etsy store. If I decide to do a build to sell, I will either list it on Etsy or announce it on social media and list it on eBay. But don’t hold your breath!

Q: Can you assemble one of your circuit boards for me?

A: No. Sometimes I will sell assembled versions of my circuit boards, but they will be listed on Etsy if I do. I normally don’t, though.

Q: Will you ever offer assembled boards in the future?

A: I don’t know, but probably not. I used to sell assembled items, and even parts packages, but it is way more work than it’s worth for me.

Q: Why doesn’t my game work?

A: This is the big one, and why you’re probably here. Unfortunately, there are a ton of possible reasons for that. Making a game involves many steps, and missing just one of them can completely screw it up – though, luckily not usually irreparably (but hopefully you didn’t put an MMC3 chip in backwards, they don’t like that). Make sure you followed all the steps correctly, and check out the more specific troubleshooting section at the bottom of the tutorials for the board you’re using or making. And chances are, it’s something minor, like a bad solder joint or two points touching that shouldn’t be.

Here are a few general things to check that usually fix the problem:

• Make sure you followed the ROM preparation portion of the guides correctly. Getting a socketed test PCB that you know works to test your ROMs before you solder them into a permanent board is a good idea. Mis-programming is usually the root cause of the issue.
• Make sure your console is working with regular games, and if you used a donor cartridge for a game, hopefully you’ll remember if the donor game worked first.
• Check for any wires, pins, or pads that you forgot to solder. Some of these boards require 100+ solder points to work, and just missing ONE of them can cause problems.
• Look for cold solder joints – these are usually caused by poor quality solder, or soldering at too low of temperatures. If your solder joints don’t look smooth and shiny, you might have a poor solder connection. You can fix these (called “reflowing”) just by putting your soldering iron on them, and possibly adding some extra solder. And be sure your solder is of good quality!
• See if there’s any damage to traces or pads, dirt or contamination on the board, or solder touching two metallic points where it shouldn’t. Sometimes when soldering, you can inadvertently make solder balls that can short circuit your board where you don’t want it to.
• Make sure all your parts are in the correct direction, and you’re using the proper parts in the proper places.
• Check to make sure you are putting an NTSC game into an NTSC console, or a PAL game into a PAL console. This not only includes making sure the CIC is for the correct region, but that the ROM file itself is for the correct region. You generally can’t use a PAL ROM with an NTSC CIC in an NTSC console without some kind of issue.
• If your game is using a clone CIC, like the SuperCIC or AVRCIC, try turning on the game and resetting the console five to ten times (and try some power cycling as well). Sometimes this is necessary for the clone chip to detect the proper region.
• Make sure you have all the decoupling capacitors and electrolytic capacitors on the board – especially the ceramic decoupling capacitor near the CIC chip. These CIC chips normally don’t work unless you have the proper capacitance on them.

I rigorously test all of my designs to make sure they work before I sell them, and manufacturing errors on the boards themselves are pretty rare, though not impossible. And in the past, I’ve missed a few things before – usually niche errors I didn’t catch myself. But nearly all of the boards I offer currently have been time-tested and pretty robust. If you’ve got more questions, feel free to email or message me.

Q: Do you do custom work?

A: Sometimes, but it’s a rarity nowadays. I value my free time. The only custom job I will consider is a focused version of one of my existing boards, or some kind of aesthetic modification to my existing boards. Something like, replacing a logo, or making a LoROM-only version of my SNES boards, or something like that.

Q: [Any question related to N64]?

A: I’m not touching anything N64-related with a ten-foot pole. I do not know how to make N64 repros with donors. Buy an Everdrive 64 or get boards from retrostage!

Q: Can you make a flash cart for [console]?

A: Uh, maybe? But I’m not going to try. There are plenty of flash carts out there already that work wonderfully. If you’re asking about a console that doesn’t currently have a flash cart available, then I’m not the right person to make it.

Q: How did you learn all of this?

A: The basis of my knowledge comes from my electrical engineering background, but other than that? A lot of googling, a lot of studying original game PCBs and schematics, a lot of thinking, and a LOT of testing. Hands-on learning really helps. For my actual career, I’ve done a lot of PCB design and layout, so I have a lot of experience there as well.

I try to document knowledge whenever possible to make this accessible for others – I set out to create something that would help people jump-start the hobby faster than what was available when I started out. That being said, I do not consider myself an expert by any means, just an enthusiast, so feel free to challenge me on anything I say. I’m not afraid to fix something I’ve gotten wrong.

Q: Is this your job?

A: As hinted at in the previous question, no this is not my main job, and it won’t ever be my main job. I love my actual job. This is just a hobby of mine (it has actually supplanted most of my time actually playing video games). As such, my time is quite limited – at best I can get only a few hours a day to work on this – so if I do not respond to your emails or messages immediately, please give me the benefit of the doubt. I will try to get back to you when I’m able to. This is also why my handling time for orders is generally a week long, because there have been many weeks where I was completely swamped with other work and home life, unable to do anything for the store or website for days on end, and burnout is a very real thing that I’ve experienced and want to avoid again. I hope you can understand!

Q: Can you give me gerber files so I can order your boards myself?

A: I’m planning to slowly release open source versions of most of my PCBs, so just be patient. The DMGC and MGBC are already open source! If you cannot find gerber files on my GitHub for a project you’re interested in, then I haven’t released them.

I do deeply request you give me credit where credit is due when using my website materials or open source projects. I put a lot of time into these projects. Most projects will be open source under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This means you are able to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, as well as remix, transform, or build upon the material for any purpose (even commercial) – but you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if any changes were made.

Q: What’s the best way to contact you?

A: Please use email via the contact form whenever possible. I am bad at checking social media. Alternatively, I also have a discord channel.