Show HN: Online Game Emulation Platform – Afterplay.io

[jimjimjimjim]

Hello HN users,

I made a web app that allows you to upload any SNES or GameBoy ROM file and play right within the web browser. It’s called Afterplay.io. It got a lot of upvotes on Reddit, and I noticed users signing up and coming back to play games every day, which feels great and has motivated me to keep on developing this thing :).

Demo Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K9iYbJ-1lQ

Site : https://afterplay.io

Problem: I couldn't play emulated games across my devices easily with saves. The Apple App Store does not allow emulator apps.

Solution: Use Afterplay.io. It works in the browser, on PC’s, Mac’s, Android and iOS phones. Once you upload a game file, it will be stored on our server and we save the state of your gameplay automatically each 20 seconds.

You can sign in, upload and play a game from your Mac, and later resume from your iPad or Android phone right where you left off.

This is the first iteration of the web app. The core functionality is working but there’s still a lot of work to do. So I’m writing code and pushing tiny improvements a few times a day. I welcome any thoughts or suggestions.

[ArtWomb]

Interesting! I'd like to hear a bit more about the tech stack. Which browser based emulators did you chose?

One of the most interesting trends in retro gaming is the use of upsampling filters. Purists don't particularly like ROM hacks. But if they can get access to original hardware / carts. They can pass the analog signal through a device that renders in glorious HD.

I often thought it would make a cool cloud based video streaming service ;)

Nintendo 64 Running Super Smash Bros in 1440p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LMWdh18UZY

[jimjimjimjim → ArtWomb]

They're based on web assembly ports of mGBA and SNES9x. The rest is built on firebase. Front end is Vue.

That is really cool!

[powertools]

I just tried it out and it seems to work pretty well. I connected my bluetooth gamepad and your website recognized it instantly. Well done.

Is there any reason why the "Anguna" game is offered by default, while other ROMs should be uploaded by the user first?

[codingdave → powertools]

Probably because Anguna was a homebrewed game, whereas most other ROMs would be copyright violations if they were offered directly online. In theory, to legally run a ROM, you would have had to buy the original game, so OP would be opening themselves up to legal troubles to offer ROMs directly.

[jimjimjimjim → codingdave]

Yes exactly! I contacted the developer of Anguna and got his permission to include it

[AuryGlenz]

Near project. Is it legal for you to store the roms?

[jimjimjimjim → AuryGlenz]

Thank you :) I sure hope so but I don't see why not. It's kind of like uploading cd backups to google drive or dropbox. Users should only upload ROMs of games they own of course.

[patrickcorrigan]

This is very cool!