Guide

Neo Geo homebrew guides

What we learned writing a Neo Geo from the datasheets, put where it is useful: the byte layouts, the budgets and the conventions a homebrew game actually runs into. Written first-hand, corrected when we got it wrong.

Start here

How to make a Neo Geo game — what the hardware asks of you, the two routes people take, and what comes out at the end.
Is there a GB Studio for the Neo Geo? — the question most people arrive with, answered directly.
Getting started with ngdevkit — the open-source SDK everything here is built on.

The hardware, in the detail it matters

How Neo Geo sprites are stored in the C-ROM — 16×16 tiles, 128 bytes, bitplanes split across a pair of chips.
Neo Geo palettes, and why you only get fifteen colours — 256 palettes of 16, and index 0 is transparency.
Writing music for the YM2610 — 4 FM, 3 SSG, 6 drum voices, one streamed channel.
P, C, S, M, V: what is inside a Neo Geo ROM — the five regions, MAME romsets and the .neo container.

Then build something

All of this is knowledge Neo Studio exists to spare you when you would rather be making a game — and worth having anyway, because a tool that hides the machine eventually surprises you with it.

Enter the beta What Neo Studio does