Use the Game Raccoon Prototype Cartridge to Test Your Homebrew Sega Genesis Games

The Sega Genesis (or Sega Master System for those of you outside of North America) was the second-best selling video game console of the fourth generation, only losing out to the legendary Super Nintendo. During its lifespan, which lasted from 1988 to 1997, you would have had a really difficult time developing your own homebrew games for the console. That was because it was a cartridge-based system and not many people could get their hands on the hardware necessary to make cartridges and burn data onto the ROM chips. Now, thanks to modern technology, you can build your own Game Raccoon prototype cartridge to test your homebrew Sega Genesis games.

This is hardly the first Sega Genesis cartridge designed for homebrew game programmers, but it is an affordable option with some great features. More importantly, its creator, Matt Carr, made it open source so you can build it yourself, tweak the design if needed, and take advantage of the development done by other users. While you can certainly test and play your homebrew games using an emulator, which is probably advisable in the early stages when you’re going through many quick iterations, this will let you test them on real hardware to sort out any potential compatibility issues or bugs. It is, of course, also extremely satisfying to see your game running on an actual vintage Sega Genesis.

The Game Raccoon looks pretty much the same as any other Sega Genesis cartridge, except it has a slot on the top for you to insert an SD card. Just load your homebrew game files, or those you find online, onto the SD card, insert it into the cartridge, and turn the system on. The cartridge is based on a Microchip PIC24 microcontroller and has built-in flash storage. It’s programmed in C and has its own menu system to load the specific file you want to use into flash so you can run it. No external programmers or tools are needed. The custom PCB, which was designed in Autodesk Eagle, does utilize SMD components that can be tricky for novices to solder. But those of you with the skill to assemble the cartridge can take advantage of the capability of the Game Raccoon to streamline your Sega Genesis homebrew game development.