The Unity game development platform was first released in 2005, long after the PlayStation had ceased to be a relevant part of the console market. And yet, you could use Unity to develop for the platform, if you so desire, thanks to the efforts of [Bandwidth] and the team behind psxsplash.
Yes, it really is possible to design games for the original PlayStation using Unity and Lua. Using a tool called SplashEdit, you can whip up scenes, handle scripting, loading screens, create UIs, and do all the other little bits required to lash a game together. You can then run your creation via the psxsplash engine, deploying to emulator or even real hardware with a single click. Currently, development requires a Windows or Linux machine and Unity 6000.0+, but other than that, it’s pretty straightforward to start making games with a modern toolset for one of the most popular consoles of all time. Just remember, you’ve only got 33 MHz and 2MB of RAM to play with.
We still love to see the legendary grey machine get used and hacked in new and inventive ways, so many decades after release.
Thanks to [Nick] for the tip!
I’m confused as the first paragraph says that when Unity came out in 2005 this was out. So why write an article about it now 21 years later?
Maybe the author discovered this while also just becoming old enough to write about it?
I think that Unity is old enough to drink, but the third-party addon to make ps1 games is new. That’s the hack they meant to write about, but that could have been made more clear.
They used a ‘could’ instead of a ‘can now’ in that first paragraph. The psxsplash code is less than a month old.
Please stop calling the PlayStation “PSX”. Not only is it debatable if it even applies (PlayStation-X or PS/X during development), but there’s another Sony PlayStation unit actually called the PSX and posts like this make it incredibly difficult to find information about it.
Thank you for sharing <3
Now if only someone would do this for CD-I!