SummerStation64 v0.3a

[Kerillian0]

SummerStation64 v0.3a

☀️ A themeable game menu for the SummerCart64, built on a real N64 and a CRT. ☀️

v0.3a is an update made from your feedback on v0.3: cheats you can
switch on and off from Game info (with codes for 1,300+ games in the
Companion), rename files on the console, a Hacks tab and any
collection as a tab, 50 favorites with a favorite button on every cover,
simpler menus, START straight to Settings, a screenshot button that suits
the 8BitDo mod kit, easier 64DD pairing, and step-by-step guides. Thank you
to everyone who tried v0.3 and wrote in!

New here? Everything v0.3 brought (3D boxes and cartridges, collections, the
letter dial, the Retro and Homebrew tabs, party mode, clips) is in the
v0.3 release notes.

Tip

Quick start: download sc64menu.n64 from the Assets below, copy it
to the top folder of your SD card, switch on. Covers and game details are
built in.

Note

Coming from v0.3? Copy the new sc64menu.n64 over the old one; your
settings, favorites, collections and save backups stay. START now opens
Settings at once. What the old START menu held is in Settings: Information
(menu, flashcart and N64 information) and System (Controller Pak Manager,
Clock).

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✨ What's new

🎯 Cheats

• Codes for your games: the Companion's new
  Cheats tab
  fetches GameShark / Action Replay codes from
  libretro-database (lists for
  over 1,300 N64 games, found by your copy's exact dump with Card Prep, else by
  its name), or takes codes you paste. Tick the ones you want and save: they go
  beside the game as Game.datel.
• Switch them on and off on the console: a game with cheats shows Z
  Cheats on its Game info. A switches a cheat on (green ✓) or off (grey);
  B closes the list and saves. Any cheat on turns Use Cheats on for the
  game, all off turns it off.
• Cheats now run without opening the Datel Code Editor: the menu reads the
  game's cheat file as it starts the game (before, Use Cheats alone started it
  with no codes, or the last game's).
• Cheats need the Expansion Pak; without one the list says so first.

✏️ Rename files

• Folders tab, Z, Rename... on any file. The name is typed with the letter
  dial, now with four pages (A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and symbols ( ) [ ] - _ ' . , &
  ! +, C-up / C-down) and a cursor (L / R). START renames; B at the start
  cancels; a name already in the folder is refused.
• Everything goes with it: its save (also in the saves folder) and dated save
  backups, per-game settings, cheats and details, a Retro game's art folder, and
  what the menu remembers: play counts and time played, favorites and recent,
  your collections, hidden games, 64DD pairs and Card Prep's ✓.
• Collection names use the same dial: small letters and symbols, kept as
  typed (no more forced Title Case).

🗂️ Tabs

• A Hacks tab (Settings > Tabs): every ROM hack, on a tab of its own.
• Any collection as a tab: each of the four places can hold one of your own
  collections, a series or a multiplayer one. It opens straight onto its covers;
  a long name ends in "…" on the bar.
• Hacks on Games: Hide (Settings > Library) keeps hacks off the Games tab,
  like Homebrew on Games below.
• Settings with many choices open a list to pick from (the tab places, Sort
  By, Theme) instead of stepping through them one press at a time.

⭐ Favorites

• Up to 50 favorites (was 8).
• Favorite a game from its cover: press Z on any cover tab and choose
  Add to Favorites (or Remove from Favorites). No need to open Game
  info first.

🧭 Simpler menus

• Z on a cover (Games, Homebrew, Retro, Recent, Favorites and inside a
  collection) now offers just: Random game, Add to Favorites, Game info,
  Add to collection, Hide this game. File tools (delete, properties, the
  folder options) stay on the Folders tab, where they belong.
• Game info opens the right page for 64DD disks and Retro games from Z too.
• START opens Settings straight away. A new Information category holds
  the menu, flashcart and N64 information screens; the Controller Pak
  Manager and the Clock are in System. Each comes back to Settings.
• Advanced Game Options (Settings > System, off by default): Set CIC Type,
  Set Save Type, Set TV Type, the Datel Code Editor and Clear RDRAM on boot
  leave Game info's Options unless you switch this on. Choices you made before
  still apply.

📸 Screenshot button

• Settings > System > Screenshot Button: Hold START (as before) or
  Hold L + R for a second, for controllers whose START is their power
  button, such as the 8BitDo mod kit. With L + R, L and R switch tabs when
  you let go, so holding both never flicks between tabs.
• Every controller port now works the same way (port 2's instant START
  screenshot from testing is gone).

🍺 Homebrew

• Settings > Library > Homebrew on Games: Hide keeps homebrew on the
  Homebrew tab only. Folders, Recent, Favorites and your own collections still
  show it. Show stays the default.

💾 64DD disks

• Pair a disk where you are: press Z on the disk's Game info (or on the
  "needs its cartridge" warning) to choose its cartridge. The list names what
  Automatic finds and puts the matching cartridges first, in blue.
• The disk's info page says what it plays with: Plays with F-Zero X (green),
  Disk alone (grey) or Needs (not found) (orange).
• L (or Options, Play the disk alone) starts the disk without its
  cartridge.

🧰 The Companion

• Cheats tab (see above), with games and codes in pages of 50.
• Missing Metadata finds menu/missingart.txt whichever folder you pick
  (the top of the card, or the menu folder) and works better in Firefox.
• New Guide sections:
  Adding box art and details, step by step
  64DD disks and their cartridge
  and Cheats.

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📥 Installing

	⭐ Art Edition (recommended)	Standard
File in the Assets	sc64menu.n64	SummerStation64-v0.3a-Standard.zip
Size	about 35 MB	about 2.5 MB
Box covers and cartridges	built in, appear faster	from the metadata pack on your SD card
Game details (descriptions, dates, developers, genres, players)	built in	built in

1. Update your SummerCart64's firmware if it is old, and back up your
   sc64menu.n64.
2. Art Edition: copy sc64menu.n64 from the Assets to the top folder of
   your SD card. Standard: unzip SummerStation64-v0.3a-Standard.zip and
   copy the sc64menu.n64 inside; for covers, put the
   metadata pack
   in sd:/menu/metadata/.
3. Switch the N64 on.

New to SummerStation64? The Companion's
Guide
walks through setting up a card, including adding your game folders.

🕹️ Retro games: where their pictures go

NES, SNES and Game Boy games need the menu's emulators in menu/emulators/
(see N64FlashcartMenu's documentation). Their pictures are read from the SD
card, one folder per game, named after the game's file without its
extension:

menu/metadata/nes/Super Mario Bros. (World)/boxart_front.png
                                            boxart_back.png
                                            boxart_spine.png
                                            gamepak_front.png   (see-through background)
                                            gamepak_back.png
                                            metadata.ini, description.txt

snes, gb and gbc work the same way. The Companion's Missing Metadata
tab puts everything in the right place for you.

🎞️ Making a GIF

1. On the console: Settings > System, choose Clip Length, Clip Size
   and Clip Frame Rate, then press A on Record Clip and leave
   Settings.
2. After three ticks it records; a sound says when it is done. Half size at
   15 frames a second records a 10-second clip in about a minute and a half;
   full size at 30 takes about ten minutes.
3. Put the card in your computer, open the
   Companion's Clips tab,
   choose the card and the clip, and press Make GIF.

🔐 Checksums

SHA-1 of each sc64menu.n64, to check your download:

6702c035f6bcc44cad0637de94e8aa2247a8baac  sc64menu.n64 (Art Edition)
db29662dfd2fc54c2dec940041daa62abe29a4cf  sc64menu.n64 in SummerStation64-v0.3a-Standard.zip

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⚠️ Known limitations

• Going back to an older menu (v0.3 or the stock N64FlashcartMenu) keeps
  only your first 8 favorites, and drops the rest the next time it saves.
• Emulator games (NES, SNES, Game Boy) can't be favorited: the Favorites
  list has no place for them yet.
• Cheats: codes that need a button held (starting D0 to D3) may not work
  yet, and the menu reads up to 64 code lines per game. Some games, mostly new
  homebrew, can't take cheats at all.
• Collection tabs point to a collection by its place: reordering or deleting
  your own collections in the Companion can change which one a tab shows
  (deleting on the console keeps them right).
• Renaming a hack set up in the Companion's Hacks tab without Card Prep
  having been run breaks its link (it is matched by file name then); save the
  Hacks tab again.
• Party mode has been tested with a stand-in for extra controllers, not
  with four real ones yet. Reports welcome.
• Recording a clip is slow (each frame is saved as it is drawn); the clip
  itself is smooth.
• With Game Versions on Grouped, Pokémon Stadium and the Snap Station
  kiosk version share one cover (they share a game code).
• Saves of 64DD disks are not backed up. Other flashcarts are not supported.

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🤖 AI disclosure

SummerStation64 is made with Claude, an AI model by Anthropic, used
through Claude Code inside Visual Studio Code.

• Model: Claude Opus 5.5, as recorded on the commits.
• How much, in v0.3a: all 16 commits since v0.3 are co-authored by Claude
  (October 25 and 26, 2026): about 1,900 changed lines of menu code (4 new
  source files), the Companion's Cheats tab, fixes and Guide sections, the
  tests, and these notes.
• What the owner (Kerillian) did: gathered the players' requests,
  decided which to build and how each should behave (the cheats list on Game
  info and the paged lists were the owner's ideas), edited the popular hacks
  list, and tested every build on a real N64 and CRT. Nothing was
  committed until it passed on the console.
• Not made by AI: the music and interface sounds, the fonts, the box art
  and game details (a community pack), the game data (libretro), and
  N64FlashcartMenu and libdragon, which this is built on.

If something seems wrong, please open an issue.

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🙏 Credits and licence

• Built on N64FlashcartMenu
  by Polprzewodnikowy and contributors, and on
  libdragon.
• Ideas from the N64ever
  fork.
• Genres, player counts, series, and the lists used by Card Prep and the
  Missing Metadata tab:
  libretro-database
  (CC-BY-SA 4.0).
• Music by Eric Matyas, www.soundimage.org ("Cyber-dream-loop").
  Interface sounds by Lokif (CC0). Title lettering drawn with the Anton and
  Mr Dafoe fonts (SIL Open Font License).

Released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3, like
N64FlashcartMenu; the source is in this repository.

Note

About the built-in covers and game details: the Art Edition's covers
and cartridges, and the game descriptions built into both editions, are
not part of the source code and not covered by its licence. They belong to
the games' publishers and writers, and are included (in reduced size) for
use with the menu on your own console. They come from the community
n64-flashcart-menu-metadata
pack (scans credited there to ABeezy, LaunchBox community). If you hold
the rights to any of them and want them removed, open an issue and the
release files will be replaced without them.

_{SummerStation64 is an unofficial fan project, not made or approved by
Nintendo. Nintendo 64 and the N64 logo are trademarks of Nintendo.}

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This discussion was created from the release SummerStation64 v0.3a.