Play Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games online in your browser with bundled homebrew and public-domain ROMs. Vibecoded with GPT-5.4.

Live Demo

NESVibes is a SvelteKit NES player that runs in the browser. It ships with a catalog of public-domain and redistributable homebrew ROMs, plus drag-and-drop support for local .nes files.

Pick a bundled game, open a per-game URL, or drop a ROM onto the stage. Gameplay runs client-side with canvas rendering, AudioWorklet sound, keyboard and touch controls, fullscreen mode, and a desktop debugger.

Install

git clone https://github.com/tsilva/nesvibes.git
cd nesvibes
pnpm install
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:5173.

Commands

pnpm dev               # start the Vite dev server
pnpm build             # build the SvelteKit app for Vercel
pnpm preview           # preview the production build locally
pnpm check             # run Svelte type and diagnostics checks
pnpm test:emu          # run emulator tests with node:test
pnpm check:headers     # verify the configured security headers
pnpm check:rom-assets  # verify ROM files match the catalogs
pnpm sentry:issues     # list Sentry issues using .env credentials

Notes

• Use pnpm; the repo blocks other package managers in preinstall.
• The bundled library has 45 cataloged ROMs: 36 public-domain entries and 9 redistributable homebrew entries. 44 are playable today; the mapper-5 TMNT Demo is cataloged but disabled.
• The emulator supports mappers 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. Trainer ROMs are rejected.
• Keyboard controls are arrow keys for D-pad, Z for B, X for A, Enter for Start, and Shift for Select.
• Browser audio may require one user gesture before playback starts.
• Quicklaunch requires HTTP(S). Use the deployed site or a local dev/static server; drag-and-drop still works with local files.
• Optional analytics use PUBLIC_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_ID. Sentry uses PUBLIC_SENTRY_DSN, SENTRY_DSN, PUBLIC_SENTRY_ENABLED, SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN, SENTRY_ORG, SENTRY_PROJECT, and SENTRY_BASE_URL; start from .env.example.
• Production deploys through the Vercel adapter and vercel.json security headers.

Architecture

License

No repository-wide license file is currently included. Bundled ROM license and notice files live beside their assets under static/roms.