Brew Volley

Brew Volley is a homebrew game for the Nintendo 64 by Tfmoe__ on 22 August 2023. In it, you play as two N64 Brew logos playing a game of volleyball. It was made to compete in the 64brew Game Jam 2023.

You can download the ROM from the download page using the password tossthatball or on Google Drive. You can also get the source code on Github.

Brew Volley style and gameplay

This is probably the simplest game to be released in this year’s game jam. It consists of a beachy backdrop with the two players in front of it, a net and a ball. That’s really all the setting there is.

The game itself is also very simple. You can move left and right with the D-pad and jump with Up or A. The objective is to bounce the ball on your head and direct it over to the other side of the net. If you hit the ball three consecutive times, you can’t touch the ball anymore and it will pass through you. If you let the ball fall on your side, your opponent gets a point. First to 21 points wins. That’s all there is to it!

‘Summer’ theme

This one is quite obvious. The game takes place on a nice beach and volleyball is a classic summer game.

Credits

Brew volley is made Tfmoe__, but with assets taken from various sources:

• “Beach Volleyball: Sport Motivation Funk Groove with brass” by TransistorBudddha
• Sound FX
• Winning: “Kara – Woohoo” by javapimp
• Ball hit: home recorded
• Ball halt: home recorded
• Background: “coconut tree near shore within mountain range” by Elizeu Dias
• Ball : “Volleyball Ball Icon” by Icons-Land
• Net : “Volleyball Net #1808866” by Clipart Library
• N64brew logo : N64brew community

Review and conclusion

Though Brew Volley did score fairly poorly on the contest, I did enjoy it quite a bit. It’s not extremely complex or sophisticated, but it does bring me back to the simplicity of Flash games from 20 years ago.

The balls bounces are somewhat unpredictable. You can aim it quite a bit when hitting it with your character, but the net (or a jump hit) can send it in any number of directions. While this can be annoying, it does make what could have been a boring game a lot more fun.

There’s not that much more to say about Brew Volley. It’s simple and does what it has set out to do. Nothing more, nothing less.