Piptendo

Piptendo is a homebrew demo for the N64 made by Pips and released on 13 March 1998. It is possibly the simplest demo ever made (besides technical demos from the devkit).

To get the ROM, download it from the download page using the password pippyntendo. Not sure why you’d want to though.

Imagine loading up a homebrew demo, excited to see what the developer has in store for you. The screen comes to life, and you’re met with a wavy background in shades of gray. You wait, expecting something to happen, but nothing does.

Just as you’re about to give up hope, you notice the plain text that is on the screen. It reads “Piptendo” – a classic portmanteau of the author’s name and ‘Nintendo’. You can’t help but enjoy the simplicity of it all.

As you watch the text linger on the screen, the more you start to feel like you’re in some kind of psychedelic trip. Then you realise that the image is static – an animation would have been too much to handle.

After a few minutes of staring at the eternally still pattern you start to wonder – Was this demo meant to be a statement on the monotony of life? A tribute to the early days of programming? Or just a silly way to waste a few minutes?

As you exit out of the demo, you can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all. You just spent several minutes staring at a screen with plain text on a wavy background. But hey, sometimes it’s the simplest things that can bring us the most joy.

It is a simple and pointless homebrew demo can still provide entertainment in its own way. Whether it’s through the humor in its lack of substance or the hypnotic patterns of a oil-slickened background, sometimes it’s the most basic demos that can surprise and delight us.

After pressing the B button, you realise that there’s more to the demo than meets the eye. A different bit of text appears, this time moving us with the following quote:

SOS didn’t believe me

This is likely referring to SOS, another member of the Dextrose community who would have said that Pips was not capable of creating his very own N64 ROM for the world to enjoy. Little did he know that Pips had an ace up his sleeve – this very demo you’re feasting your eyes upon now.

With that said, Piptendo is what you get when you’re looking for the bare minimum in a homebrew demo. A plain old image with a few words plastered in front of it.