An Introduction to “Yaroze a Day”

For as long as the market for video games has existed, there have been folk interested in breaking into the business. But this compulsion to contribute to the medium was once tempered by means of access to the necessary tools and training; held closely as “trade secrets” by hardware manufacturers, or made prohibitively expensive to those not already established in the industry. The solution for some was to simply turn to the home computer ecosystem, where access was widely open and welcoming. Others still chose to overcome obstacles on consoles by developing and publishing games outside of the licensing system, effectively producing bootleg and pirate software. And then there were those fortunate few who could afford to overcome the hurdles set in place by the console manufacturers, and pay to get their mitts on proper software development kits. With an SDK in hand, the world of games creation software was your oyster.

But not just anyone could get their hands on a development kit for any given console, though. As mentioned earlier, some were just too costly for the standard enthusiast. Other hardware manufacturers required some amount of “credentials” on the part of would-be developers before they might even consider handing over their toolkits. In these ways, many a creative individual had their game ideas stymied or stifled, in service of the best-laid plans by hardware producers to keep the market from being flooded. This was until one brave manufacturer decided to take the plunge, and offer interested individuals a consumer-grade SDK for their current console offering. In June of 1996, Sony began to sell a product by the name of “Net Yaroze,” allowing amateur developers to experiment with none other than the PlayStation’s hardware.

The years that followed saw a small boon to independent game development, and a proliferation of homebrew PlayStation software. But with only the occasional spilling over of these niche creations into the mainstream consciousness – typically in the form of the odd appearance on a magazine demo disc – the Net Yaroze community existed in relative obscurity for a roughly eight-year run. In spite of this imposed isolation, the impact the toolkit would have on the lives of some of its members could be measured for years to come — with a small handful of titles being developed into full-on retail products, and several developers going on to fully pursue careers in the games industry.

In this article, we’ll be providing a brief overview of the Net Yaroze’s history, serving as a prelude to a series wherein we’ll be reviewing a range of available software from its user-created library. Before we begin that process of powering through 300+ titles; I feel it’s important to understand the intended application and limitations of the toolkit at hand, so as to appreciate what these amateur developers were made to work with. In the coming months, we may come to mock some of the more ill-advised / incomplete entries to the Net Yaroze software catalogue. But as we remind ourselves of the state of independent games development in the mid-90s and the hurdles that came with it, we’ll have to bear one of the platform’s unofficial taglines firmly in mind: “If you can build a better game…”

“Let’s Do It Together.”

Photo of a Net Yaroze console and controller.
(Source: HCKblog)

First things first: It must be noted that the Net Yaroze was not the first-ever “consumer-grade” development kit. I believe the credit for that goes to the PC Engine’s “Develo Box” accessory; which released earlier in 1996, and would allow users to interface with their console via an MSX or PC-9801 computer (later updating to include IBM PC support). Information on how well-supported the hardware was by NEC and / or communities built around the kit is quite scarce, though there did at least exist a pair of technical manuals to help walk users through some of the basics of programming for the peripheral. Furthermore, these manuals would provide the electronic schematics for building your very own Develo hardware, for those so technically inclined. All that being said: Any software that was potentially developed using this kit would be even more obscure than the likes of the Yaroze’s offerings, and it’s fairly safe to relegate the Develo as something of a footnote in the context of our focus.

The Net Yaroze (or “Yarouze,” as it was originally marketed) as we know it was the brainchild of one Ken Kutaragi — widely considered to be the father of the PlayStation itself. As interpreted by Phil Harrison – the then-VP of Third Party and R&D for Sony’s American operations – the mission behind the hardware was to “bring back the good old days of home development — the idea of hobby development, or two friends in the garage or in the same room coming up with the next Boulderdash.”^[1] Perhaps more vitally, another purpose may have been to lure young and aspiring game developers to Sony’s ecosystem; fostering an appreciation or loyalty to the manufacturer, and potentially paying off years down the line as they came to formally enter the games industry.

To that end, a particular emphasis was made on providing Net Yaroze hardware to academic institutions; allowing game design and development courses to incorporate the SDK into their curriculum. Clearly, there was a strategy here to rear the next generation of game developers on Sony hardware, and gamble it would translate into continued brand loyalty. As if this and the comparatively low cost of entry for enthusiasts (valuing the kit at roughly $750 USD) weren’t enough to build up some good will, there are also stories of Sony conveniently “forgetting” to actually charge some customers who purchased the package. As recounted by developer David Johnston: “I remember it being a big decision buying a Net Yaroze, because I was at school at the time, and they were pretty expensive. I never paid for it, though! Sony just never took the money. I guess it’s been long enough now they can’t chase me for it!”^[2] One Ian Marshall – a professor at the University of Abertay – would additionally testify that SCEE provided his games technology course “around 40 Yaroze platforms – free of charge.”^[3]

For your money order – whether Sony actually collected said payment or not – you would receive a veritable bundle of development kit and tools. First and foremost was your model DTL-300X of PlayStation console — affectionately nicknamed “The Black Pearl” by the community for its sleek black finish (carrying over to a pair of included controllers). In addition to playing your standard array of PS1 software, it came with the added bonus of bypassing region locks, as well as enabling additional Yaroze service functionality (by means of a unique BIOS). Next came your ‘Communications Cable,’ for connecting your computer to the console unit; with support for PC, Mac, and even PC-98 for those so factioned. Then there were your ‘Key Disc’ and ‘Access Card’ dongle, both required as a sort of copy protection system before loading programs from the PC end. The last pieces to the puzzle were a CD-ROM containing a suite of development software and utilities, and a compilation of technical documentation for your new hardware.

Somewhat curiously, what those manuals fail to cover is any sort of introduction to coding, let alone any further guidance on how to develop full-fledged games software. Sure enough, the expectation was that parties interested in the Yaroze would be coming equipped with at least some prior experience in programming — preferably with the C programming language. However, that doesn’t mean there was no hope for the uninitiated: The community (including Sony’s support team) would be there to answer your questions and provide much-needed tutorials, so that anyone so compelled to learn could have the chance to. In this way, having Internet access was near-essential to the Net Yaroze experience; additionally being required for the process of distributing your projects to other users, as well as downloading and playing the works of others. With the term “yarōze” translating to something like “let’s do it together” (not to mention the implications of “Net” as shorthand for “Networking”), the community aspect of the service cannot be stressed enough here.

“It was such an integral part of the system, and of course why they put ‘Net’ in the name. Having a single focal place where all Yarozers could go to discuss ideas and get feedback on their early prototypes was priceless. There was a real sense of community there, which was much friendlier than you see on public forums now. Seeing other people’s awesome work would really inspire you to try and compete, but everyone ultimately had the same goals and was always willing to help each other out.” ~ James Shaughnessy^[4]

As if all that weren’t enough to rate an Internet connection as vital; you would be faced with the issue of having nowhere else to distribute your games, if not to the only base of users who owned the same hardware as you. As those aforementioned key discs and communication cables may well have indicated, the fruits of your labor on the Net Yaroze were to only be made available to other Net Yaroze owners, as deliberately designed to require authentication by those dongles. The odd exceptions to this rule, of course, were the small handful of games and demos that Sony would deign worthy of making it onto officially-sanctioned demo discs. And I suppose there was also the classroom setting, where students in a game design course utilizing the Net Yaroze would technically be able to develop and share their creations “offline” — even if only amongst a small roomful of their peers.

In other words: You couldn’t just go burning copies of your Net Yaroze creations to blank CDs for the mass market to enjoy, or trying to sell them in any other capacity. The “dream scenario” – as it were – would be for Sony to notice your game get posted on the community forums or submitted to one of their competitions being held, and to reach out to you to “help make the game into a fully fledged commercial product.”^[1b] Sure enough, this sequence of events played out exactly one time, and saw a single Yaroze-developed title manage to land on store shelves (more on that later). But for the rest of the community, the dream remained a dream: The experience gained from the development process and the connections you’d make within the community would amount to your reward. And to be clear, this is what most Yaroze owners expected to get going in, understanding the inherent limitations of the ecosystem. To expect fame and fortune made you something of a laughing stock within the community:

“There was a core of people that committed to the platform and produced some good games and development tools. However, there were other people that would suddenly appear announcing they’d just got a Net Yaroze and would soon be releasing the next Quake-beater. Most of the time, you’d never hear from them again. Presumably, they quickly realized that game development takes a lot of time and effort.” ~ Ben James^[5]

Say, speaking of limitations, let’s talk filesizes! Considering that the standard PlayStation CD-ROM came with a storage capacity of roughly 700MBs, you might expect something like the equivalent of that. But then you have to remember: The games you made weren’t getting printed to discs, much less able to read additional data off of them. No, you were strictly limited to what could fit within the PlayStation’s available RAM. That is to say; 2 megabytes of system memory, 1 MB of VRAM, and a scant 512k of sound memory. All in all, that’s a whopping 3.5MBs of advertised capacity, as split between three channels. Furthermore, a fourth of that system memory was evidently required for the Net Yaroze’s system processes, which would reportedly leave you with “just 1.5MB to make everything work.”^[4b] But sure enough; dedicated developers would make due with the limitations at hand, and turn in titles making the absolute most of that allocation. Hell, for some folk, the challenge in itself was something of a draw:

“Funnily enough, it was actually the limitations of the hardware that appealed to me, in a way! The Yaroze – like all consoles – had a fixed architecture. You had this much RAM, this much processing power, these graphics capabilities, etc. There was no option to fit more memory, upgrade the graphics hardware, or whatever. Consequently, you could be sure that anything you developed would look, sound and perform exactly the same on any other machine. I liked that. It meant it was you against the machine (insert ‘Theme from Rocky’), pushing it to perform as well as you wanted it to.” ~ Chris Chadwick^[5b]

While the lack of space may well have dissuaded developers from hi-res textures and elaborately polygonal models, it certainly didn’t stop the community from attempting takes on every manner of genre and play style. Browse the catalogue on the most comprehensive collection currently available, and you’ll find everything from first-person shooters to high-speed racing titles; with a plethora of fighting and puzzle games in-between, RPGs and action-adventure releases, and even some sports and shmups software to round things out. This all seems to harken back to a simpler era: The scrappy days of self-published PC titles, which required compression and compromise to fit games on 1.44MB floppy discs. And of course, the days of cartridge-based games once saw developers having to work within meager kilobytes of allocation, and still somehow managing to press a similarly ambitious range of titles. The difference here, I suppose, is that the PlayStation felt capable of pushing so much more in terms of hardware, and so many developers felt compelled to play with that horsepower.

Pushing limits and packing games as tightly as possible lent itself well to healthy competition within the community — where friendly rivalries and “one-upmanship” drove Yarozers to not only refine their skills, but to further share their findings and advice to serve the community as a whole. Naturally, this spirit would also prompt Sony to sponsor properly-organized competitions; complete with prize pools stocking Sony cameras and audio devices, as well as cash prizes of up to £1,000 (as purported by archived pages from SCEE’s Net Yaroze webpage). These competitions served as the motivation behind several of the best titles ever developed for the Yaroze platform, as well as presenting competitors as sought-after prospects for games companies. But perhaps in the moment, the coolest prize might have been the promises to have winning games distributed to the general public in some capacity. And sure enough, these promises were followed through, via the medium of demo discs.

CORRECTION (6/4/19): Erroneously, a previous revision of this article suggested that Net Yaroze titles were made available to the public exclusively by means of “magazine demo discs.” As reader / Yaroze historian Mike Garcia was apt to point out; not all demo discs to contain Yaroze titles were distributed by means of magazine inserts. Rather, demo discs outside of Europe were often provided through more direct subscription services — such as North America’s PlayStation Underground.

Between Official UK PlayStation Magazine in Europe and PlayStation Underground in North America – with the latter publication even running an 18 month-long series chronicling the development of their own game (Project Wormhole) using the toolkit – an estimated total of 37 community-made Net Yaroze titles would make their way to a wider [English-speaking] audience.** Typically chosen from the lot of competition submissions, and purported to be “the best” of what the community had to offer, these selections served as Sony’s hand-picked examples of the sort of software they had been fostering. Needless to say, there are plenty of appropriately advanced / equally entertaining games to the ones selected that ended up falling by the wayside, but there was only so much space the producers of these discs could allocate to these otherwise obscure offerings. At the very least, the small handful of selected games served to remind the world at large that the Yaroze community continued to exist, and to develop new software well into the 2000s.

Which brings us to the question of which Net Yaroze titles are the most notable? Honestly, given how few made it to demo disc or otherwise saw mainstreamed coverage, the pickings here are somewhat slim. Probably the most acclaimed would be the action-adventure Terra Incognita; as developed by “Team Fatal,” and featured prominently on the same demo disc which starred a playable demo of Metal Gear Solid (as seen on Official UK PlayStation Magazine – Demo Disc 42). Team Fatal were also responsible for a Final Fantasy VII parody titled “Fatal Fantasy” – which has gone on to become something of a meme in some circles – plus a semi-functional Famicom emulator (which came paired with a ROM file for Nintendo’s Popeye game). Another developer, Tomokazu Sato, would be responsible for a pair of well-appreciated titles: A survival horror-esque title Super Mansion (Yakata Plus), and the F-Zero-inspired Hover Racing. Both titles seemed to take full advantage of the PS1 hardware in producing some of the best 3D graphics seen on the toolkit, and featuring levels of gameplay depth that went largely unparalleled by the rest of the community.

On the European end of things, the most revered title would likely have to go to Chris Chadwick’s Blitter Boy: Operation Monster Mall; which blended top-down shooter gameplay with wave survival and Flicky-styled character rescue mechanics, and resulted in its creator winning a £5,000 prize as the “Best UK Game Developer ‘98” (as well as an additional £1,000 and Sony DSC-F1 digital camera as part of another competition). Funnily enough, he almost didn’t submit his game to competition, until a member of SCEE’s Net Yaroze support team – Sarah Bennett – encouraged him to take the chance. (“Without her encouragement, I doubt I ever would have entered, so thanks to her for that.”)^[5c] Further recognition is due to titles such as Stuart Ashley’s first-person shooter Clone, James Shaughnessy’s hybrid physics-driven racer-shmup Gravitation, and David Johnston’s time-warping platformer Time Slip. All said, the European / UK scene put up some incredibly strong contenders for the Net Yaroze’s best.

There were not quite as many adopters of the Net Yaroze in North America comparative to Japan and Europe, but there was still a small handful of community-developed software worth checking out. Edward Federmeyer’s Haunted Maze serves as a respectable dodge ‘em up / maze game, where players must avoid zombies and collect treasures to progress through a series of stages. Brothers Gregg and Rob Gorczowski collaborated to develop Gasgar vs Gasgar — a Pong-styled battle game with two competing players in mind. There was also Decaying Orbit; as developed by “Dragon Shadow Industries,” and drawing inspiration from Asteroids and Lunar Lander. Funnily enough, these titles were seemingly paid more due within European demo discs than on North America’s own, perhaps demonstrating just how little the American audience took to the Yaroze in its time. On the other hand; SCEE’s Paul Holman would testify that the North American community “had comparable numbers of Net Yaroze members to SCEE. […] Perhaps we were simply luckier in Europe to have a more fertile ground in terms of interest from universities and magazines.”^[2b]

Of course, we can’t go talking about “notable titles” without mentioning perhaps the two biggest success stories of the Net Yaroze: Shift’s Devil Dice emerging from Japan, and Total Soccer Yaroze as developed by Europe’s own Charles Chapman. In the case of Devil Dice, the dice-driven puzzle game began life as a Net Yaroze project, before SCEI picked up the project and helped orchestrate a full-on retail release for it. The result is a proper CD-ROM release which is still largely beholden to the Yaroze’s limitations (existing entirely within RAM), and which would birth a development studio responsible for titles such as Ape Escape Academy and God Eater. As for Total Soccer; the complexity and customization that came with its depiction of [non-American] football would later translate to a full series of Total Soccer titles across PC and Game Boy Color (where it was licensed as David O’Leary’s Total Soccer 2000), before evolving into the foundation for FIFA’s Game Boy Advance line of FIFA Soccer titles. Not too shabby for what started as one man’s fiddling with a consumer-grade SDK.

But these stand-out titles were exceptions to the general rule of Net Yaroze: What came from the Net Yaroze community largely stayed within Net Yaroze. With so few titles able to break out from the likes of Yaroze newsgroups and forums, the motivation for most would only continue to diminish over time. As Gravitation developer James Shaughnessy would testify, “The lack of distribution channels was a very real limitation to the Net Yaroze, and is probably what led to its eventual demise.”^[4c] The inevitability of the upcoming PlayStation 2 probably didn’t help in the latter years of the experiment either, where continued support was likely to discontinue. Surprisingly, this did not end up being an “instantaneous” demise for the service; as direct support by Sony was reportedly maintained until as late as 2004, and as the servers made to host the enterprise remained online until 2009. All this may strike one as particularly surprising when considering that the Net Yaroze was firmly established as a money loser for the company; with the hardware being sold at cost to Sony, and with little in the way of a profit model ever envisioned for it.

“We certainly sold around 1,000 Net Yarozes [in Europe], with more being sold in Japan. U.S. was similar to our numbers. Although they were as cheap as we could make them, they were relatively expensive, and so people bought them specifically to work on projects — so probably thousands of projects!” ~ Paul Holman^[4d]

Net Yaroze support and server uptime continued for as long as the continued demand for it did, and only ceased several years after the userbase had largely moved on. A fairly gracious window of time, all things considered. About the only other thing that they could’ve done as a favor to the world would’ve been to have officially archived all of it, and provided something like a comprehensive catalogue of software developed and posted by the community.*** But the reason support continued for as long as it did was because Sony staff truly believed in the potential for the project, and genuinely enjoyed their interactions with the community they had cultivated. Everyone involved on the support end of the project seems to look back as fondly on the endeavor as the users themselves — which is to say, quite fondly indeed. It’s a mentality that has survived within Sony as the publishing end of the company continues to engage with indie developers, and establish working relationships:

“The Yaroze program is a reflection of how seat-of-their-pants PlayStation was at the time. They gave their employees the freedom to run and produce a program like that, and I think there’s an analogy to their team now, […] who have the individual freedom to go out there and sign up developers.” ~ James Shaughnessy^[6]

And then there are the number of careers in the games industry which were birthed from the Net Yaroze scene. While it’s naturally easier for English-speakers to track the career trajectories of developers in the European Yaroze community – names such as Chris Chadwick, James Shaughnessy, and Robert Swan – the Japanese scene reportedly yielded its share of success stories as well. From the foundation of studios such as Smudged Cat Games and Shift, recruitments to the likes of T&E Soft and EA, and even some members ultimately taking the leap to work within Sony itself; it’s downright inspiring how many users were able to utilize their Yaroze experience in attaining jobs within the industry. Perhaps one of the most notable success stories is that of Mitsuru Kamiyama; a member of Japan’s Team Fatal who actually ended up working for none other than Square Enix — ultimately serving as main programmer and director for the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles series. That’s a pretty big step up from creating a bathroom-themed parody of FFVII, if I do say so myself.

Luckily, many of the early works of these future industry alumni are still accessible in at least some capacity. Between the stock of Yaroze titles which made it to demo disc, as well as archived copies of games and demos exclusive to the Internet, there have been sizeable compilations of Net Yaroze releases released in the past several years. Originally, the most substantial came from Official UK PlayStation Magazine’s last-ever demo disc — which came paired with their final issue (108) in 2004, and featured 20 European-developed titles. For a time after that, an unofficial “Net Yaroze Collection” disc image released online boasted 83 collected games, covering all three community regions in some capacity. The current-most comprehensive compilation is titled as “Net Yaroze Collection 2014,” and contains a whopping 300 games (plus 153 “demos”). For those looking to take a look back at what the Yaroze had on offer, this would seem to be the ideal resource.

Of course, even this compilation doesn’t begin to cover the full range of community-developed software; estimated as somewhere in the range of at least a thousand-plus. Dedicated preservationists continue to scour available archives and webpages in search of unaccounted games, as well as reaching out directly to academia and past users hoping to stumble on some unreleased softwares. Still, it’s very much unlikely we’ll ever have a “full” collection of titles developed for the Net Yaroze — not even accounting for prototype builds and games never intended for community consumption. But what can more easily be accounted for and collected are the memories of those involved in the project, and the fondness shared for the so-called Black Pearl. For those fortunate to have been there as it was still active and thriving, those happy memories might well be enough. For the rest of us, the whole history of Net Yaroze will continue to prove a fascinating curio, and a subject to be studied for years to come. As for me personally? I’m glad to have access to as much as we currently do, and eager to dive into it as part of my own contribution to the research.

** Japanese subscription services which included Net Yaroze titles on their demo discs would include PurePure Plus, Dengeki PlayStation, and HYPER PlayStation Re-mix. As of yet, there doesn’t appear to be a comprehensive English language catalogue of which titles debuted exclusively on these compilations.

*** Of course, this isn’t an entirely fair request, and doesn’t necessarily consider the privacy of users past.

“How Do I Register My Interest in Net Yaroze?”

Yes, you read that last bit right: Over the course of the coming months – as part of a new recurring feature for the site – I’ll be exploring the full games content of the 2014 Net Yaroze Collection. This will be intended to cover the collected “Games Released on Demo Discs” and “Games Released on the Internet” categories, as well as “Demos Released on Demo Discs.” In effect, we’ll be excluding the collection of “Demos Released on the Internet,” which largely consist of iterative tutorials and simple experimental software. This still leaves us with nearly 310 titles to work our way through, so I should hope that is sufficient enough for all y’all!

I should mention that the intent of this feature isn’t to crap all over the works of amateur developers, or to write the whole endeavor off as a failure. To quote a peer of mine, Kim Justice: “I’ve seen threads and such that are basically dedicated to ripping on these games. This is – not to be too blunt about it – frankly, a load of bullshit.” While we may have some laughs at the expense of some of the more incomplete or ill-advised aspects of some of these releases; I would caution that it’s all in the interest of good fun, and that all respect is due to the developers who were cutting their teeth on this nearly-first of its kind toolkit. Above all else, the purpose of this feature will be to shed a light on some of the more obscure of these collected obscurities, and penning something like a guide to their contents.

It may be difficult to quantify the impact of the Net Yaroze on games development, just as it is to determine exactly how many creators and releases came about as result of the program. What we can do is take a closer look at what’s available to us currently, and to see if any would-be classics have managed to go unnoticed up to this point. And hey, if this whole dumb idea doesn’t manage to kill me, maybe we’ll take a gander at “Xbox Live Indie Games” or “Game Basic for Sega Saturn” some time thereafter!** In the meantime though, I hope you’ll all look forward to “Yaroze a Day” — to be posted on something adjacent to a weekly basis? Please don’t hold me to that.

“When I spotted an advert for the Net Yaroze in a magazine, I found my calling. I instantly knew that not only was it what I wanted to do, but I now suddenly believed I could do it—and what I couldn’t do, I’d simply teach myself.” ~ James Shaughnessy^[4e]

** Yes, Games Basic for Sega Saturn was a real peripheral / program created by Sega, potentially intended to “compete” against Net Yaroze.^[7] No, do not actually hold me to covering either that or XBLIG at any point in the near future.

[1] ^b “Sony’s new PlayStation: If you can build a better game…” NEXT Generation, Issue 25. January, 1997. Print. (Scan available)
[2] ^b Szczepaniak, John. “15 Years Later: How Sony’s Net Yaroze […]” Gamasutra. April 26, 2012. Web.
[3] Owen, David. “The story of Net Yaroze, Sony’s first indie push.” Gamasutra. July 17, 2013. Web.
[4] ^{b c d e} Tucker, Jake. “Meet The Devs Who Made Indie Games on the Original Playstation.” VICE. April 13, 2017. Web.
[5] ^{b c} Chamberlain, Dan. “What happened to PlayStation’s first indie dev community?” Gamasutra. October 6, 2015. Web.
[6] Smith, Ed. “Doing It Together: Remembering PlayStation’s Net Yaroze Console” VICE. July 29, 2015. Web.
[7] “DIY PlayStation revives bedroom coding scene.” Edge Magazine, Issue 41. January, 1997. Print. (Scan available courtesy ‘unclejun’ of ASSEMblergames, and Mike Garcia of NetYaroze-Europe.com)