Rec0m88 exists so that
playing together is easy.
A browser arcade and a netplay emulator, built so that playing an old game with a friend takes seconds instead of an afternoon.
What Rec0m88 is
Rec0m88 is two things sharing a codebase. There is a browser arcade you can open and play in about two seconds, with nothing to install and no account to make. And there is a desktop emulator for people who want the full setup: a real controller, save states, and peer-to-peer netplay across twenty plus classic systems.
We started the project in 2025 for an unglamorous reason. Playing a console game with someone in another country was still harder than it needed to be. Most options wanted you to forward a port on your router, install a runtime, make an account, or all three. Every one of those steps quietly loses people who only wanted to play a game.
If a feature needs a manual, it is not finished yet. The rule we build against
Why preservation matters
Old hardware is on a clock. Capacitors leak, optical discs rot, cartridge contacts corrode, and the battery-backed saves in a lot of 90s carts have already forgotten everything they were holding. Emulation is how any of it survives long enough to be studied, or just played on a wet Sunday.
We try not to be precious about it. Some preservation projects chase cycle accuracy so hard that almost nobody can run the result on the machine they own. Accuracy matters, but so does a person being able to click a link and have a game start. We aim for the middle of that, and we would rather ship something playable than something perfect and unused.
Getting the picture right
Part of that is how the games look. A modern OLED or 4K panel shows raw pixels harder and sharper than any display these games were designed for. Our shader pipeline can put back the things that used to soften them: CRT scanlines, shadow masks, and the slight phosphor bloom that made sprite art read the way the artists drew it. These are not decorative filters. On the hardware of the time they were part of the picture.
How Rec0m88 netplay works
Classic netplay usually does one of two things. It routes your inputs through a central server, which adds distance and therefore delay. Or it asks you to open a port on your router, which adds a support ticket and loses most people at the first screenshot.
Rec0m88 uses WebRTC instead. It negotiates the connection between two players directly, so there is no port forwarding step and, where the network allows it, your controller inputs take the short path rather than a detour through a server in another region.
The same connection carries local Nintendo DS link play. On real hardware, two DS consoles sitting next to each other talk over a local wireless link; Rec0m88 tunnels that link layer over WebRTC, so the two machines can be in different countries and the game still behaves as though they were on the same sofa.
WebAssembly
The browser arcade runs on WebAssembly, so games execute at close to native speed in the tab you already have open. No plugins, no Flash Player, nothing to trust with system access.
Peer-to-peer
WebRTC handles connection setup, which means no port forwarding and no middle-man server sitting between two players who are already sat next to each other on the map.
Where the games come from
This is the question we get asked most, so here is the plain answer.
The browser games in the HTML5 and Flash library are licensed through GameDistribution, which handles the rights side with the studios that made them. The retro section is homebrew: original games written for old hardware by independent developers and released for free distribution. Those are credited, with a link back to the developer. Neither category is a pirated commercial ROM, and we do not host or link to any.
The desktop emulator is a separate matter. It is the machine, not the cartridge. It ships with no game files and no system BIOS, and it never will. If you want to play something, dump your own disc or cartridge and load the file yourself. A dumped copy of a game you own is also the only copy of it that will still work in twenty years, which is rather the point.
The interface
Emulation has a long history of burying good software under bad configuration. Rec0m88 tries not to add to it. Controller setup, netplay lobbies and system selection all happen in the interface, and none of them require you to open a config file in Notepad and guess.
- Controller support. Modern USB and Bluetooth pads are detected on connection, and remapping is done by pressing the button you want, not by editing an ini file.
- Local saves. Save states and progress stay on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to lose access to.
- Modular cores. Systems are added as their emulation cores mature, so the app picks up new hardware support without a rebuild.
What we are working on
Nothing in this section exists yet. It is here so you can see where the project is heading, not so you think it already shipped.
The next thing on the list is spectator rooms: letting people watch a Rec0m88 netplay session live in the browser rather than only play in it. Speedruns, tournaments and high score runs are more fun with an audience, and the WebRTC layer we already use for two-player sessions is most of the work.
Beyond that, more systems and better shader presets, in roughly that order. The project is small and self-funded, so things ship when they are ready rather than when a roadmap says so.