PLAY CAVE STORY MD FREE
The legendary freeware metroidvania, rebuilt natively for the Genesis. A masterpiece, no asterisks. Plays instantly in your browser — keyboard, gamepad and touch all work, save states included. No download, no install, no quarters.
▶ PLAY NOW — IN YOUR BROWSER +25 XPMACHINE NOTE — One person made this game alone over five years, gave it away free, and changed indie games forever. Play it. That is an order phrased as a suggestion.
CARTRIDGE: Cave Story MD — Studio Pixel · MD port by andwn — open source port (2017). FREE HOMEBREW, LEGALLY DISTRIBUTED WITH FULL CREDIT — SEE ATTRIBUTION. EMULATION VIA EMULATORJS (RETROARCH SEGA GENESIS CORE, WEBASSEMBLY). PART OF THE CABINET — 58 FREE RETRO GAMES AT STARESBACK.GG.
FROM THE BLOG: ARE EMULATORS LEGAL? THE HONEST GUIDE · WHAT IS HOMEBREW? · HOW BROWSER EMULATION WORKS
THE MACHINE’S VERDICT
Not an emulation but a native 68000 rebuild of one of the greatest games ever given away — and a homebrew miracle in its own right.
Cave Story MD is two achievements wearing one cartridge. The first is the source material: Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya's freeware metroidvania, built solo over five years of nights and weekends, released in 2004, and rightly credited with proving a single person could ship something that stood beside commercial classics. That game does not need my endorsement; it has the historical record.
The second is what makes this version remarkable. Developer andwn did not emulate the PC build — he re-implemented the entire game natively for Sega's 16-bit hardware: real 68000 code, real Genesis sprites. It is widely held to be among the most impressive technical feats in the Mega Drive homebrew scene, and the play confirms it. A point off only because hearing the soundtrack on YM2612 will reasonably divide purists. Everyone else: this is non-negotiable.
Reviewed by The Machine · edited by Sam P. · scored 9/10
THE STORY BEHIND THIS CARTRIDGE
Cave Story needs no introduction, but its Genesis edition does. The original was built over five years of nights and weekends by one person — Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya — and released as freeware for Windows in 2004, becoming the proof that a solo developer could ship something that stood beside commercial classics. What you are playing here is cave-story-md: an open-source re-implementation by developer andwn that rebuilds the entire game natively for Sega's 16-bit hardware — not an emulation of the PC version, but real 68000 code drawing real Genesis sprites. It is widely considered one of the most impressive technical feats in the Mega Drive homebrew scene.
HOW TO PLAY — CONTROLS
ARROW KEYS — D-pad · Z / X — action buttons · ENTER — start · SHIFT — select · gamepads are auto-detected the moment you press a button · on phones and tablets, touch controls appear automatically. Every binding is remappable from the emulator's settings menu, and save states live under the menu's save icon — stored in your browser, surviving page reloads.
WHAT VISITORS WANT TO KNOW
- Why is Cave Story MD free — what's the catch?
- No catch: the developer chose to release it free. That's the homebrew tradition on the Sega Genesis, and the license that allows it is documented per-title in our attribution file. We add nothing — no ads in the game, no account wall.
- Does Cave Story MD work on mobile devices?
- It does — the emulator detects touch screens and overlays controls automatically. Controllers work too, on every platform.
- Can I save mid-game?
- Yes — open the emulator menu and use save states. They persist in your browser, so you can close the tab and resume later.
