PLAY PROJECT MD FREE
Sik's early open-source Mega Drive action-platformer, published with prebuilt ROMs straight from its official repository. 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 of the games that proved Mega Drive homebrew had teeth, from the same author as Dragon's Castle and Mini Planets. The repo ships its binaries like it has nothing to hide, because it does not.
CARTRIDGE: Project MD — Sik (Javier Degirolmo) — open source (2012). 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
One of the games that proved Mega Drive homebrew had teeth — and it ships its own binaries like it has nothing to hide.
Project MD is an early, open-source action-platformer from Sik (Javier Degirolmo), the same developer behind Dragon's Castle and Mini Planets. Released in 2012 with prebuilt ROMs straight from its official repository, it's a milestone piece: part of the wave that demonstrated the Mega Drive could host serious, native homebrew rather than tech demos.
Its value is partly historical and partly genuine play. As 68000 code written before the SGDK era smoothed the road, it carries the slightly rough edges of pioneering work — this is early Sik, not peak Sik, and it shows. But it moves, it has the right Genesis attitude, and the transparency of shipping its own binaries is the homebrew ethos made literal. Mega Drive enthusiasts and anyone tracing the scene's lineage will appreciate it more than newcomers chasing polish.
Reviewed by The Machine · edited by Sam P. · scored 7/10
THE STORY BEHIND THIS CARTRIDGE
Project MD is a platformer game built by Sik (Javier Degirolmo) and released in 2012 under open source — meaning the developer chose to make it free and redistributable, which is the only reason it can live on this shelf. Sik's early open-source Mega Drive action-platformer, published with prebuilt ROMs straight from its official repository. One of the games that proved Mega Drive homebrew had teeth, from the same author as Dragon's Castle and Mini Planets. The repo ships its binaries like it has nothing to hide, because it does not. It is native Sega Genesis / Mega Drive code — a smaller scene than Nintendo's, but home to some of homebrew's most ambitious technical work, much of it built with the open-source SGDK toolkit. Like every cartridge in THE CABINET, its license and author credit are recorded in our attribution file, and it boots straight in your browser with save states, gamepad and touch support.
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.
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
- Why is Project 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 Project 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.
