Video game emulation is the process of using software to replicate the functionality of gaming hardware.

It's a fundamental approach to making older games accessible on modern devices.

The Carbon Engine is a tool developed internally at video game publisher and distributor limited-run games.

It allows a variety of emulators to interface with modern video game hardware,

and it supports emulation of SNS, Genesis, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, and other consoles.

Demetrius Giannakis is the lead developer of the Carbon Engine. He has known for his many

contributions in the hacking, emulation, and game development space, and for his highly

popular YouTube channel, Modern Vintage Gamer, or MBG. Demetris joins the podcast with Joe Nash to talk

about how he got started in game development, building emulators from scratch, scoping an

emulation project, homebrew versus official SDKs, the carbon engine, and more.

Joe Nash is a developer, educator, and award-winning community builder, who has worked at

companies including GitHub, Twilio, Unity, and PayPal.

Joe got a start in software development by creating mods and running servers for Gary's

mod, and game development remains his favorite way to experience and explore new technologies and

concepts.

Welcome to Software Engineering Daily. I'm your host for today's episode, Joe Nash, and today I'm joined by Demetris, otherwise known as Modern Vintage Gamer, lead developer of Limited Run Games' Carbon Engine. Welcome to the show, Demetris. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Joe. Thanks to having me on. It's pleasure to be here. Well, so today, as I mentioned, we're here talking about the carbon engine, but before we get into that, your path to limited run games into the carbon engine is really interesting. Can you

tell us a little bit about, you know, what led you to where you are today? Yeah, it's a really interesting question to ask. It's, you know, there's so many different ways to kind of get yourself into the game industry.

Some people do the academic route where they go to school and learn game design concepts and game programming.

I did some of that.

I mean, I went to college.

I did a computer science degree.

But I didn't really go by traditional means. I kind of went in via, I went to college. I did a computer science degree, but I didn't really go by

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