Theme for a Day

So, you probably already know by now that Nintendo is releasing the standard sized New 3DS in the United States. (Imaging my lack of surprise!) I'm not sure I'd be so quick to call it "the best 3DS" as Parish has, but it does have the advantage of removable front plates, letting you customize it at your whim without having to run out and buy an entirely new system. As an owner of the slightly less new New 3DS XL, I don't have that option, so I've had to customize my system from the inside. Allow me to explain...

About a month ago, someone found a backdoor in the 3DS hardware that didn't require the costly Cubic Ninja cartridge; just Ironfall, a freebie on the Nintendo eShop. That game is no longer available, but I managed to snag a copy before it was purged, along with an exploit that lets you run homebrew software. Most of it is really early and nowhere near as impressive as the dozens of apps available for the PSP. There's a promising but buggy Super NES emulator here, a program that lets you earn more than ten walk coins a day there... that kind of thing. 

However, there's one program called CHMM that lets you install your own custom themes, after you design them on your computer with another program called YATA+. It's a time consuming and occasionally frustrating process, but it yields fantastic results if you know what you're doing. I decided to take a crack at theme design myself, using some Mr. Driller fan art from a friend who calls herself Momodriller. Here's how it turned out...

Momo's use of perspective, with the young hero plunging to the center of the Earth to do battle with a gigantic mining machine, makes this picture look great on the 3DS's twin screens. 

But that ain't all, folks! I whipped up several other themes, which I'll share with you now. I put this one together shortly after making the Mr. Driller theme...

All right, it's nothing particularly exciting, but what can I say? I'm a fan of the show. Wilmore's takedown of the jerky Minnesota dentist who shot that lion bordered on glorious. Okay, here's something more relevant...

It's Capcom vs SNK 2, one of the best fighting games ever made! I cobbled this together from images I found online, along with a screenshot I took in the NullDC emulator. I have mixed thoughts about using yellow on the bottom screen... it tends to distract you from the icons, even with the saturation turned down. Okay, just one more!

Like the Wilmore theme posted earlier, this was rather self-indulgent. However, that shot of the cast works pretty well in 3D. You almost feel like they're looking straight at you... somewhat accusingly, I might add. Hold on a sec, I've got to hide my smuggled dilithium crystals...

Anyway! If you'd like to make your own 3DS themes, this tutorial will help you get in on the fun. Just keep in mind that you'll need a way to hack your system, be it with a copy of Cubic Ninja, Ironfall, or the YouTube app.