SmileBASIC

SmileBASIC is not a conventional story-driven game. Developed by SmileBoom, it continues the company’s Petit Computer line, which brought a BASIC interpreter to Nintendo hardware. On Nintendo 3DS, the software is known as SmileBASIC, and its central purpose is letting users write, run, save, and share their own programs. Its name reflects BASIC, the beginner-oriented language created at Dartmouth College in the 1960s, but this version is tailored to a handheld console with buttons, touch input, and two screens. Rather than offering a fixed campaign, it supplies an immediately usable development kit for creators.

The 3DS edition includes its own dialect, SmileBASIC, with commands for graphics, sprites, sound, music, input, and file management. Users can type code in the editor, execute it, inspect results, and revise it without a separate computer. A program may combine ordinary BASIC structures such as variables, loops, conditional statements, and subroutines with console-specific facilities. The system also supports touch-screen interaction and access to the 3DS buttons, allowing small games to respond to physical controls. Because programs are stored as projects, the same application functions as an editor, interpreter, asset workspace, and testing environment for experiments built by one person.

A notable feature of the Nintendo 3DS release is its community exchange system. Players can upload completed programs and download projects made by other SmileBASIC users, turning the application into a library of experiments rather than a solitary coding lesson. Shared software has included arcade-style games, demonstrations, utilities, and recreations, although each project remains subject to the platform’s technical limits. The exchange also gives beginners practical examples to read and modify. In this respect, SmileBASIC’s “game” identity comes from the games its audience creates, not from a single official protagonist, setting, or plot supplied by SmileBoom in the original package.

SmileBASIC’s roots lie in SmileBoom’s earlier Petit Computer for Nintendo DSi, itself a downloadable adaptation of BASIC programming for a game console. That lineage matters because it explains the product’s deliberately compact design: users are expected to learn by making things, not by progressing through a prewritten adventure. On 3DS, the larger screen and improved hardware expanded what could be displayed and heard, while the touch screen kept editing accessible. Later, SmileBoom released SmileBASIC 4 for Nintendo Switch, carrying the same creator-first idea to newer hardware. Across these releases, its lasting work is the collection of user-made programs it enabled.