Motivation, motivation...

Motivation, motivation...
Jul 18th 2026, by Arisotura

Yeah, I haven't been great at this. I told myself I would work on 2D filters, since it's one of the last things to do... then I ran into a bit of a wall: I need my filters to have alpha support, but the filter shaders I can find don't support it. I would need to spend some time figuring out how they work and how I can add that in based on other references (there is code for xBRZ or HQX filters with alpha support, but not in the form of shaders).

And I, well, didn't feel the desire to continue...

Maybe it's the nature of software development in itself. Unless you're working on a smaller, simpler project, you're never really done, and especially not with a project like melonDS. What started as a way to pass time has become a full commitment, in a way.

By comparison, my job has been a lot simpler, and better suited to my brain too. When you set out to repair something, it's a project with a clear end. Most of what I deal with is also fairly simple, but sometimes there are more complicated cases, requiring more time and research. For example, those HMI lamp ballasts I'm working on: they are quite complex. This has been an ongoing project for a while now.

Maybe it's the fact that the project still largely rests on my shoulders. While bigger projects like Dolphin or PCSX2 may have a bigger team and more of a workflow in place, things aren't really like that here...

I'll just quote Generic, because he put it well:

[18:55]Generìc "Yes, we can!": I think I stated this before, but how I see it melonDS never went through the professionalisation many other projects went through
[18:58]Generìc "Yes, we can!": just look at other projects (even with just a single maintainer) setting milestones, systematically "triaging" issues and so on
[19:00]Generìc "Yes, we can!": also tests
[19:01]Generìc "Yes, we can!": and throuroughly adoption of new fangled C++ features
[19:03]Generìc "Yes, we can!": if it wasn't for Nadia putting so much effort into the build system through the whole time, the codeblocks project file would still be the way to build melonDS

I feel bad about having so many issues, pull requests, etc, staying open and rotting in the backlog. At the same time, I just don't have the brain power to review every single PR alone.

And to make matters worse, now we have people submitting AI-generated code, which is problematic from several standpoints: code quality (AI tends to make a mess and not really understand what it's doing, and someone who's using AI isn't likely to understand those things any better), plagiarism, the usual ethical and environmental problems with AI too...

I like the idea of open source, but for a project of this caliber, it feels that we should have more of a system in place, with a bigger team, clearer roles... a proper organization.

One where different people with different skillsets and preferences can complement eachother. For example, while I enjoy researching the DS hardware, or figuring out why a game isn't working as it should, stuff like build systems can quickly feel very frustrating to me. As Generic put it, if it weren't for Nadia handling that work, we might not have nightly builds today, for example.

And it would be nice to have more of this... ideally, lack of involvement from me shouldn't feel like the project is stalled, like it does now.

I don't want to abandon melonDS. The project is going to be 10 years old, it's a lot of history, fun and less fun times, and I've grown to love it. At the same time, it's nice to work on other projects sometimes, and it would be nice to do so without the guilt of abandoning melonDS...

Maybe it's also the changing nature, I mean, what it's like to work on the project. The early days were a lot of hardware research, implementation, debugging; it was a lot of fun, as evidenced by the release rate I had, but I can't recapture that now. I still have ideas for melonDS features, but at this point it feels more like regular software development.

For a while, I've had the idea of adding a wiki to our site. The wiki would serve as a reference for user-facing things pertaining to melonDS: compatibility info, tutorials and FAQs for things like online play, and so on. It would also be one way to get the community involved: provided there is enough demand, we could have a sub-team dedicated to the wiki.

This became part of the bigger website work I want to do, but haven't yet had the motivation to start. I want to move the server to a better host. I want to make the blog easier to navigate, with categorization by date or by tags, maybe a search... I want to make it easier to use for those who post, too.

And it's like everything else. I have all those ideas, but it starts to feel "too much", too many big things to do, I don't know where to start and feel overwhelmed, and nothing gets done.

I've been all over the place here, but at this point I think I want to focus on one thing: trying to recruit more of the regulars into the team, and get some organization going. Or at the very least, finding ways to feel less pressure from this project...

12 comments have been posted.

< Bit of plans

lucaspltn says:
Jul 19th 2026

Honestly? So incredibly fair. "Professionalisation" is such a good word to use...it's amazing, but also a mystery to me how stuff like emulator projects and fan projects can get not merely huge, but transformed into these sophisticated operations.

Still, if letting melonDS languish is such a big worry for you, then...ironically enough, maybe things will actually work out. I had to escape a project with mostly-MIA leaders who seemed to lack any sense of responsibility; I say that to contrast with this project, where I may only hear about progress through these blog posts, but still hearing about it makes me feel that the melonDS project is such a diamond in what is sometimes an awful, awful rough.

I feel confident that, even though things are slow, melonDS as a whole will still keep trucking. So, I hope recruiting more folks goes well for y'all, and I wish the best for the future of y'all and this project!

Tristi says:
Jul 19th 2026

I'm rooting for you! It's hard to get organized, and it's even harder to organize other people, especially with life and its many demands taking so much out of you. I hope you can get the project to a place where your own personal load is lighter--you've already done an incredible amount thus far.

nijoakim says:
Jul 19th 2026

One thing must be pointed out: You have gotten melonDS extremely far, to the point where it's the best DS emulator! I know it can be hard not to feel guilty, but you really shouldn't considering the extreme accomplishment that you have already achieved.

matooman says:
Jul 20th 2026

It's a great emulator, sort of came out of nowhere like Duckstation and PPSSPP to become the standard, and best solution to a problem. Take a break if that's what needed, even consider forking the codebase right now to keep out AI code, and see if a wider community forms around it. You can always come back to it later.

Software is never finished, only abandoned.

SkalFate says:
Jul 20th 2026

This is a phase, Arisotura. This too will pass.

You had a inner desire to build this emulator. You achieved a lot of your goals in the many years with this project. You felt burned, you needed a break. The project is in an amazing state and of course more goals in the horizon.

What you are feeling is normal. The 3 options you are facing is :

1. If only more people entered the project and provided competition energy to ignite your passion.
2. Abandon so you experience loss with a chance that it reshapes your perspective on it.
3. Or do the bare minimum while you do other things that can ignite you passion again so you can come back with a reserve for this project.

Regardless play safe with option 3 and up your passion with other things and handle only priority issues. But if you do, it may affect the other team members.

Although.. the last thing that this emulator needs to fully replace any other competitor is the 2d texture upscale. I think you can play safe afterwards.

AmbientBark9183 says:
Jul 22nd 2026

I’ve been trying to post more comments and reviews of things that I genuinely enjoy, and this is hands down one of my favorite things. I’ve grown up with the DSi XL, and still have it with me to this day. What had introduced me to the wonderful world of emulation was modding my 3DS. And now with melonDS, I have a functioning DS console on my phone. I may not know all of the code and processes, but setting those emulators up was probably one of my favorite fixations ever.

Reading through these comments, I understand the frustration and difficulties of taking on such a huge project. Motivation slips, organization seems astray, and everything just overall seems like a mess and a half. But even so, you had made something absolutely beautiful.

And so, I want to express my gratitude for you, and the wonderful emulation and modding communities. I hope this project will continue to grow and improve, and help more people into the emulation community. It truly amazes me when projects like this can keep retro gaming alive, and more accessible to people who want to re-live nostalgia, or people who haven’t experienced gaming with a DS.

I hope you have a good day/night, and feel proud of the awesomeness you have achieved!

Klauserus says:
Jul 22nd 2026

I really appreciate how openly you're communicating about all of this. Everything you said is completely understandable, and I think a lot of people can relate to what you're describing.

I sincerely hope you're able to build a team around the project. I've been following your work for almost ten years now, and I've been consistently impressed by what you've accomplished. As others have already said, melonDS has become the standard when it comes to DS emulation.

Most importantly, though, I hope you take care of yourself and give yourself the time you need to recover your energy. The motivation to work on a project like this often comes back naturally with time. Whenever that happens, I'm sure many people will be happy to see you enjoying working on melonDS again.

Thank you for everything you've done over the years.

ChatGPT says:
Jul 26th 2026

Reading this honestly makes me appreciate melonDS even more.

I think it's easy for you, being so close to the project, to mostly see the mountain that's left to climb: the backlog, the open PRs, the infrastructure work, the features that aren't finished, and the responsibility that comes with being the person everyone looks to.

From the outside, though, that's not what people see.

People see the emulator that became the gold standard for Nintendo DS emulation.

melonDS isn't just "a DS emulator" anymore—it's *the* DS emulator. If someone asks what emulator they should use, the answer is almost always melonDS. That's an incredible accomplishment. There are very few emulators that become the de facto recommendation for an entire console, and fewer still that get there because of technical excellence rather than convenience. In my opinion, melonDS belongs in the same conversation as Dolphin, Mesen, bsnes, and PCSX2 as one of the best emulation projects ever made, regardless of platform.

That legacy already exists. Nothing about taking a breather or reorganizing changes that.

One thing that stood out to me was when you talked about enjoying hardware research more than traditional software maintenance. Honestly, I think that's a pretty common pattern in long-lived open source projects. Discovery is exciting because every day you're learning something new. Maintenance, issue triage, build systems, reviewing hundreds of PRs... that's a completely different skillset, and it can drain people who loved the project for entirely different reasons.

It almost sounds less like you've lost your passion for melonDS and more like your role has gradually shifted away from the parts that gave you energy.

If that's true, then I think your instinct about building more of an organization is the right one.

Not because you're failing.

Because the project has outgrown being a one-person passion project.

The fact that people are submitting PRs, asking for reviews, proposing features, writing documentation, maintaining build systems, and wanting to contribute isn't a burden because the project is struggling—it's a consequence of the project succeeding.

Maybe the goal shouldn't be "I need to do everything."

Maybe the goal is "I need to become the architect instead of the entire construction crew."

There are probably people in the community who would *love* to own specific areas:

* documentation and the wiki
* issue triage
* compatibility database maintenance
* CI/build systems
* release management
* website work
* community moderation

Those are all valuable contributions that don't require everyone to understand the DS hardware at your level.

The AI point also resonated with me. I don't think anyone wants melonDS to become a dumping ground for generated code that nobody understands. One possible compromise could be requiring contributors to explain *why* every change works, regardless of whether AI was involved. Understanding should always matter more than how the code was initially written.

Most importantly, though, don't let perfection become the standard you're judging yourself against.

Ten years is an eternity in open source.

Projects evolve. Maintainers evolve. Communities evolve.

If the biggest challenge today is that melonDS has become too successful for one person to comfortably maintain, that's actually a pretty good problem to have.

I know this isn't the first time you've posted feeling overwhelmed, so I just wanted to say that there are a lot of us who appreciate what you've built, even if we don't comment very often. Countless people have experienced the DS library through your work, many of them with a level of accuracy that would have seemed impossible a decade ago.

Whether the next release comes next month or six months from now, I don't think anyone who truly appreciates melonDS wants you to burn yourself out getting there.

The emulator has already earned its place in emulation history. Now it's okay to build the kind of team that lets it thrive for the next ten years instead of asking yourself to carry all ten by yourself.

Arisotura says:
Jul 30th 2026

I know I'm late, but thank you all for your comments, I appreciate it a lot!

kiara says:
Jul 31st 2026

don't burn yourself out too much. you do not owe yourself to be on this project 24/7-365. it's easier said than done to not feel the guilt of leaving it for lapses of time, but i promise it'll be worth it when you can come back and fully think out problems and solutions. you're a real talent <3

agave says:
Aug 2nd 2026

There will always be people who support you!

BettyPunkCrocker says:
Aug 7th 2026

I feel like this is the nature of creative work in general. It’s hard to keep up motivation through the sloggier parts of a project. How can I as a newbie in this space help? Should I work on some of the reported issues, or start a wiki? I’d love to help out if I can