FaxanaduRecomp

This recompilation is a byproduct of developing nesrecomp — the games are the proving ground, the framework is the goal. These are in-development previews, not finished ports — expect rough edges, and depth will keep landing over months, not days. My time for any one title is limited, so I ask for your patience. Contributions are welcome — testing, issues, and PRs to the game or framework all help and will accelerate this game's polish. More on the why at: Recomp + AI: 5 Months Later »

Static recompilation of Faxanadu (NES) for native PC. Built with the NESRecomp framework.

Status: Playable. The game runs from title screen through credits. No outstanding known bugs. Not 100% playtested — minor edge cases may exist, but normal gameplay is fully functional.

Quick Start

1. Download FaxanaduRecomp-windows-x64.zip from Releases
2. Extract and run FaxanaduRecomp.exe
3. Select your Faxanadu (USA) ROM when prompted — the path is saved for future launches

Controls

NES Button	Keyboard
D-Pad	Arrow keys
A	Z
B	X
Start	Enter
Select	Right Shift

Mantra (Password) Features

Faxanadu uses a mantra system instead of battery-backed saves. FaxanaduRecomp adds convenience features around this:

Auto-load — On startup, the game reads saves.txt (next to the exe) and auto-fills the most recent mantra on the password entry screen. No need to write down or retype passwords.

CLI override — --password STRING overrides the saves.txt mantra for a single session.

FaxanaduRecomp.exe [ROM] --password "k8fPcv?,TwSYzGZQhMIQhCEA"

saves.txt format — One mantra per line, most recent first. Human-readable and copy-pasteable. You can edit this file manually to add or change your saved mantra.

Note: Auto-saving mantras from the priest dialog is not yet implemented. For now, write the mantra shown by the priest into saves.txt manually, or pass it via --password.

Save States

Key	Action
F5	Toggle turbo (fast-forward)
F6	Save state → C:\temp\quicksave.sav
F7	Load state ← C:\temp\quicksave.sav

ROM

Field	Value
Title	Faxanadu (USA)
CRC32	57DD23D1 (ROM data only, iNES header excluded)
MD5	b3bb9296b5e1e0c83e90b6da9e8a41aa (ROM data only)
SHA-1	5b05c8859f356013d37f0545f5de5fa1693da5da (ROM data only)

Building from Source

Prerequisites: Windows 10+, Visual Studio 2022, CMake 3.20+ (SDL2 is bundled)

git clone https://github.com/mstan/FaxanaduRecomp
cd FaxanaduRecomp

# Windows
setup.bat

# Linux / macOS
chmod +x setup.sh && ./setup.sh

This initializes the pinned nesrecomp submodule and links the Nestopia oracle core.

Then build:

cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build build --config Release

Architecture

This is a static recompiler, not an emulator. The 6502 machine code in the ROM has been translated to C by NESRecomp and compiled to native x64.

File	Purpose
extras.c	Faxanadu-specific hooks (mantra injection, auto-load)
game.cfg	Recompiler config (dispatch tables, trampolines)
baserom_annotations.csv	Address annotations for generated code
generated/faxanadu_full.c	Recompiled 6502 code (committed)
generated/faxanadu_dispatch.c	Dispatch table (committed)
reference/	Reference screenshots for visual regression

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