I recently had the chance to chat with SapphireRhodonite, the sole developer of SeedlessDS, for what I believe is his first proper interview about the project.

For anyone who hasn’t come across it yet, SeedlessDS is a newer Nintendo DS emulator for Android that’s been built with modern handhelds in mind, especially lower-powered devices and dual-screen hardware. It uses a reconstructed DraStic-based core, but Sapphire has built the surrounding experience himself, including the interface, controller-first navigation, library, save states, scaling options and dual-screen presentation.

It has been pretty pivotal for me while testing and reviewing the Retroid Pocket Duo Lite, where its lightweight approach and proper support for two physical displays have made it my preferred way to play DS games.

In the article we talk about Sapphire’s history with programming and the original DS, why SeedlessDS exists alongside WatermelonDS, what makes dual-screen emulation harder than simply putting one image on each panel, developing for modest Android hardware, and where he hopes to take the emulator next. Hopefully it’s an interesting read for anyone following DS emulation or the growing wave of dual-screen handhelds, or just development in general!