BLiNX 2: Masters of Time & Space

BLiNX 2 is a 2004 Xbox action game: you play a cat who cleans up time with a vacuum gun, and who can stop, slow, rewind and record time to get through each stage. This project turns your own copy of the Xbox disc into a game that runs on Windows, a Mac or a Steam Deck. No emulator, and no disc in a drive once it is built.

[!TIP] Get the builder: download the wizard for your computer from the latest release, point it at your own disc image, and it builds and installs the game for you.

Your computer	Download
Windows 10 or 11 (x86-64)	blinx2-wizard-<version>-windows-x64.zip
Mac (Apple silicon)	blinx2-wizard-<version>-macos.zip
Steam Deck or Linux PC	blinx2-wizard-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz

No game is included. You need your own copy of BLiNX 2; everything the builder makes from it stays on your machines.

[!IMPORTANT] Supported game version. This port is built for one release of BLiNX 2 only:

Title	BLiNX2
Title ID	0x4D530065
Region	region-free
Version	1
default.xbe sha256	0c57fd72053077bc938876d1f2477b937e1f70566500c0e020bb45bbfa4ddc5eaa186954c47d9f0a98f8690948e8c43bae15201aa49c3457a42402a142b0c60e

The wizard checks your copy on its Dump page before it builds; by hand, ./blinx2 fingerprint /path/to/your/disc.iso says the same. Another region or version is not supported: it warns "another release", and the game may crash or misbehave. A modded copy warns too.

How the builder works

• Checks your computer and fetches the build tools it needs, each download checked against a known checksum. It sends nothing of yours.
• Checks your disc image or game folder, and says before building when it is another release or a modded copy.
• Builds an installer for this computer, or for another one: a Windows setup program, a Mac app (.dmg) or a Steam Deck bundle that adds the game to Steam.
• Lets you pick the basic options before building:
  • Render scale
  • Start fullscreen
  • Sharper HUD and menus
• Makes small updates for a device that already has a build, and reuses most of the work when you build again.

Step by step, with the SmartScreen and Gatekeeper prompts, and the by-hand route: docs/playing.md.

Status

The whole game plays: every stage and boss has been reached in scripted runs, with sound and saves, and the title, attract mode, stage 1 and the story route to the hub are checked frame by frame against reference frames on every build. It runs at 30 frames per second and 4:3, as on the Xbox; widescreen and a sharper picture are options (below).

You play on	Graphics	State
Windows 10 or 11	Direct3D 11	Plays with sound and saves.
Steam Deck, Linux (Proton)	Direct3D 11 (DXVK)	Plays with sound and saves.
Mac (Apple silicon)	Metal	Plays with sound and saves.

Top known issues (all of them: docs/playing.md):

• On Linux under Proton, resizing the window by hand does not reach the game; use fullscreen and the render scale instead.
• A few boss-stage artefacts (sky wedges in Boss 1, shadow shapes in two later bosses) are still being checked against the original hardware.
• On a Mac, one scripted run crashed in stage 5-1 after about 90 s; it is being investigated.

Showcase

The in-game menu

F10 on the keyboard (Guide+A or Back+L3 held on a pad) opens a menu over the game while it keeps running. Its pages: Render (scale, aspect, filtering), Shaders, Pack (the HUD pack), Game (the game's language), Mods, Stats, Controls, Saves and Files. Most settings apply at once; Save keeps what you changed.

Mods and enhancements

Every mod is off, or at the Xbox's setting, unless the table says otherwise. Open the in-game menu, go to the page in the table and change the option; most apply at once, and Save keeps them for the next start. The wizard also asks for the render scale and the sharper HUD before it builds.

Mod	Menu page	What it does	Default
Render scale	Render	Draws the 3D at 1 to 4 times the Xbox's 640x480: sharper, slower.	1
Aspect ratio	Render	Widescreen: 16:9, 16:10 or 21:9 show more of the stage at the sides instead of stretching it (from the next start).	4:3
Anisotropic filtering	Render	Sharper ground and walls seen at a slant: 2, 4, 8 or 16.	0
Overscan crop	Render	Crops the border an old TV hid, and zooms the rest (4:3 only).	0
2D on guest grid	Render	Keeps 2D art on the Xbox's pixel grid at render scale 2 and up, so tiled menus and HUD show no seams.	off
Scaling filter	Render	How the picture is stretched to the window: nearest is crisp, linear smooth, integer whole multiples only.	nearest
HUD margin	Render	Pulls the HUD in from the screen edges on a wide picture (0 to 64).	0
Profile	Shaders	A shader over the picture: crt-lottes, crt-lottes-fast or crt-hyllian for an old TV's look, fsr to upscale.	Off
Texture pack	Pack	The HUD, the menus and the font redrawn at four times the Xbox's size, from your own game files.	on, once the pack is built
HUD at the screen edges	Mods	On a wide screen, the radar, the time panel and the counters move out to the edges.	on
Bloom	Mods	The game's soft glow over bright parts of the picture: on or off, and how strong (0 to 2).	on, 1
Character detail	Mods	At render scale 2 and up, characters keep their detailed models as far away as at the Xbox's resolution.	off
Free camera	Mods	Fly a camera anywhere in the stage, stop the world and hide the HUD, for your own screenshots.	off
BLiNX 1 crystals	Mods	Collect crystals the BLiNX 1 way: a row of four, where three of one colour give that time control.	off
Full Diagonal Movement	Mods	Diagonals run up to 1.69 times as fast as straight, as in BLiNX 1.	off
Speed readout	Mods	Shows Blinx's run speed on screen; a debug readout for the mod above.	off
Enemies	Mods	Spawn a copy of the nearest enemy, defeat the nearest one, and raise enemy hp.	off
Shop	Mods	Change the shop's prices and the guns' ammo, power, shot speed and fire rate.	off
Walls	Mods	Thin-wall fix, experimental: meant to stop Blinx sliding through thin walls.	off
Collision	Mods	A debug view: the stage's collision triangles drawn around Blinx.	off
Debug menu	Mods	The developers' own debug menu and stage select, opened at the title's PRESS START.	off
Language	Game	The language the game is told the console is set to: en, ja, de, fr, es or it (from the next start).	en

The pictures below are the same shot of the same scripted run through stage 3, run once per setting, so only the setting differs: the stock setting on the left, the mod's on the right. The water and the timer move a little between runs. Render scale, aspect, shader, texture pack and bloom were taken on the 2026.11.2 build with Direct3D 11 on Windows; the others on a Mac with Metal.

Render scale

The Xbox drew every game at 640x480. Render scale 3 draws the 3D at 1920x1440; the wizard asks for it, and Render > Render scale changes it while you play.

Aspect ratio

Render > Aspect ratio > 16:9 keeps the game's height of view and shows more of the stage at the sides; menus and dialogue stay centred, and the movies fill the width. It takes effect at the next start.

Anisotropic filtering

Render > Anisotropic filtering > 16 keeps the ground's texture sharp as it runs away from the camera. A small change in this game, easiest to see at render scale 1.

Overscan crop

A still shows only a zoom. Its origin: a 2004 TV hid a band around the picture, so console games kept their HUD away from the border, and some left junk there. Overscan crop cuts that band and fills the window with the rest. BLiNX 2 draws a clean border and needs none.

2D on guest grid

Above render scale 1 the 3D gets sharper, but 2D art made of tiles (menus, the HUD, fonts) can show thin seams where the tiles meet, because each tile now samples between the Xbox's pixels. This keeps 2D on the Xbox's own pixel grid, as at scale 1: no seams, blockier 2D art.

Scaling filter

The Xbox drew for a TV; a window is larger, so the picture is stretched to fit. Nearest keeps every pixel sharp, linear blends them for a softer picture, and integer scales by whole multiples only, with a border, so every pixel is the same size.

HUD margin

With HUD at the screen edges on a wide picture, the HUD sits at the very edge of the screen. HUD margin pulls it back in, in steps of 4 of the Xbox's pixels, for a TV that crops its border or for a picture that reads better nearer the middle.

Profile

Shaders > Profile > crt-lottes draws the picture like an old TV, with scanlines and a shadow mask; crt-hyllian is another look, and fsr is AMD's upscaler instead. The Shaders page tunes each one, and saves a chain of them as a profile of your own.

Texture pack

The wizard's "Sharper HUD and menus" option redraws the HUD, the menus and the dialogue font at four times the Xbox's size, from your own game files (on Windows and Linux it needs the free PT Sans Narrow Bold font installed first). Pack > Texture pack turns it off for a session. By hand: the HUD texture pack. A pack of every texture, the 3D world included, is built by hand (with CLI 0.22 or later, the next pin move).

HUD at the screen edges

The game placed its HUD for a 4:3 TV. On a wide screen, Mods > HUD at the screen edges keeps the radar, the time panel and the counters at the edges; off, they stay where they were in the middle 4:3 of the picture. It does nothing at 4:3.

Bloom

Mods > Bloom > off draws the picture without the game's soft glow; Bloom intensity makes it weaker (towards 0) or stronger (up to 2).

Character detail

The game swaps characters to simpler models by how big they are on a 480-line screen. At a higher render scale they are drawn sharper, so the swap shows: goggles, gloves, boots and shadows go plain at a distance. Mods > Character detail keeps the detailed models as far as they reached at the Xbox's resolution. It costs some speed.

Free camera

F6 (Guide+Y, or Back+R3 held on a pad) detaches the camera from Blinx and flies it anywhere in the stage; End stops the world and F7 hides the HUD. Its origin: the game's own camera follows Blinx on a fixed path, and this was made for screenshots and for looking at a stage from where the game never shows it. Controls: docs/playing.md.

BLiNX 1 crystals

No picture: it changes how crystals count. In BLiNX 1, crystals filled a row of four in the order you picked them up: three of one colour gave that time control, four gave it twice, and the row emptied at four. BLiNX 2 changed that; this mod brings the first game's rule back, in the Sweepers stages. Controls still go to the d-pad with the game's limits, and a full control pays gold.

Full Diagonal Movement

No picture: it changes speed. In BLiNX 1, a diagonal on the keyboard or on a stick with a square gate ran up to 1.69 times as fast as straight. BLiNX 2 caps diagonals at straight speed; this mod lifts the cap. Pads and the keyboard also need Controls > Sticks > Square left stick, so a diagonal reaches the corner.

Speed readout

A small card with Blinx's run speed: 1.00 at a full straight push, up to 1.69 on a diagonal with Full Diagonal Movement, and the peak of about the last second. It was made to measure that mod.

Enemies

No picture: it adds actions. Spawn a copy of the nearest enemy, defeat the nearest one through the game's own damage, or raise the hp of the game's first enemy type, from the mod's page or a key you bind. It was made as the first user of the port's enemy interface for mods, and shows what one can do; it is not in VS mode.

Shop

No picture: it changes numbers. Prices, and every gun's ammo, power, shot speed and fire rate, as a percentage of the game's. Like Enemies, it was made on the port's shop interface for mods. Off puts the game's values back; nothing of it is saved, and what you bought stays yours.

Walls

Experimental: in a wall thinner than Blinx's collision sphere, the game can push him out by the far face, so he slides through, and this mod pushes him back out by the side he went in. Only a probe of the game's triangle test shows the slide so far; nobody has reproduced it in play.

Collision

A debug view: it draws the stage's collision triangles around Blinx, by the class the game tests them as, and changes nothing the game does. It was made to check the Walls fix against the game's own data.

Debug menu

The developers left their debug menu and stage select in the disc. Turn the mod on, then open the menu from the mod's page at the title's PRESS START. The few entries that hang on the loading screen (MODEL_EDIT, GARAGE, ENDING, THEATER) are left out.

Language

The Xbox told a game which language the console's dashboard was set to, and BLiNX 2 carries six on the disc. Game > Language picks one; the game reads it at the next start.

All the options, the by-hand settings file and the controls: docs/playing.md.

Build requirements and common gotchas

• About 15 GB free for the build, plus room for the installer.
• A Windows 10 or 11 PC, an Apple silicon Mac, or a Steam Deck or Linux PC (in Desktop Mode on the Deck).
• An internet connection for the first build (the tools download once).
• Your copy is the supported version (the box above).

The failures players hit most:

• "Files are missing", or music, voices or a movie are missing: the disc image is incomplete. Dump it again and build again; the game's log names each missing file.
• Mac: "the app is damaged" or cannot be opened: that is Gatekeeper. Right-click the app and pick Open, once.
• Steam Deck: the first launch shows only a notice for a few minutes: it is downloading Proton; the notice closes when the game starts.

The rest: docs/playing.md.

Report a bug

Open a bug report: the form asks for what we need (your game version, the build version, where you play, your settings and the logs). Never attach game files, a disc image, a save or a built bundle.

More documentation

Document	For
docs/playing.md	building by hand, installing, controls, saves, every option, the HUD texture pack, known issues, troubleshooting
docs/developers.md	how the port works, building from source, the toolchain, testing, environment variables, contributing

Sister project. Burnout 3: Takedown is recompiled with the same toolkit and build wizard.

Legal

This repository contains no game data and no game code:

• no game files, assets or saves;
• no lifted (recompiled) game code. src/recomp/gen/ is generated on your machine by the pipeline and is never committed.

To build it you need your own legally obtained copy of BLiNX 2. BLiNX 2 and its assets belong to their respective owners; this project is not affiliated with them. A bundle made by blinx2 package contains your copy of the game and code generated from it: it is for your own machines only, and is not yours to redistribute. The same goes for a HUD texture pack made by blinx2 enhance hud: it is built from your game files.

License and credits

MIT, see LICENSE. Parts of src/main.c, src/recomp_manual.c and CMakeLists.txt started from xboxrecomp's MIT-licensed new-game templates; the license file carries that notice too.

The toolkit that the build links in statically carries LGPL-2.1 APU code extracted from xemu. If you distribute a built binary, read NOTICE first.

Built on xboxrecomp by sp00nznet. The HUD pack's Latin font is redrawn from PT Sans Narrow Bold (ParaType, OFL 1.1), which you install yourself; it is never vendored.