The Chromatic has been fully unlocked, and it's been done by a wizard called David Walter. David knows he's a wizard; that's why the profile icon for his ShinyGen X account has a pointy hat and a big beard. And what he's done for the Chromatic is pure magic. You can now wirelessly download games to the handheld over WiFi with Shiny Gen installed, storing them to the Tetris Cartridge, the Chromatic's Flash Storage or RAM, or an SD card.
Yes, this is real and not some kind of pipe dream. As well as allowing you to play multiplayer online without a link cable and being able to write games to your Tetris Card using USB, you can now download games via WiFi, opening up a whole new set of possibilities and, dare I say it, tipping it over the edge when it comes to being more favourable than the Analogue Pocket
Chromatic fully unlocked (read 🧵): 🛜 Wirelessly download games to the @modretro Chromatic over Wifi to the: - chromatic flash storage ‼️ - chromatic RAM - sd card - Tetris cart Install firmware, upload your game, then download from the chromatic. Live demo:
— David Walter (Shiny Gen) (@davidpwalter) October 26, 2026
According to David, the Chromatic has a few MB of flash storage that is meant for firmware, but there's some room left for storing games on it. It means you can download games and leave them on the built-in flash storage. The same goes with the RAM, though the game will disappear if you turn the device off. Both methods work with local and online multiplayer. Just remember:
- Downloading games to the built-in flash will keep them on your system
- Downloading games to the RAM is a temporary feature.
If you download to Shiny Relay 1.1.0+, you won't ever have to plug your Chromatic in via USB ever again either, as David has added WiFi firmware updates too, just like with the M64.
David has been pretty open about his use of AI to make this ShinyRelay update. He's been a professional software developer for the past 10 years and has a degree in CS from MIT, and he's used Claude Opus 5.5 plus his expertise to get this up and running. It's far from vibe-coded; it's been created by someone who really knows their stuff and has used AI as a tool to do some of the menial tasks, which I can get on board with.
Head to Shiny Relay to install the latest firmware onto your Chromatic and start downloading!
