The project
Credits & licenses
Updated October 17, 2026
Where the audio engine came from: Nikku
The heart of the player —reading a BRSTM file, decoding its DSP-ADPCM audio and playing it in the browser with the exact loop— grew out of Nikku, the open-source web BRSTM player created by Kenrick (kenrick95) and released under the MIT license.
We started from its code and have rewritten and extended it a lot: TypeScript, streaming playback from Google Drive, file validation, track selection in multi-stream files, fades, playback with the screen off on phones and everything around it (library, playlists, listening times…). But the idea and the first step are his. Thank you, Kenrick.
If all you want is to open a file and listen to it, with no account or library, the Nikku demo is still a great option.
Nikku license (MIT)
The MIT license allows the software to be used, copied, modified and distributed as long as the copyright notice and the license text are included. Here it is, exactly as its author publishes it:
Copyright 2019 Kenrick Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Format documentation
Nobody outside Nintendo ever published the BRSTM specification: everything known about the format comes from the community's reverse engineering. These were especially helpful:
- WiiBrew, for its description of the BRSTM file (header, HEAD, ADPC and DATA chunks).
- BrawlLib / BrawlBox, the Super Smash Bros. Brawl file editor whose decoder Nikku used as a reference. It lives on today as BrawlCrate.
- OpenRevolution, by the people behind Smash Custom Music, for its documentation and free tools for BRSTM and its sibling formats.
- vgmstream, the reference for hundreds of video game audio formats.
Third-party software and resources
The app is built with these open-source components and services:
| Component | Used for | License |
|---|---|---|
| Angular and Angular Material | App structure and interface | MIT |
| RxJS | Reactive player state | Apache 2.0 |
| Bulma | Base styles | MIT |
| ngx-toastr | Notifications | MIT |
| Roboto and Material Icons | Typography and icons | Apache 2.0 |
| Quicksand | Logo lettering | SIL OFL 1.1 |
| CodeIgniter 3 | Server (API) | MIT |
| IGDB.com | Game data and cover art in the info panel | IGDB/Twitch API terms |
| Google Drive API and Google Sign-In | Playing your music from Drive and signing in with Google | Google API terms |
The full text of every license included in the code your browser downloads is in 3rdpartylicenses.txt.
To the community
To everyone who has spent more than fifteen years making perfect loops, documenting games and sharing tools: the Brawl, Project+ and Mario Kart Wii custom music communities, Smash Custom Music and many others. And, of course, to the composers of the soundtracks that make a single theme worth listening to for hours.