Nick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR
- ThunderPass is a modern reimagining of StreetPass from the Nintendo 3DS, for Android-based gaming consoles.
- Users can create gamer profiles and then passively share them with other nearby gamers over Bluetooth.
- While the idea sounds cool, there are some concerns about privacy and security with the vibe-coded app.
Everybody’s got a favorite era in gaming, and we are just suckers for nostalgia that targets these memories. If you were a big 3DS player, chances are you might remember StreetPass, Nintendo’s proximity-based system for sharing Miis and other game data. Now as we turn more and more to Android-based consoles for emulating classics like the 3DS, one dev has cooked up a modern Android-based alternative that hopes to help you relive some of those StreetPass memories.
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It’s called ThunderPass, and it’s designed to work with Android retro consoles like the AYN Thor, Retroid Pocket, and Odin models. Unlike StreetPass, ThunderPass operates over Bluetooth to find nearby devices, but once it does, the functionality shares a lot of overlap with StreetPass.
You can exchange profiles, and earn badges and Volts — currency you can use to upgrade your profile — by doing so. The app claims a number of privacy-focused features, like the ability to limit sharing to only anonymous data, withholding stuff like your RetroAchievements username that could be used to track you elsewhere.
Sounds kinda cool, right? A modern reinvention of a retro gaming feature, optimized for today’s retro hardware? In theory, sure, but there’s already a small controversy brewing up around ThunderPass.
Over on Reddit’s SBCGaming sub, in threads started by users like HouseOnTw1tch, a growing number of voices are raising some concerns about ThunderPass. While developer Gui Lima admits to vibe coding the app with the help of AI, some critics suggest the AI usage goes a lot further than code, and point to AI hallmarks even in the documentation. We see some concerns about just how robust the app’s security could be, and things like a hard-coded API key are offered up as evidence in support of sloppy practices. There are even accusations of stolen code snippets.
That said, the ThunderPass source code is all up there, posted for you to check out on GitHub, so there’s really nothing stopping anyone from identifying any specific issues they have with the app and actually addressing them.
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