If you've got access to the Firefox browser, load up the 3DNES emulator right now and witness some actual techno-magic, as ROMs of 2D NES games are transformed into fully 3D experiences. It's half inspiring, half terrifying.

The work of Vietnamese developer Trần Vũ Trúc, the emulator analyses NES ROMs uploaded to the cloud and then, well, take a look:


It's not entirely clear how this is working, or exactly what it's doing – the emulator doesn't just extend the sprites backwards, but appears to take some artistic license with how they're presented, dropping shadows and deciding where environmental elements sit in relation to one another.

It's very much a work in progress – Mega Man is more or less a living diorama, while Zelda 2 occasionally looks like one of Shigeru Miyamoto's darker nightmares – but it's a fascinating experiment. There's more to come, it seems - Trần Vũ Trúc's used the comments on the emulator's webpage to say that a downloadable Windows version will be released in future.