We Need a StreetPass Successor, Just Not Like This

TL;DR: The market for a StreetPass-style app is wide open and genuinely hungry. ThunderPass looked like it might fill that void, until the community dug deeper and found stolen code, hardcoded API keys sitting in a public repo, and plans to upload your location data to a server the developer has already proven they can’t secure. The dream is real. This particular app? Step away slowly.

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The StreetPass-Shaped Hole in the Market

Nintendo left something irreplaceable behind when they moved on from the 3DS, and it wasn’t just the clamshell form factor or the dual screens. It was StreetPass.

For those who weren’t deep in the 3DS era: StreetPass was pure ambient magic. Your console would sleep in your bag, and whenever you walked past another player’s 3DS, they’d silently shake hands in the background. You’d get home, open your system, and find a little queue of Miis waiting for you, each one a ghost of someone you’d crossed paths with at a coffee shop, a train station, a convention floor. It was social without being loud about it. It rewarded you just for existing in the world with your console in your pocket.

And the depth of it. You could trade weapons in Resident Evil Revelations, exchange puzzle pieces, race ghost data, earn Play Coins just by walking around. It was woven into the fabric of the platform in a way that made the 3DS feel genuinely alive.

Nintendo has never replicated it. Not on the Switch, not on the Switch 2. There’s no good reason for this. There’s just an absence where something wonderful used to be, and the community has been feeling it ever since.

StreetPass Fans are Hungry, but We Want it Done Right

A solo dev, building a StreetPass spiritual successor for Android on their lunch breaks and weekends, using AI tools to ship something they couldn’t have built alone otherwise? That’s a genuinely compelling story. The concept was right. The aesthetic details, the lightning bolt, the Volt currency as a nod to Play Coins, showed someone who actually understood why StreetPass mattered.

AI-assisted development, when done responsibly, is one of the best things to happen to solo and indie creators in years. It lowers the barrier to entry, it compresses timelines, it lets one passionate person ship something that used to require a team. We are fully here for that future.

But here’s the thing. AI coding isn’t the problem with ThunderPass. The problems are much more specific, and much more serious.

The Problem was Zero Experience, Zero Safety Measures

The retro gaming community on Reddit started digging, and what they found was a PSA worth reading carefully.

First: the code. According to the developer behind Cocoon, a competing StreetPass-style project, the stolen code part of ThunderPass appears to originate from SENTII, another developer who had been publicly sharing their own StreetPass concept across multiple servers. The claim is that ThunderPass uses the same hardcoded values, database structure, and naming conventions, and even includes a debug feature that SENTII had on their own home screen for testing. That’s not inspiration. That’s not parallel development. If the allegations hold up, that’s taking someone else’s work and putting your name on it.

Stealing code from another indie developer trying to build something for the community is not the move. Full stop.

Second: the security situation. The developer describes themselves as having 25 years of IT and security experience. And yet, they hardcoded their backend API keys in plaintext directly into a public repository, even while the AI in their tools was reportedly flagging this as a mistake. That’s not a vibe coding problem in isolation. That’s a fundamental security failure from someone who should know better.

And this matters enormously because of what ThunderPass was planning to do next. The developer’s own roadmap included “Power Surge Events,” location-based multipliers that would require uploading user location data to their personal server. A server that, based on the public repo situation, they have already demonstrated they cannot properly secure.

This is the core issue with vibe coding an app that handles sensitive personal data. When you’re using AI to generate code you don’t fully understand, and that code is going to broadcast your location over Bluetooth and potentially log it to a remote database, the gap between “the AI wrote it” and “I understand what it’s doing” becomes a real risk for every person who downloads the app. For a to-do list app? Maybe the stakes are low enough. For something running quietly in your pocket, scanning for nearby devices and potentially phoning home with your location? The bar has to be higher.

This isn’t about gatekeeping who gets to build things. It’s about the responsibility that comes with asking people to trust you with their data in public spaces.

How to Bring a StreetPass-Like Back the Right Way

The good news is that the gap in the market isn’t going unfilled forever. Community members have flagged that developers SENTII and NENDO are both working on their own StreetPass-style apps, and given that SENTII’s work appears to have been considered worth copying in the first place, that’s a pretty strong signal they’re building something worth watching.

We don’t have detailed specs or timelines yet. But the hunger is real, the community is engaged, and developers who understand both the technical requirements and the soul of what made StreetPass special are clearly out there working on it. That’s exciting. That’s the story we want to be writing.

As someone who once carried a 3DS everywhere just to hit triple digits on my StreetPass queue at a convention: the idea of that experience coming back to modern hardware still gives me genuine joy. The market is ready. The nostalgia is real. The community will show up for this.

We just need someone to build it right. With clean code, real security, and no shortcuts when it comes to the data of the people who trust them.

The industry has the tools to get there. AI included. The question is whether the people building with those tools are taking the responsibility seriously.

Some clearly are. ThunderPass, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them.

Stay cozy, gamers.