community fonts for NES Dev

[WhoaMan]

I was working on a font earlier for an NES game and decided that I would share it with the community for anyone who could put it to use in their own NES creations, and to encourage others to share their own fonts. If anyone would like to use this font or share a creation of their own, please feel free to do so

This font is a simple one, based on the "retro" computer fonts that you have probably seen on TV (think Dexter's Lab, or 90% of computer movies from the 70s and 80s). Hopefully someone can put it to use.

[qbradq]

Wow, I really love this font! Great contribution!

[Dwedit]

It looks very similar to the Megaman 4 weapon get font, but it's slightly different.

weapon_get.png

[tepples]

WhoaMan: Let me guess, this is your interpretation of Westminster, itself an expansion of the MICR characters used on checks.

There's always my 8x8 collection. Most are rips from games, but two are my own interpretations of Chicago (marked "who's cuter") and Wasted Collection (marked "mbmenu").

I've attached a VWF and a few 8x16 fonts.

[WhoaMan]

WhoaMan: Let me guess, this is your interpretation of Westminster, itself an expansion of the MICR characters used on checks.

in a roundabout way i suppose. I was more so looking at various pictures from the 70s and 80s and basing it off of that. would have been easier to look at the Westminster font though. hehe.

also, sorry about not posting under NES Graphics...i tend to forget about this section.

[slobu]

Are there any character graphic sets out there? Something like the Sharp MZ-700 or Mattel Aquarius?

[freem]

I love threads like this; too bad I don't have much to add other than these right now:

Generic aka "the family picross font", but with Japanese and accented characters. Also includes various menu tiles.


A Mother 2/Earthbound-ish 1bpp font, meant for VWF usage. (I haven't figured this out myself; need to check tepples' demo in more detail when I have the time.)


Four Various 16x16 fonts; if viewing these in YY-CHR, be sure to set "FC/NES x16" mode for proper viewing.

[Dwedit]

My favorite font was always a combination of the IBM 8x8 font, Super Mario Bros font, and FF3 Fan Translation font. I'm not the font artist, I just stuck the three fonts together. SMB1 for the numbers, uppercase letters, and exclamation point, IBM font for other punctuation and symbols, and FF3 fan translation (itself based on SNES Final Fantasy II) for the lowercase letters.

nesfont.png

ascii.chr

[koitsu]

Word to the wise: be very careful about fonts up (i.e. "hosting" them in some way, including file uploads here) if they're literal copies of fonts/graphics used in commercial games. There are companies out there who go looking for this stuff and crack down on it citing DMCA. Screenshots are one thing, raw digital data is another. Boy I sure love the United States...

[lidnariq]

Note that, at least in the US, bitmap fonts are deemed too utilitarian for copyright, so not copyrightable, so not subject to the DMCA.

Doesn't mean some jerk isn't going to file one, but don't let it stop you.

(Vector fonts would also be deemed too utilitarian, if separated from the microcode that runs the hinting algorithms.)

[koitsu]

Wow, didn't know this -- thanks lidnariq, especially for the reference material.

CARRY ON MY SONS hahaha

[zzo38]

(Vector fonts would also be deemed too utilitarian, if separated from the microcode that runs the hinting algorithms.)

There are other formats for fonts, though. For example, there is METAFONT, which uses a program which contains vector outlines and whatever other stuff is needed (including hinting, parameters, etc) and then a device-independent metric file is generated, and a graphic file is generated which is specific to the device. (However, you do not need vector fonts for use with NES/Famicom.)

The IBM CP437 font used in PC is also a bitmap font and I do not expect anyone to file a lawsuit against you for using this though.

Other possible fonts you might want to have available for use with NES/Famicom includes the Commodore 64 font (it has two shift states; this could be the two pattern tables, two CHR ROM banks, or you could combine two characters into one as shown below), or a font ordered for use with the Famicom keyboard, or a font for use with Z-machine.

If you are just using monochrome text, you could encode two chaacters into one character, so that it is selected by the attribute table (or the sprite color). There is the limitation due to the 16x16 attribute areas (except MMC5), and this might still be suitable for some purposes, although you can also use sprites (but in this case you still have the limit; you have eight characters per row only).

[qbradq]

Tepples,

I've been using your 8x8 font resources for a lot of projects, not just NES-related It's an excellent resource, and this is a great accompaniment.

To the others, I offer this challenge: when, in the history of the US legal system, has innocence been an affirmative defense? Just because you didn't do anything wrong doesn't mean you won't have legal action taken against you.

That's a triple negative. Beat that!

[ironfist61]

I was working on a font earlier for an NES game and decided that I would share it with the community for anyone who could put it to use in their own NES creations, and to encourage others to share their own fonts. If anyone would like to use this font or share a creation of their own, please feel free to do so

This font is a simple one, based on the "retro" computer fonts that you have probably seen on TV (think Dexter's Lab, or 90% of computer movies from the 70s and 80s). Hopefully someone can put it to use.

This actually reminds me of the font that was used on the title screen of the 1983 PC game "Digger" by Windmill Software.

Awesome work! That's the kind of stuff I'd love to see on some NES homebrew.

[LocalH]

These fonts are good for any other 8x8 tile based system, too. Good for Genesis dev. If I'm gonna use a font, I just redraw it in a tile editor. It could also be done programmatically but I find repixeling fonts to be strangely comforting