My post-Curse to do list

[tepples]

Let's see if I can phrase this without using curse words.

I am lead programmer and art pipeline engineer on Retrotainment Games' forthcoming beat-em-up platformer The Curse of Possum Hollow for NES. Having paid work is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it provides money and CV fodder, and a curse because it takes time away from contributing to the community.

Once this game goes gold, hopefully in early October before PRGE on October 22, it will free me to work on other projects. I've got way too many ideas kicking around in my head to make a poll or two like I did in November of last year. Here are things that I've mentioned in the past as being held up by a paid project:

• A bunch of tools and libraries developed during the course of The Curse of Possum Hollow that my boss agrees are of general interest to NES game developers
• Structure of arrays data table generator
• Pently: Volume column; port to ASM6
• NES and Super NES project templates: Put on GitHub
• Zap Ruder: Put on GitHub
• Thwaite: Put on GitHub
• Concentration Room: Put on GitHub
• NES graphics editor and savtool: Put on GitHub
• Controller tests: Unify then put on GitHub
• Holy Diver Batman: 2K WRAM support; fix FME-7 IRQ behavior; think of a new name before putting on GitHub
• Experiment with 2-bit BRR
• Experiment with a voice codec involving half-silent ping-pong loops
• See how much of Pently I can put on the Super NES without going insane
• FizzBuzz: An educational game
• Popslide: A high-performance NES Stripe Image interpreter
• MFM encoder

[dougeff]

Funny, I was going to ask you about your to do list.

It is getting long, eh?

My current to do list = finish all unfinished projects.

[Myask]

[*]Holy Diver Batman: 2K WRAM support; fix FME-7 IRQ behavior; think of a new name before putting on GitHub

NES Cartridge Hardware Operational Attribute Trait Evaluator: NCHOATE

[calima]

Deflemask to Famitone2 converter? I hear from artists that Deflemask is a lot nicer to use than Famitracker.

[mikejmoffitt]

Deflemask to Famitone2 converter? I hear from artists that Deflemask is a lot nicer to use than Famitracker.

That's interesting to hear. I've always thought using Deflemask was excruciating compared to Famitracker.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

That's interesting to hear. I've always thought using Deflemask was excruciating compared to Famitracker.

I know, right? Not only does the intro scare the hell out of me every time I open it, but I can't seem to figure out how to open or save files.

[calima]

I just find all trackers have terrible usability, and let musicians handle those

The only music interface I'd be comfortable with would be a sheet notation one. Why yes I played piano when younger.

[dougeff]

The only music interface I'd be comfortable with would be a sheet notation one.

Use a program like MuseScore (to write the sheet music). Then export MIDI. Then import MIDI to Famitracker (see my blog for details).

I prefer a (piano) keyboard as input, recording MIDI directly from it, then convert to Famitracker.

[tepples]

Compose in MuseScore, export to MusicXML, use xml2ly to convert to .ly, copy and paste pattern data from .ly into Pently project.

Compose in Frescobaldi, a text editor specific to LilyPond. Then copy and paste pattern data from .ly into Pently project.

[tepples]

I regret that I will probably not be able to produce an original game for this year's compo because I'm still stuck on this project. It turns out Greg wants to polish it till the last minute, then ship out backers' copies three business days before Halloween.

Interestingly enough, all four commercial NES games to which I've contributed are 4 Mbit: the first two Action 53 volumes, Haunted: Halloween '85, and The Curse of Possum Hollow.

[calima]

Wasn't the deadline Jan 31? Other things taking too much?

[Sumez]

Three months over christmas to do a full game is pretty tight

[tepples]

Because of delays beyond my control, I won't be making a game for this year's compo for the reason described by Sumez. Instead, my submission will be the 240p test suite.

Today I've been told I have several days off from Curse as the other devs tune enemy placements and boss parameters and then only a couple more days of work needed to make the final changes. This means I can finally dig into something here. So as I begin projects, I'll edit the list below, starting a new list every two weeks.

• 2-bit BRR
• pinobatch/nrom-template: To create an NROM-128 project, fork this
• pinobatch/snrom-template: To create an UNROM, UOROM, SGROM, or SNROM project, fork this
• pinobatch/lorom-template: To create a Super NES project, fork this
• pinobatch/thwaite-nes
• pinobatch/croom-nes
• pinobatch/zap-ruder

[tepples]

This one took a while, but I believe I managed to cover 80% of the functionality of Meece, Vaus Test, spadtest, Eighty, and the 1-gun screen of Zap Ruder.

• pinobatch/allpads-nes

[tepples]

Got two more done:

• Pently: Channel volume
• pinobatch/nesbgeditor: the project whose converter (savtool) became more important to my development workflow than the editor itself

Now onto popslide.