Aren't you afraid that NES Maker would just bring lazy noobs

[Bregalad]

I'd like to address the fact that some of the posts here, jumping to the defense of NES Maker (most obviously 8bitMicroGuy's large post, and JoeGtake2's own), seem to take the stance that a lot of people here are actually against NES Maker.

But I think it's very obvious that that is not the case

Why would I be against NES maker ? If lots of shitty games gets released because of it I'd be against the shitty games, and then possibly against NES maker, but as for today's stand there is zero reason to be against it.

As someone who never managed to actually released any of the full-featured NES games I planned, I would be in trouble explaining "my" way to develop NES games is superior...

[Sumez]

Bregalad: Pretty much spot on

Yeah, i think collaboration is key for most of us to get to the next level. The nesdev compo brings a lot of impressive solo efforts, but i think we're going to see more and more co-labs, because people have their specializations - and ambitions. Nesdev is predominantly made up of programmers. NESmaker seems to bring in more artists, who are also getting a tool to train themselves in technical limitations. Sounds like a match.

That's probably the best aspect of NES Maker. The scene always needed artists, because most pixel artist interested in doing "nes type graphics" aren't actually interested in working with all the crazy limitations that the actual NES imposes on you.

-Another thing i've pondered much about is what to do with the european backwater market. I'm sure there is untapped potential here, it's just that we don't have a proper distribution network/publishing system/news channels in place to tackle logistics and duties. I guess this task is more up to me and other fellow euros.

I feel like this is a subject we bring up every other Tuesday. Is it time for something to finally happen soon?

[Oziphantom]

I feel the strategy for Eurozone will be Master System. Hopefully one of my planned 16K Compo games comes through and then the artist and I plan to do a NES and SMS port, which will hopefully allow us to get some hard data.

[tepples]

Even apart from customs duties, to what extent does the European market actually require PEGI and USK content ratings or translations into five different languages? I know when I play some games originating in Europe, the first thing I see is a menu with DEUTSCH, ENGLISH, ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO.

[Oziphantom]

Bregalad: Pretty much spot on

Yeah, i think collaboration is key for most of us to get to the next level. The nesdev compo brings a lot of impressive solo efforts, but i think we're going to see more and more co-labs, because people have their specializations - and ambitions. Nesdev is predominantly made up of programmers. NESmaker seems to bring in more artists, who are also getting a tool to train themselves in technical limitations. Sounds like a match.

That's probably the best aspect of NES Maker. The scene always needed artists, because most pixel artist interested in doing "nes type graphics" aren't actually interested in working with all the crazy limitations that the actual NES imposes on you.

-Another thing i've pondered much about is what to do with the european backwater market. I'm sure there is untapped potential here, it's just that we don't have a proper distribution network/publishing system/news channels in place to tackle logistics and duties. I guess this task is more up to me and other fellow euros.

I feel like this is a subject we bring up every other Tuesday. Is it time for something to finally happen soon?

If you need Boards made etc I know a guy who might be able to help.
As for news/distribution etc the Eurozone is where all the publishers are. RGCD, Protovision, Poly.Play, Psytronik etc Just most are set up for Computer based releases, if you want to can ask them if they would do a NES game if you have one high enough quality for them to publish.
Retro Indie News, its facebook page, Retro Gamer Mag, There are a few generic retro fanzines as well I think.
Knights'n'Bytes are porting Sam's Journey to NES, so that will get Protovision geared up for NES deployment.

[FrankenGraphics]

re: tepples - language, localizations:
I can't speak for every european, but i believe that's largely a thing of the past. People have much better english literacy these days, and honestly most of us started to learn english from media (such as games) before school did even back then.

Some efforts were just plain annoying, like the german subtitles in super metroid or german audio in rondo of blood. Well, in the later case it could feel a bit thematic. German can have a very "gothic" ring to it, at least to outsiders, when spoken solemnly.

Anyway, modern nes developers should just ignore translations imo.

That's probably the best aspect of NES Maker. The scene always needed artists, because most pixel artist interested in doing "nes type graphics" aren't actually interested in working with all the crazy limitations that the actual NES imposes on you.

Here's a minor chord though... there has been some clashes between expectations from the comforts of famitracker (and expansion sound, my god) and the realities of putting music into an actual game already. But i'd blame the demo scene mentality that has grown around famitracker and chiptunes in general. Personally i wonder why expansion sound is so popular when basically noone actually experienced it. It didn't exist for the NES, and it was kind of a fringe thing on famicom.

I'm pretty sure that'll even out, but ugh, it is painful to watch GGsound getting undeserved grief (despite being perfectly well rounded for use in games) just because users expect to be able to do everything famitracker does (even with little or no difference in the end result).

I feel like this is a subject we bring up every other Tuesday. Is it time for something to finally happen soon?

Haha! guilty as charged. Well, first things first. Project Blue the full version is supposed to get a kickstarter campaign the first quarter of 2019. I want to get some experience under my belt with that before jumping head-first into something potentially bigger. But a bit of brainstorming couldn't hurt. What's best? Organizing group buys? Have an euro distro distribute games on license from american homebrew makers and publishers? Source affordable sticker and box printers? One unified web shop? Something else?

[JoeGtake2]

Well, as for things like famitracker/ggsound...there's no mandate that NESmaker users GGsound. Just like someone can write new physics scripts, someone could write or import new music handling scripts, too, and then manage them from the tool. The base of NESmaker is meant to be vanilla and incredibly malleable. The intent is for users to take the base and begin manipulating it to fit their needs, much like starting with a tutorial set and then diverging.

I think GGsound is great. If people want better support, they're always welcome to bring on someone to write a better sound engine for them, if they're not capable themselves (more value for the NESdev community there, too).

[tepples]

Let's say my cousin and I have developed a more capable audio driver that handles more FamiTracker effects than GGSound (but not DPCM). I developed the driver itself and its MML converter, while my cousin maintains the FamiTracker converter. But there's currently no NESmaker integration for this driver. Would I first need to buy two license seat of NESmaker, one for myself and one for my cousin, with which to build and test this integration? And possibly a license of Microsoft Windows with which to build and test any GUI tools that users of the integration may require? (The used ThinkPad into which I'm typing this post came with a copy of Windows that was deactivated because the volume license server was on the previous owner's corporate LAN that could not be reached, and its COA sticker had been torn off. It ended up wiped and Linuxed.) Or what am I missing?

[Bregalad]

re: tepples - language, localizations:
I can't speak for every european, but i believe that's largely a thing of the past. People have much better english literacy these days, and honestly most of us started to learn english from media (such as games) before school did even back then.

True, but most people are still more fluent in their native language than English, even though understanding of English improved due to internet/games exposure. It's a tradeoff between translation quality and my own poor understanding of English, if a quality translation is available I'll take it to make sure I understand everything, if only a shitty translation is available then if offered the choice I'd rather play a good translation in English and "translate" myself on the fly, despite this "translation" being poor it's still better than many game's shitty translation.

Some efforts were just plain annoying, like the german subtitles in super metroid or german audio in rondo of blood. Well, in the later case it could feel a bit thematic. German can have a very "gothic" ring to it, at least to outsiders, when spoken solemnly.

It's not an "effort", the original Rondo of Blood was dubbed in German, probably because it felt exotic to Japanese players, and because the game trakes place in Transylvania which used to be a largely German-speaking country, before the second world war. You mention german is Gothic, which is totally true considering the language was written (mostly, not always) with gothic letters until the second world war. (This has nothing to do with the modern "gothic" fashion)

[Sumez]

Some efforts were just plain annoying, like the german subtitles in super metroid or german audio in rondo of blood. Well, in the later case it could feel a bit thematic. German can have a very "gothic" ring to it, at least to outsiders, when spoken solemnly.

That's pretty much the idea The German voices is intended to make the voice over feel more authentic, despite everyone else speaking Japanese after that point.
Rondo of Blood wasn't released in Europe at the time. It wasn't even released outside of Japan.

[Oziphantom]

In Japan around the 90s it was popular, nee prestigious to be able to speak German. So knowing and understand German was a 1up, and you could look down on the little people who didn't. Hence why Asuka Sorely Langley of Eva is German and gets angry at Shinji for being unable to speak it. She had to lower herself to a commoner and use Japanese. This was kind of tacky and hence in Rebuild of Eva her German aspect was dropped. You also see it in a lot of any other anime and manga, there is the pompous character that talks in German for no real reason..
To which I would not be surprised if the intro was in German in the Japanese version.

When I went to Japan, some people there would get me to read something in German and they would ask me if I "supurekon za dejitsu" to which I would pause for a moment, eventually realize they meant "spreken ze deutsche" and then say it for real and watch them facefault...

Other side note : For our just(ish) released C64 remaster, adding in FIGS for the game and manual was a thing we did. I think Spain still really appreciates it

[FrankenGraphics]

I like ggsound too, it's great. It's always a tough choice between ggsound, pently and famitone and lately penguin, each premiering some unique features. Or famitracker+neslib, if your game design and resources permits it.

The problem i perceive isn't that some people might think they're stuck with ggsound (they aren't, and if so was the case, it'd be a fine driver to be stuck with). It's more that they complain about it not being able to do this or that, when in fact it can do most of those things. So there's a subset of problems:

-There's a knowledge gap about just how much ggsound can do.
-It gets some undeservedly negative comments when people come in with volume channels, ft-effects for convenience, expansion sound chip channels, and expectations from software-emulated chiptune music as opposed to video game music with hardware limitations.

I hope this is a temporary phenomenon. But maybe an article and a few examples would be a positive way to show some possibilities?

[Sumez]

To which I would not be surprised if the intro was in German in the Japanese version.

.... let's reiterate There was only a Japanese version.

Ok, enough off-topic. Or at least -that- much off-topic

[Oziphantom]

I though it came out on the PSP... With Symphony... hard to keep track of the Castlevania's and all their versions/rehashes etc

[FrankenGraphics]

Rondo of Blood wasn't released in Europe at the time. It wasn't even released outside of Japan.

That explains it. I was only able to play rondo of blood when it was released on the Wii. I'm glad i took german as an option in high-school and could make out the basic gist of the narration

But yeah, german and gothic themes feels pretty intertwined... not just the gothic font being associated with the horror and gothic romance genre increasingly, but also horror movies like nosferatu and frankenstein first being made by german film studios, and all the associations to pretty gothic poetry and music, like schuberts' der doppelgänger. Listening to it just now, i think the parallel is striking.

Edit, anyway, back on localization. I don't think localizing game content does much difference, but europe is still pretty splintered. retro gaming swedes discuss and trade in swedish facebook groups. I expect pretty much every group of retro gamers in every country where the NES was a thing - that also has a small language base - to do that. To reach these as a potential audience for homebrew news, a bit of ambassadeurship may be in order. I'm terrible at social media, but will look into what i may be able to do.