A Nightmare on Elm Street: Son of a Hundred Maniacs (Demake)

[tepples]

I don't really get this attitude in retro development communities (this is also seen in the Megadrive homebrew and ROM hacking communities, and it used to be common in the SMW hacking community for example. I haven't seen it expressed much here mind) over making sure something runs on older albeit popular versions of emulators, and if it doesn't then it's broken. Which is not the case, it is quite actually the emulator itself that is broken.

If a game doesn't run in PocketNES for Game Boy Advance or whatever the widely available emulator for Android happens to be, then people may need to buy an expensive Steam Deck to play it on the go. Should handheld compatibility be a concern to developers?

[Individualised]

I don't really get this attitude in retro development communities (this is also seen in the Megadrive homebrew and ROM hacking communities, and it used to be common in the SMW hacking community for example. I haven't seen it expressed much here mind) over making sure something runs on older albeit popular versions of emulators, and if it doesn't then it's broken. Which is not the case, it is quite actually the emulator itself that is broken.

If a game doesn't run in PocketNES for Game Boy Advance or whatever the widely available emulator for Android happens to be, then people may need to buy an expensive Steam Deck to play it on the go. Should handheld compatibility be a concern to developers?

There are many NES emulators, both standalone and as part of emulator frontends, available for Android, of varying accuracy. It's unlikely that your average homebrew game that doesn't use a super esoteric mapper won't run on at least one. Even then, it's not like the Game Boy Advance and Steam Deck are the only portable consoles that can run NES emulators. There's many bootleg/off-brand handheld emulation consoles made in China that aren't locked down and allow you to install custom software, which can be bought for cheap prices. The Nintendo Switch is the most popular portable console currently on the market, and there are NES emulators written for it which you can use on a modded console. There's just so many options, and emulation has matured enough, that I don't think portable systems not being able to run certain NES games is an issue in current times, unless you're using a GBA, or a phone/tablet from before 2015 or so.

[calima]

It's quite a jump to suggest Steam Deck when portable NESes from China go for few tens.

[gauauu]

If a game doesn't run in PocketNES for Game Boy Advance or whatever the widely available emulator for Android happens to be, then people may need to buy an expensive Steam Deck to play it on the go. Should handheld compatibility be a concern to developers?

That is a really strangely specific statement and question. There are tons of emulators for handheld play. And lots of different emulator cores for android. I love PocketNES, but it's not a target that I EVER think about for my games. And the question itself is strange. "Should handheld compatibility be a concern?" As much as I love playing on a handheld device, I don't think "I need to support handheld play". I think "I want this to run correctly on a broad selection of modern emulators" so that people can decide when and where they want to run it.

[8bitslasher]

I would just like to point out that the first guy that posted here obviously wasn’t a fan of my non “proper” game. But here’s a guy playing through the game, laughing saying how much he loves it and that it’s “amazing!” Guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder? https://youtu.be/UD1FNoVZB3s

[DRW]

Sure, it's all subjective. And I quite enjoyed it the first time I played it.

But what I meant was: After playing through the game for the first time, will people take it out once in a while and play it again? Will they say: "Hmm, let's play a round of "A Nightmare on Elm Street: Son of a Hundred Maniacs" and see whether I can beat the game again" in the same way people decide to play a round of "Super Mario Bros." or "Gradius" (or the official "A Nightmare on Elm Street" game)?

[8bitslasher]

I gotcha. I misunderstood then. I think it depends on the person and their preferences too. I have people on speedrun.com going for fastest time on each of the slasher games. I also have a little following on social media where people like to talk about the games on the posts and keep up with them. So, it’ll matter to the people it’ll need to matter to. People find a way I guess.

[tepples]

Perhaps it's the video game analogue of a short film.

[Nikku4211]

I'm with Fiskbit. If your game works on the most up-to-date emulators, it should be fine, so long as people can run them.

And I can confirm this game runs on real US frontloader hardware.

OSes shipping with outdated versions of emulators is pretty lame.

It's not like this game is really pushing the limits of the NES, so I can understand wanting more standardised code.

If a game doesn't run in PocketNES for Game Boy Advance or whatever the widely available emulator for Android happens to be, then people may need to buy an expensive Steam Deck to play it on the go. Should handheld compatibility be a concern to developers?

Maybe someone with enough time on their hands could fork PocketNES/NESDS/VirtuaNES(on 3DS) to keep on updating it...

That would take a lot of dedication though.

It's quite a jump to suggest Steam Deck when portable NESes from China go for few tens.

How accurate do these cheap portable NESes tend to be, if they're using emulation?

[calima]

The ones I've seen are nes-on-chip. So most games should run fine.

[Nikku4211]

The ones I've seen are nes-on-chip. So most games should run fine.

But I've heard NoaC clones also can have compatibility issues. Do they tend to be more accurate to the official original NES/Famicom hardware?

[Individualised]

The ones I've seen are nes-on-chip. So most games should run fine.

But I've heard NoaC clones also can have compatibility issues. Do they tend to be more accurate to the official original NES/Famicom hardware?

NOAC is still more accurate than many emulators. Alternative/clone NES chipsets are now pretty well documented.