An interesting idea...

[MottZilla]

The pop in on the left can be masked by hiding sprites on the left side and the vertical from the top may be hidden on certain TVs. There certainly isn't a good reason to try to mimic this behavior in a PC game. The idea of having the same background, sprite, and palette system is interesting though, but I think no one would complain if you cheated a bit. Afterall, Mega Man 9 and 10 were well liked despite that they go beyond what the NES could do atleast at certain points.

[Kasumi]

And the fact that even if you do stay within what the NES can do, people may still think you're cheating if you're just smart about how to use the limitations. Like Tepples and his variable width font and Cookie Clicker title screen.

You may as well just cheat. I understand if you like the aesthetic of the limited colors and whatnot, but there's really no harm in doing a little more because unlike the actual console you can. Retro Game Challenge (And its sequel) is a cool game that captures the aesthetic while being really loose on the "rules".

[BioMechanical Dude]

And the fact that even if you do stay within what the NES can do, people may still think you're cheating if you're just smart about how to use the limitations.

Yeah, I guess some people will notice, if I do anything like that. Personally I think I will be using very few of these ways to go around the system's limitations. I'll mostly use stuff like putting a sprite with a different palette over another, to simulate the base sprite having more colors (This was used in some Capcom games, like "Mega Man" and "Street Fighter 2010"); Shifting graphics in certain tiles, so that when they're used, they can simulate another background layer with a different scrolling speed (As used in "Battletoads" and "3-eyed boy". "Sword Master" used it as well, but there the tiles already had copies with the shifted graphics, which took a lot of ROM space, as opposed to the trick that shifts them in the RAM, in the other two games). So, if anyone starts complaining, that I'm cheating, I can just point out those examples.

You may as well just cheat. I understand if you like the aesthetic of the limited colors and whatnot, but there's really no harm in doing a little more because unlike the actual console you can.

I suppose you're right, but I wouldn't feel as satisfied, if I made games, that are supposed to simulate the NES, but are looser in terms of limitations. I have seen examples of people making games, claiming they're simulating NES games, but don't even keep the palette right. That always bugs me for some reason. Not that I hate those games. "Soundless Mountain II" is a good example of an "NES" game not following the limitations, but still being a good demake of "Silent Hill 2". Still, if I'm gonna make games, that simulate the NES, I want them to really feel like NES games. I guess, I'm just being a perfectionist right now, but still

Anyway, you now know, that I've decided to not make my NES projects not actually on the NES, but still following the limitations. I've found out, that Game Maker Studio can not only export it's games to Android and HTML5, but MacOS, iOS and a bunch of others. So, the accessibility will not be a problem, as I'm getting the software. I will keep you guys notified for the NES-style games, I've made, since you helped me choose this decision and find out more about what the newest programs have to offer. Anyone who wants, can judge if the games really feel like actual ROMs, but in .exe, .dmg, .app or .apk form.

In the words of Robocop: "Thank you for your cooperation!"

[psycopathicteen]

My favorite fake-NES quirk is the fictional 320x240 square pixel mode.

[Kasumi]

Personally I think I will be using very few of these ways to go around the system's limitations.

They're not ways around them, is the thing. They're totally valid, and people who think otherwise are uninformed. This is valid and so is this. (It plays Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, but it's an actual rom that actually works.)

You'll purposely not use many "ways to go around the system's limitations"? You'll end up with a game worse than it could be on the actual NES. I don't get it. You want to fake slowdown? WHY?! I'm making a game on NES right now that I plan to rewrite in C, and there is NO WAY I'm having the Steam/3DS/Whatever version DROP FRAMES even though the NES one will on occasion! Whatever you do, don't frustrate your player for authenticity's sake. Also, how do you even decide when it needs to slow down? You haven't worked with the console before, you don't know how much (or how little) you could get away with.

I suppose you're right, but I wouldn't feel as satisfied, if I made games, that are supposed to simulate the NES, but are looser in terms of limitations.

If you haven't made NES games before simulating them, you'll undoubtedly break rules without even knowing.

Maybe I'm bitter, but my problem with games that try to stick really close to the actual limitations is that they still end up skipping like 98% of what makes development on NES hard. Moving stuff around because you ran out of space in one bank, hard crashes from your NMI taking too long before its final write to $2007. Bank switch hell in general.

The graphical stuff is the easy part. The reason my game has taken so long is because of all the optimization stuff it needs. You probably wouldn't think twice about something as simple as multiplying a number, but that can be really taxing on the NES.

Or like... you could make a bunch of sweet tunes in famitracker that would not only not all fit in a standard mapper's space, but also be too taxing to play with gameplay going on. Or your levels wouldn't fit.

And you'd be satisfied until you're told of something you're doing that's wrong? Would you then "fix" it, even if it made the game worse? Really, it shouldn't make a difference.

[BioMechanical Dude]

Woah, woah! Relax... OK, I understand there's much more rules to the whole thing. I'm sorry I didn't mention it before, but the limitations, I'm gonna stick to, are mostly the graphical ones. Bank switching can be a difficult thing, which is why, I suppose, the homebrew scene doesn't offer a lot of stuff that uses different mappers. Also, I'm not gonna have the slowdowns. I won't put too much on the screen, either. As much as I like authenticity, some of the limitations are extremely tedious, so, I'm sticking to the ones, that one would understand just by looking at a game. I'll still make sure, it's all as authentic as possible, but not to the point it gets annoying. About the Famitracker tunes: I'll make sure not to include much and have each song be no longer than 30-60 seconds. Sorry, I didn't mention this stuff before. Now that I read my previous posts, it really looks like I want to follow absolutely every freaking limitation that the system has. Really, I'll focus on mostly following the graphics rules (Which is still quite some perfectionism, considering I even want to add that popping up effect). Another thing is, I'll never let limitations get in the way of gameplay. It won't feel unauthentic either, because I'll not try anything, that hasn't been done or couldn't be done on NES. So, sorry, I didn't mention some stuff and don't get pissed off, OK?

[BioMechanical Dude]

By the way, the NES-style games are gonna be posted in a thread called "If I made games during the Nintendo age". The thread is going to be in "General Stuff" since the games aren't NES ROMs. Among the projects are gonna be some original ideas, but also movie adaptations and demakes. The adaptations are gonna be of both movies that never had NES games (like "Alien" and "Aliens") and ones that already have games, which turned out to be horrible (like "Back to the future" and "The Terminator"). I'm gonna make some demakes too, because... I love demakes. Come on, who wouldn't want to see how a faithful port of "Mortal Kombat" would look like?

[cpow]

<ambition>

I wish you well but ... Christ allmighty ... it sounds like you'll be busy until 2040. I hope to still be alive then, but I'm already almost 40 years long.

[tokumaru]

The adaptations are gonna be of both movies that never had NES games (like "Alien" and "Aliens") and ones that already have games, which turned out to be horrible (like "Back to the future" and "The Terminator"). I'm gonna make some demakes too, because... I love demakes. Come on, who wouldn't want to see how a faithful port of "Mortal Kombat" would look like?

Now that's pretty interesting. I love demakes too, adapting advanced graphics and logic to less capable systems in a way that doesn't feel crippled is fun as hell. And it would be awesome to see a proper Back to the Future game, that actually gives you the power to travel through time and alter the future. And flying the DeLorean. And hoverboards. Yeah, I really like BTTF.

[MottZilla]

Aliens was actually done on the NES/Famicom. It was just never released. http://dreamandfriends.com/2011/01/06/a ... nreleased/

[BioMechanical Dude]

Yes, it's a port of the MSX version, which wasn't a very good game. And from what I see, the Famicom one may be even worse... except for the graphics, they're actually better than the MSX game. I'm not saying, that I can make a great game, but it'll be significantly better than this one. At least I won't have enemies, that jump out right next to you or short jumping. Also, the story could be adapted better. Sure, you're Ripley, going around shooting aliens, but that's about it. There are so many different things you can add. The battle near the reactor, the APC rescue, the attack near the medic bay, Ripley going into the Hive to save Newt, Ripley in the Power loader versus the Alien Queen(that could be a great final boss battle). Even if this game was released, it was going to be a failiure. It probably wouldn't be more fun than "Alien 3" by LJN... ugh, don't get me started on that one... There still wouldn't be a good "Alien" games on NES(unless like the Angry Video Game Nerd, you like to say "Yes, there are. They're called 'Contra' and 'Metroid'"). There should've been a decend one. The Xenomorphs deserve it.

[slobu]

You're not going to convince the current generation of NES programmers to write anything like batari BASIC. Hobbyists use their time as a creative outlet. It requires a huge shift in thinking and an enormous amount of personal sweat + tears to develop a third generation language accessible to the novice.

The ideal solution is to learn C and NESICIDE. After that you could write a meta compiler that takes your own scripting language and translates that into C. If you still had enthusiasm after that you could make your own visual RAD tool similar to Game Maker on top of your scripting language.

UPDATE: Just to be clear NESICIDE *IS* the real-life-right-now-best-as-it-gets answer to your topic.

[BioMechanical Dude]

Thanks for the advice, but you're kinda late. See the entire thread.

[slobu]

Thanks for the advice, but you're kinda late. See the entire thread.

Yeah. I saw that you went Game Maker. This is the best way to work with what you know now and ease into console development.

My hope is that you try again someday. There is a BASIC compiler for the Genesis. You could make NES style games pretty easily that way - and on a real console too!
http://devster.monkeeh.com/sega/basiegaxorz/

[psycopathicteen]

I've always said that there should be a metasprite editor (mostly for the SNES, but NES could use one as well) but I usually get responses like "everything should be tailored specifically for your game" even though you can have much more impressive animation in a much shorter time. I'm not a C++ expert, so don't expect me to make my own.