Looking for NES Coder ( Paid )

[darryl.revok]

I really liked the level music. I thought it was great NES music. Really cool synth effects with the stuttering and slides.

I did skip the story. Maybe that song wasn't good.

[tepples]

Firstly, the music.
That's really the worst part of the game.
The title screen music is o.k. But the intro and level music is really unpleasant.

Originally the plan was that I'd take the FTMs that the composer gave me and cover the music in my (space- and memory-efficient) engine. But at the very end, the composer became annoyed that my engine couldn't do portamento, and rainwarrior was brought on to make an engine that could play the original FTMs.

Here's a quick comparison:

Haunted_School_versions.ogg

Haunted: Halloween '85 School background music version
0:00 Original version (which ended up going in the game)
0:44 My cover version

(838.7 KiB) Downloaded 358 times

Are we supposed to believe that the character made a big diagonal jump into the screen?

Yes. I was as confused as you are, but that's how it was explained to me when I was given the platform map.

[Drew Sebastino]

Secondly, perspective:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGf0ivVHPnU&t=5m45sWhat the... Did the character just jump into the background graphics?

Yes, but in that situation, it wouldn't effect gameplay. Most people would have tried to jump that gap normally with a running start, and would have gone "oh, ok" when they find themselves on the bleachers that where in the background. By the next time around where the gap is too wide, they would have known what to do immediately, so it's not like it's some cryptic thing to hinder your progress.

The title screen music is o.k. But the intro and level music is really unpleasant.

I got to agree. :/

Then: You have two animation phases for the character in the cutscenes: Why don't you use them when you let him run?

I also thought it looked really strange having the characters legs kind of slide while his torso up remain perfectly still. It looks kind of like he's skating.

Elementary school? So, we're not playing a teenager like in most of these works? The zombie apocalypse was thwarted by some 10 year old boy?

As if a 14 year old thwarting the zombie apocalypse is much better?

I like the graphics and how it doesn't look as "blocky" as a lot of NES games, but to be completely honest, I kind of like the "revamped" version of the main character a little more. I think the characters eyes are too far spread apart or something, or maybe it's that he doesn't have a nose but his face is large and he's just about looking straight at you, so it looks kind of empty.

Next thing that I noticed: Why does the guy live in a giant's house?

You mean you don't have bed that's 6 times wider your height?

[darryl.revok]

I'm all for constructive criticism. It's often a lot more valuable than positive criticism. However, I just have to say, how is nit-picking every aspect of this game helping anyone, or the NES homebrew community?

Everybody's been on tepples to make a platformer, and he makes something in a few months with really impressive collision detection and an advanced CHR-RAM loading technique, and now that's not good for anybody?

Sure there are flaws. Every game has flaws. But it's done. How is this helping? I almost feel like people are justifying not being willing to spend the money to support the community and the work of someone who's undoubtedly ten times a better programmer.

I kind of wish the "put up or shut up" guy from a few days ago would show up so I wouldn't have to be the one to say this.

Please tell me I'm not the only one thinking this.

[fishybawb]

I'm all for constructive criticism. It's often a lot more valuable than positive criticism. However, I just have to say, how is nit-picking every aspect of this game helping anyone, or the NES homebrew community?

Everybody's been on tepples to make a platformer, and he makes something in a few months with really impressive collision detection and an advanced CHR-RAM loading technique, and now that's not good for anybody?

Sure there are flaws. Every game has flaws. But it's done. How is this helping? I almost feel like people are justifying not being willing to spend the money to support the community and the work of someone who's undoubtedly ten times a better programmer.

I kind of wish the "put up or shut up" guy from a few days ago would show up so I wouldn't have to be the one to say this.

Please tell me I'm not the only one thinking this.

Hey, I'm still here You're right, and this is exactly the kind of attitude that is spoiling the NesDev forums in my opinion.

Please, let's celebrate the successes that members here have without criticising everything they do. If you can do better, do it. Congratulate fellow members on their achievements, constructive criticism is always helpful, but picking apart every little part of what they've done is just petty and smells like jealousy. Good work tepples

[DRW]

Here's a quick comparison:

Haunted_School_versions.ogg

It is slightly less annoying. But only slightly. The whole soundtrack would need an overhaul. Just because this game has "Haunted" in the title does not mean it needs to sound like a ghost that's chasing you. "Castlevania" and "Ghoul School" don't have those shreaking sound effects either.

Yes. I was as confused as you are, but that's how it was explained to me when I was given the platform map.

Good thing I wasn't hired. (Apart from the fact that I couldn't have managed such a project on the NES anyway, but that's beside the point here.) I'm pretty sure I would have told the designer off many times.

Yes, but in that situation, it wouldn't effect gameplay.

I didn't say it does. But it hurts the inner consistency of the scene. It's a visual fault and a very amateurish one. My graphics designer would kick my ass if I proposed something like that for my game to her.

As if a 14 year old thwarting the zombie apocalypse is much better?

No, but some 18 year old jock. I mean, seriously, these kinds of stories always have teenagers as protagonists. And now we're playing with a guy that is the same age as Bart Simpson? Nah, this just doesn't feel right for this setting. "Ghoul School", "Zombies Are My Neighbors" and "Boo - Haunted House" did it right.
Besides, this totally eliminates the possibility of some eyecandy/fanservice girlfriend for the hero in the sequel or in any additional material. Unless the next part is "Haunted Halloween '93".


The game has potential, but there are just too many things that have "homebrew" written all over it. And ironically, it's not the technical/coding stuff, like sprite artifacts or the gameplay physics. Instead, it's the design choices which, after all, ultimately have nothing to do with programming. There is no need to use a totally out-of-scale room. There is no need to do logic-breaking perspective tricks.
tepples, you really should have had a word with the designer of the game. (Unless you did and he was just stubborn.)

However, I just have to say, how is nit-picking every aspect of this game helping anyone, or the NES homebrew community?

I'm not nitpicking. And even if I do: Well, it helps the community because when they read it, they might not repeat the error. Not criticizing anything wouldn't help the community.

Everybody's been on tepples to make a platformer, and he makes something in a few months with really impressive collision detection and an advanced CHR-RAM loading technique, and now that's not good for anybody?

As far as I see it, tepples is not the one to blame here. Yes, it's impressive what he did.
But whoever did these strange design choices really has no excuse: These things that I "nitpicked" have nothing to do with technical limitations, nor with coding skills. So I can mention them even if I think that the technical implementation is great.
But the problems have nothing to do with anything that's related to techniques of NES programming.
Not to draw a usable platform like that or putting the character and the environment to scale, that's just a matter of design competence.

Or to say it like this: If you get a competent NES programmer to make a real game, make sure that the quality of your design choices are equally competent.

Sure there are flaws. Every game has flaws. But it's done. How is this helping? I almost feel like people are justifying not being willing to spend the money to support the community and the work of someone who's undoubtedly ten times a better programmer.

Believe me, I didn't think for one second about money when I wrote this.
Firstly, not at all would I need a justification not to buy a game. If I don't want to buy a game, I don't.
Secondly, I wanted to buy this game. Why do you think did I ask so eagerly for a gameplay video?

I kind of wish the "put up or shut up" guy from a few days ago would show up so I wouldn't have to be the one to say this.

First of all, this is a stupid argument to begin with, unless the critic explicitly says "I could do better." But as long as he doesn't say it, he can criticize as much as he likes.
According to your logic, nobody is allowed to criticize, for example, the "Star Wars" prequels because: Can you create a better "Star Wars" movie?

Secondly, I'm indeed working on my own NES game. Shouldn't take too long anymore until it's finished. It won't be a full-blown jump n run, more a highscore game. From the complexity, think about slightly more complex than "Kung Fu", but still much less complex than "Super Mario Bros.".

And yes, if you see the game, you're free to criticize everything that I did wrong.

Although, I'd ask you to do this when I publish the prototype, not only when the game is on cartridge. Because I'm planning to take suggestions and to implement them when I think they're resonable.
This is also something that the guy from this game could have done better. (And where I can only answer your "put up or shut up" with a simple: "Yes, as soon as my time comes, I will "put up" something, namely a prototype ROM.) He could have shown something from the game before it was finished, so that people can give their input. I'm not even talking about a ROM, just some videos.

[Drew Sebastino]

I'm all for constructive criticism. It's often a lot more valuable than positive criticism. However, I just have to say, how is nit-picking every aspect of this game helping anyone, or the NES homebrew community?

I thought all the problems listed where pretty precise and not very vague, other than "the music isn't good".

the work of someone who's undoubtedly ten times a better programmer.

I don't ever think anyone was complaining about the programming aspect of the game. It looks really solid there.

Sure there are flaws. Every game has flaws. But it's done. How is this helping?

is it impossible to fix flaws? This game is still being worked on isn't it, or was it actually supposed to be done in time for Halloween, because in that case, sorry for the criticism. Anything said badly against this could always be considered in another project though.

If you can do better, do it.

You just wait... about five years.

I do have to say one thing though: the one thing I personally find more irritating than needless nitpicking is people defaulting on social norms just so they don't seem like a jerk, like being afraid to say anything negative, just like how people were so scared to say anything about Iwata that could potentially not be seen as positive. It doesn't matter how hard someone works on something if it still sucks, which I'm definitely not saying this does because it's actually pretty good for the most part.

Edit: (sort of) DRW posted before I got this done, but I'm too lazy to read it and change my post based off of it. :/

Edit 2: Oh tepples, I just listened to what you did to the song and it sound better. There was some sort of weird static sound present in the song in the video you removed to make it sound (in my opinion) better. Something about the original sounded all over the place. I'm not sure if that was the point or not, but I just think that it sounds worse that way.

[Myask]

I'll disagree with naysayers. my perception:

Title screen: Wow, that's good for NES. (Why am I thinking of Dr. Chaos?)
Intro graphics: Wow, that's good for NES. (Long, too. I do hope it's skippable!)
Graphics: Wow, that's good for NES. I don't feel the grid.
Music: Wow, that's good for NES. Not instant-earworms, but quite good.

Gameplay: Looks good? Hard to judge on video.

It definitely shows strong technical aptitude with the system. It'd definitely have been a selling point back in the day.

As for homebrew-ness, the only thing that stood out to me was the "1+1=2A03".

[thefox]

tepples, you really should have had a word with the designer of the game. (Unless you did and he was just stubborn.)

I doubt giving design advice was in tepples' job description. I can certainly understand why/if he didn't want to get involved in design decisions.

[dougeff]

Re: naysayers

fishybawb wrote:
If you can do better, do it.

I agree. Once the game is done, there's no point in saying "blah blah music sucks" or "this animation looks weird". Keep the negativity to yourself.

[Drew Sebastino]

I just now had a revelation in my life that made it to where all I can say is positive things, so I think I'll look over the game again.

Title screen: WOW!!! That's absolutely amazing for even the PS4!!!
Intro graphics: WOW!!! That's absolutely amazing for even the PS4!!! (Perfect length, too. I hope it's not skippable so no one doesn't read the amazing award winning story!!!)
Graphics: WOW!!! That's absolutely amazing for even the PS4!!! It looks better than real life!!!
Music: WOW!!! That's absolutely amazing for even the PS4!!! Instant-earworms!!!

Gameplay: Looks good? Hard to judge on video.

Don't be a sour puss. it's obviously THE BEST GAMEPLAY EVER!!!!!!!!!!

It absolutely, undoubtedly, is the most technically impressive achievement ever. More NESs and FCs than atoms in the universe would have been sold so people could play this masterpiece.

As for homebrew-ness, the only thing that stood out to me was NOTHING!!!

GREAT JOB GUYS!!!!!!!!!!



You can kill me now...

[darryl.revok]

people defaulting on social norms just so they don't seem like a jerk, like being afraid to say anything negative

At least for me, I don't think it's that. It's a matter of whether or not it's beneficial in any way to say something negative. In this situation, I really don't see it. I'm pretty sure the game is shipping. It is currently for sale.

I'm pretty new here but I realize there's a lot of backstory with tepples making games and getting negative responses. I can understand if some people feel his talents were underutilized in puzzle games. But people, in general need some sort of motivation to keep doing something passionately. I'm sure tepples really likes this forum. He finally makes the type of game people have been asking him to make for what, ten years or something. Do we really need to tear it apart for design decisions that weren't even his?

Don't we want to see the game succeed whether we like it or not? Let's give it a big strong push by trashing it!

I think your comments were more balanced and weren't actually what spurred me to post that. It just so happened that I came back and posted after you did. To be straightforward it was DRW's approach that irked me.

I'm all for the mentality that censorship isn't called for, but considering how another person may feel, or considering how things like words may have real world consequences, is not wrong in most cases.

Plus to be honest, I like what I saw of the game. The run animation looks really silly. There. I said a criticism, so I'm not lying when I say I like it.

Honestly, DRW, I'm not going to bother responding more than saying this: I almost think you are only here to troll people. I get that impression when you do things like this and when you constantly ask extremely specific trivia questions and then reject all of the responses with arbitrary criteria that were not previously disclosed. Ugh.

[Drew Sebastino]

I think your comments were more balanced and weren't actually what spurred me to post that. It just so happened that I came back and posted after you did. To be straightforward it was DRW's approach that irked me.

Maybe I should just delete my long joke then...

you constantly ask extremely specific trivia questions and then reject all of the responses with arbitrary criteria that were not previously disclosed

Does anyone know of any homebrew NES games with a character named DRW who asks a bunch of random trivia questions?

[psc]

Once the game is done, there's no point in saying "blah blah music sucks" or "this animation looks weird". Keep the negativity to yourself.

Firstly, we should all remember that Tepples was a hired hand, and not the creative force behind this project. I congratulate him for achieving the goal and delivering a project on time. That being said, the music (not his fault) does sound way too similar to Hong Kong pirate stuff, with the drilling drums and whining notes (title screen is alright though).

We can take this as a good learning lesson that in the future we should share our work with the community before committing it to plastic. Someone could have posted the tunes on chipmusic.org for example to get critiques. An animated GIF of some action could have been shared on pixel art forums or Deviant Art. This project seems to have been kept basically a secret until release. I see this as a good learning lesson. Get some feedback, do some preliminary market (game testing) research first. There are plenty of great creative minds here that would love to help see projects reach their full potential.

[darryl.revok]

Does anyone know of any homebrew NES games with a character named DRW who asks a bunch of random trivia questions?

But not Super DRW Trivia Quiz because that doesn't feature horizontal mirroring and the Japanese manual had a misspelling.