NES Coder Needed For Party Game (PAID)

[Razlo]

Hello all!

Razlo here, creator of card party game Billionaire Banshee. I'm looking to make a digital version of the game, but since the game uses pixel art, I'd love to make an NES version first. I have a publisher backing me, so this is a paid gig and I know a lot of the card art would need to be adjusted to work on an NES, but I'd be up for making custom art changes.

Here's a short description of the game:
Everyone playing the game pretends they are single. The current player draws one Perk and one Quirk card. These two cards represent a potential lover for this person. Everyone else votes if that person would Date or Deny this strange combination before them, and why. Then, the truth is revealed and it could be pretty shocking! The player who knows their friends best wins.



Please let me know if there's interest, hopefully this won't be too tough of a game to make, and we'll be sure to bring it to all the conventions we go to.

[tokumaru]

Sounds pretty simple from the description. The lack of a simulated world, physics and A.I. certainly maked things easier. I imagine that the bulk of the work would be implementing interesting effects and animations, and possibly animating the cards so that there's an actual reason to play the digital version.

[Razlo]

Yeah it should be a much more simple project than most. There aren't a ton of party games on the NES, and my game box and game look and everything are a love letter to the system, so it's a real dream to join the library.

[mikejmoffitt]

Yeah it should be a much more simple project than most. There aren't a ton of party games on the NES, and my game box and game look and everything are a love letter to the system, so it's a real dream to join the library.

I understand the want to do something tributary to a great system like the NES. However, your graphics really seem more appropriate in a Game Boy Color game, as they use a bunch of colors that would eat through the NES's available palettes really fast, and are designed for a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio. Why not make a GBC game?

[tokumaru]

I think this will work just fine on the NES. Since this is not an action game where sprites can move everywhere, you can improve the visuals with special effects that wouldn't normally be doable during gameplay. The graphics will definitely have to be tweaked, but I'm sure the NEShost a successful port of this game.

Also, a party game on a portable system is a terrible idea, because you'd have to pass the system around so everyone can see what's going on, most likely slowing down the pace of the game and possibly leaving people who aren't actively playing the game bored.

[Drew Sebastino]

Well, at worst, this could still be an SNES game. (I can't help but find the SNES a little too advanced for this...)

[tokumaru]

The man clearly wants this on the NES (the original game is "a love letter to the system", as he said) so why keep pushing other platforms? He's not asking for anything unreasonable, like a million colors, a trillion sprites or 4D graphics, and he even acknowledged that the art will have to be adjusted for the system, so I don't see what the problem is here.

It's like on Atariage when people are discussing 2600 stuff and someone goes "this would be great on the 5200/7800, you should make the game for those"... screw the 5200 and the 7800, they're obscure systems with a handful released games each that hardly anyone outside the Atari circle even knows. When we want to make a game for a system, we want to do it out of love for that system, not necessarily because we think it's the most appropriate platform for the game. In this case, reasonable people are willing to make compromises to see that happen.

[Razlo]

I'm under no illusions, I know that I'd have to modify some art to make it work on the NES. That's fine with me. I appreciate people being concerned that I've made a mistake, but in this case I'm willing to accept the limitations to put out this game on NES.

[Razlo]

Also, I have gotten offers for this job, but no contract has been signed yet, so if anyone else is interested, feel free to message me.

[Drew Sebastino]

You know, Razlo, do you think you could post a mockup screenshot of how you want the game to look? It doesn't need to look like an NES game, bit it would give people an idea of how to make graphics for it. If you only had one giant card onscreen at a time, you could use 4 custom palettes and overlay all the sprites that are using all different palettes, but you couldn't do this with 8 cards onscreen.

[Razlo]

It would be 1 card on screen at a time.

So first it would show the Perk card

Next screen would show that Quirk card

then as votes were revealed it'd show the Date or Deny card

[tokumaru]

With only one card visible at a time you can dedicate all palettes to it, and a great deal of sprites for overlays. It would be really cool if the cards were animated, which would be an advantage over the printed version. I'm confident this can look pretty good.

[Razlo]

Thanks Tokumaru, I just want to get more people laughing and put out something for a system I love.

[OneCrudeDude]

It looks like 2015 will be the renaissance of NES releases, as not only where two successful Kickstarter NES projects are slated for release in 2015, but there's another game that appears to be currently under development as well. The NES will be turning 30 this year, which is amazing.

That said, good luck with your project!

[Razlo]

Thanks OneCrudeDude, had some promising offers so far.