nesdev.org

I thought it was perfectly identifiable. Admittedly, the color scheme was a huge part of that.

I definitely agree that the resulution is too low as it is. I personally wouldn't enjoy a full game like this, I'd probably see it as an interesting technical curiosity. But people have different standards, and varying levels of tolerance for the different aspects of a game.

There'll always be people interested in all kinds of games, no matter how quirky or gimmicky they are.

I could probably hide the blockiness with some sprites for edges and detail.

pubby, f-ff was one of the games i had the most fun with in last years’ compo.

dougeff wrote:I could probably hide the blockiness with some sprites for edges and detail.

I don't know if sprites are a good choice... Maybe you could do something similar to those upscaling filters (hq2x and such) and select each tile based on its neighbors... I wouldn't go full resolution, but maybe 4x4 pixels per tile would work well.

I think the concept behind this is really cool! It makes me want to try and do something like this on the Game Boy now

I have a few thoughts about the possibilities of "Mode 7" like graphics on the NES. If you do a water based racer instead of futuristic hovercrafts, you probably could get away with blocky graphics. It'd mostly be varying shades of blue, and the course could be delineated with sprites that look like buoys (although you'd have to move those in relation to the course as you move). You can also get away with dithered or striped tiles too to mark the edges. This will probably look better given that you'd stick to mostly blues, white, and possibly gray. The trick then is to make sure things don't look too bland.

Another idea, this might be interesting to see as a "3D" space shooter in a limited free-roaming environment. Not sure how feasibly it is to play around with the Y-axis in your demo, but stepping into a spacey genre would also open up the color palette so that things don't have to identify as a road specifically.

Shonumi wrote:Another idea, this might be interesting to see as a "3D" space shooter in a limited free-roaming environment. Not sure how feasibly it is to play around with the Y-axis in your demo

So... HyperZone?

dougeff wrote:

looks like it is curving up

The map is actually very small, so I manually adjusted the distances per tile. The top most tiles should be further away, but since the map is so small, it would usually be off the map (for the top few tiles), making the resolution look even worse.

Anyway, my manual adjustment was slightly off.

How about pointing the camera slightly downward?

I think I'm going to take a break and learn GameMaker or something, so I can prototype this sort of thing easier.

Plus, my oldest son wants me make a game with him, and he's been drawing these giant detailed levels, with large enemies, and I think he's going to be disappointed with what I can make on the NES. So.. GameMaker.

Sellout!

https://youtu.be/1gO59rZrisQ

(song, Sell Out, by Reel Big Fish)

For kids, nes programming is maybe too limited for them so using a tool like gameMaker is more appropriate. Later they can try by themselves if the nes interest them. I guess I should check about it since my kids wants to make games too

I had success making games with my 5-year old daughter using Scratch. She can't do it on her own yet, but she understands the general concept very well, and does actively work on the game logic with me. She learned about the Cartesian coordinate system for the first time, and even corrected me when we were coding and I used the wrong axis. She can use ScratchJr on her own though, but she creates mainly non-interactive stories, rather than anything that resembles a game.

dougeff wrote: Plus, my oldest son wants me make a game with him, and he's been drawing these giant detailed levels, with large enemies, and I think he's going to be disappointed with what I can make on the NES. So.. GameMaker.

There's a "buddy game jam" going on that my son has been asking about, where you make a game with an inexperienced person. If that's the sort of thing that interests you guys, you might take a look.