nesdev.org

Bregalad wrote:What would be Mario without Mario ? What would be Mega Man without Mega Man ?

The Krion Conquest.

What would be Final Fantasy without the Fighter/Thief/Black Belt/Black Mage/White Mage/Red Mage character set ?

Replace them with Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith, and the like, and it would still be Final Fantasy. Unlike some franchises, Final Fantasy isn't defined by a cast of characters.

You claim giving yourself unneccesary limitations makes for a worse game -- yet making a game for an NES forces all sorts of unnecessary limitations when compared to something like PC game dev.

The limitations aren't useless, acually you're forced to deal with them if you want to ever run on a NES.

In that case it would be easy to get rid of the limitations: quit the NESdev scene in favor of the gbadev scene. So you're not forced to deal with anything.

Disch wrote:

Bregalad wrote:It's mainly a practice objection. It is much more handfull to allow you game to be suited to anything than to just change data from something else.

I'm not sure I understand. "much more handfull"?

"Much handier". Bregalad isn't a native anglophone.

Disch wrote:Making a NES game from scratch is so much trouble that it'd be better to just start a PC game from scratch.

Not exactly. In order to be appreciated, PC games need to be either 1. short casual games that can be played in ten minutes through a Java applet, or 2. adventures with 3D graphics. If you want to make an adventure with 2D graphics, the DirectX platform isn't really for you.

tepples wrote:In order to be appreciated, PC games need to be either 1. short casual games that can be played in ten minutes through a Java applet, or 2. adventures with 3D graphics. If you want to make an adventure with 2D graphics, the DirectX platform isn't really for you.

Bullshit

Case in point: Cave Story


edit: (excuse the language -- I didn't think it would be a problem here but you never know -- rather than edit it out I'll just throw this little snippit here to cover my bases)

Disch wrote:I respect NES homebrewer's work and am constantly amazed by the amount of work they put into understanding exactly how the NES works in order to be able to use it so extensively. I'd never put myself through that though, and would rather put all my efforts into making a game for a system more people have access to and has fewer restrictions.

This is a completly valid point of view (although it's not yours it could very well be someone else's). What I wrote about respecting ROM hackers for the trouble they go through was also my sincere opinion. These are all different, but valid, point of views. As long as everyone respect other's opinons, we'll be fine! =)

When I tell people that my hobby is making games for a 20 year old system, I get a lot of frowning, but I don't care. All that matters is how that work is important for me, and makes me feel good.

It's all a quesion of point of view. For me, vieo games are a form of art. And the whole thing is a wort of art, so code, graphics, gameplay musicm oveall ambiance and whathever anyother factory you want to take in consideration all build together to make ONE work of art (and not four or five separate work of arts, as many people seems to belive).

I'm just baffled trying to understand how you think no graphics are better than graphics that don't animate. Before, it's almost as if you were saying graphics are bad unless they animate -- which is why I brought up the other examples of stationary graphics.

In DW for example you see the battle trough the main protagonit's eyes, and this work pretty well. In Final Fantasy, you see your lovely characters animated funily, and the monster are static, but it is "less important" because you'll care less about enemies than about your protagonists.

As has already been brought up -- game companies recycle old code (and even sell their code to other companies) all the time. I'm even sure that this was fairly common in NES days.

Yes, they recycle *code*. They doesn't recycle the compiled final product ! That is two different things ! Because it's easy to modify code to get your hand on everything, it's hard to modify a comiled hex file to do this ! That's the main reason why I'm against major romhacking.
And also I found it's a horrible idea to recycle someone else's code or buying it it without even understanding it, and too many people does that !

In that case it would be easy to get rid of the limitations: quit the NESdev scene in favor of the gbadev scene. So you're not forced to deal with anything.

How will I be able to make good 16-bit games if I'm not even able to make good 8-bit games ?

Bregalad wrote:

In that case it would be easy to get rid of the limitations: quit the NESdev scene in favor of the gbadev scene. So you're not forced to deal with anything.

How will I be able to make good 16-bit games if I'm not even able to make good 8-bit games ?

Not that this is a big deal or anything, but I believe that the GBA is a 32-bit system! =)

Not that this is a big deal or anything, but I believe that the GBA is a 32-bit system! =)

Actually, definitions of "xx-bit systems" are pretty pointless, since no matter what definition you choose to apply (external data bus size, internal register size etc), you'll always disagree with common definitions of which systems are what. The definitions are particularly pointless when applying them to video game systems, where the CPU is always secondary to the graphics chip(s).

In reality, marketing is the only factor that decides if a system gets put in the 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit bucket.