Not enough original homebrew games. Need more tools?

[tepples]

it's actually a matter of balance... The NES has always had tons of emulators and few homebrew games, and right now this scene needs games more than it needs emulators.

In order to make games that aren't clones of well-known single-screen games like Tetris, Breakout, Concentration, or Missile Command, and in order to do so within the attention span of a homebrewer with a day job, one first needs to make tools to make games. An example of such a tool is the engine of a well-known game for the same platform. Romhacking.net has dozens of mods of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, and other games with editors. Some of these mods even have original coding in them. But I have the feeling that you're referring to games where every tile and every line of code come from the homebrew community.

Another example of a tool is a game designed specifically for modding. There's an RPG Maker on the PlayStation, and there's WarioWare DIY on the DS, but that doesn't help with the NES. Or is it my job to make such a game?

Sometimes some of these tools might require specialized emulators, such as a music editor that sends playback commands to an emulated NES.

Older related topics: Homebrew complexity, Where is Super NES homebrew?

[Ian A]

I'm working on level creation tools at the moment. My goal is to try to modularize things, so my level editor just pumps out pretty basic stuff, and that my level compressor organizes it into a compact format that I can use. That way, I can work on making the level editor as intuitive and easy to use (for me) as I can make it, and if I decide to change my level compression format or someone else thinks the format sucks and wants to use there own it would be pretty simple to change it.

[Sivak]

I think it's less of a lack of tools and more of a lack of will or time for people to do the work.

I get by with FCE Ultra, a text editor, YY-CHR, and Famitracker (for music previewing only).

But that's just my thought on the matter.

[tokumaru]

I agree that it's possible to do a LOT using only the tools that are already available. Blaming the tools for the lack of homebrew games is like blaming mappers for the lack of complexity in the games.

[UncleSporky]

I think it's less of a lack of tools and more of a lack of will or time for people to do the work.

I get by with FCE Ultra, a text editor, YY-CHR, and Famitracker (for music previewing only).

But that's just my thought on the matter.

Yeah. It's a grueling process. I've got a whole lot already designed in my mind, but it's the actual programming and content development that's hard to find time to do.

I agree that new emulators seem like a huge waste of time unless you're doing it for a platform that still needs one, but I don't think there's anything that can be done to entice more people to make NES games.

If we make a "platformer maker" sort of tool and people just edit the levels, graphics and music, are the resulting games really something we need? We've actually already seen what that results in - Super Nazi Mario, Mega Glitch Man, Naked Zelda 2, Naked City Ransom, Naked Metroid. The easier you make content creation, the more banal and inept finished products you get.

I think the current state of the "scene" has enough information available to make creation achievable without cheapening it. New games are significant contributions that people notice and care about. I don't know if we should bother trying to make things any easier.

[tokumaru]

I agree with UncleSporky 100%.

[GradualGames]

I had to realize for myself after many failed attempts at creating some kind of home brew game (mainly for PC in the past) that in order to be successful you must be willing to use whatever tools are available but also be willing to create your own tools to do exactly what you are envisioning for your game. So, I also agree. Besides, writing tools can be fun projects in and of themselves. Anyone who wants to mostly take shortcuts doesn't really deserve to see a project through to completion. Of course, I still have yet to finish my project. At this point though unless I or my artist dies I'm 99% confident it will get completed.

[tokumaru]

Being able to code small tools (converters/encoders/compressors, mostly) for yourself helps, but I don't think it's an absolute necessity. It may make tasks like composing music and designing levels easier, and may pack the data your game uses more tightly, but I'm sure it's still possible to make a decent game without those.

[Memblers]

I'm working on level creation tools at the moment. My goal is to try to modularize things, so my level editor just pumps out pretty basic stuff, and that my level compressor organizes it into a compact format that I can use. That way, I can work on making the level editor as intuitive and easy to use (for me) as I can make it, and if I decide to change my level compression format or someone else thinks the format sucks and wants to use there own it would be pretty simple to change it.

Sounds good, I hope to see that released. Can it provide a 2nd layer for hit detection, or does it deal with that kind of stuff? (yeah it can be just part of the metatile attribute, generally)

What's nice with an editor is that you can hand it off to someone who isn't necessarily a programmer. It makes it infinitely easier to collaborate with people. I thought it was great how some early NES games even included a level editor inside the game (but they really got the shaft, since the tape drive never came out).

[GradualGames]

Being able to code small tools (converters/encoders/compressors, mostly) for yourself helps, but I don't think it's an absolute necessity. It may make tasks like composing music and designing levels easier, and may pack the data your game uses more tightly, but I'm sure it's still possible to make a decent game without those.

I'm sure you're right. I guess in my case, I easily get frustrated with other tools so it was best for me to write my own. It was the only way *I* could really get into full swing with a project like this, I think.

[Ian A]

Sounds good, I hope to see that released. Can it provide a 2nd layer for hit detection, or does it deal with that kind of stuff? (yeah it can be just part of the metatile attribute, generally)

What's nice with an editor is that you can hand it off to someone who isn't necessarily a programmer. It makes it infinitely easier to collaborate with people. I thought it was great how some early NES games even included a level editor inside the game (but they really got the shaft, since the tape drive never came out).

So far it only handles basic tiles, but I'm pretty early in and I planned to put in handling for collision, palette and attributes (ice, water, etc) based on command line options. I'm not a very good coder, so I can't promise anything, but it works so far for me!

Yeah. It's a grueling process. I've got a whole lot already designed in my mind, but it's the actual programming and content development that's hard to find time to do.

I agree that new emulators seem like a huge waste of time unless you're doing it for a platform that still needs one, but I don't think there's anything that can be done to entice more people to make NES games.

If we make a "platformer maker" sort of tool and people just edit the levels, graphics and music, are the resulting games really something we need? We've actually already seen what that results in - Super Nazi Mario, Mega Glitch Man, Naked Zelda 2, Naked City Ransom, Naked Metroid. The easier you make content creation, the more banal and inept finished products you get.

I think the current state of the "scene" has enough information available to make creation achievable without cheapening it. New games are significant contributions that people notice and care about. I don't know if we should bother trying to make things any easier.

I remember when CD burners began to proliferate, I was pretty exited at the possibility of great bands who couldn't afford to put out an album being able to make CDs cheaply. Most bands I saw made extremely low quality releases and tried to sell them at retail prices. (Seriously! For punk bands, no less!) Usually people who are serious will find the resources.

I do, however, consider level design, graphic design and music composition as different skills, and it's quite possible to excel at one and not be so good at the others, and tools are pretty handy if you know someone who is seriously into one of those and not so good at the rest.

[MottZilla]

I do not really believe that a lack of certain tools is related to people not making their own NES games. It's a lack off will and/or skill usually, or support roles. If you have the skills needed to make a NES game, you probably can make tools for graphics, palettes, levels, other data without a problem. I can see how you may have an issue with Sound Programming and Sound Tool programming. I certainly think that is something that all homebrew could benefit from. Famitracker is nice but not intended for game use. Support roles ofcourse would be things like artists to draw graphics.

Really if you can't make a level editor/level data format I don't think you have the ability to make a NES game anyway so tools to do that sort of thing for you just pass you on a little bit further to fail later on. If you have the skills to do it but use someone else's you make just make your own later if it doesn't have all the features you want or has some you don't like.

Again my #1 NES Tool suggestion that would help with homebrew development would be a game oriented Sound Driver + SFX & Music tool suite. Being able to relatively easily add sound to your programs as well as having a sort of standard for artists to compose for would be helpful I think.

[UncleSporky]

Actually I agree on the sound driver front. I don't think it's the one thing keeping people from nesdev or anything, but it is still quite a stumbling block. One issue is that, like anything else, you can't meet everyone's needs with just one template. If you make it small and have to cut a few corners so that it can fit into most programs easily, it might lack advanced features that some people might want.

But I'd still like something better than the finicky, modified Famitracker driver we have now (versus the option of having to figure it out myself). I know Neil's working on something that promises to be interesting...

[Memblers]

What's wrong with the Famitracker or Nerdtracker drivers? I haven't used Famitracker as much so I am actually pretty curious.

Only bad thing with Nerdtracker is that it takes maybe 8 times as much time on the beginning of a pattern, but then you're talking maybe losing only 15 scanlines or so of CPU time (it depends on what you're doing on that first line). Memory usage doesn't hurt zeropage much.

If one wants an super-optimized sound driver that takes 16 bytes of RAM and ntohing else, then yeah I guess you have to write your own, but there's no harm in dedicating a whole 256 byte page in RAM just for sound when it's available.

[tokumaru]

there's no harm in dedicating a whole 256 byte page in RAM just for sound when it's available.

In most of my game designs I don't have 256 bytes of RAM to dedicate to sound. In my current project I have around 80 bytes in page 1 and maybe 32 or so bytes in ZP set aside for the music/sound engine, which I haven't coded yet.

I wouldn't feel good about myself if I used other peoples' code in my projects... I guess I'm a control freak that needs to know absolutely everything that goes on in my programs! =)