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found a Hombrew Snes game!

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:11 am
by pichichi010
Hey guys I found a new homebrew snes game which is really cool!!

it is called Skipp and Friends and it is a puzzle game

http://pdroms.de/files/supernintendoent ... pdrc-v4-01

It won first place on the PDroms.com Rom Contest.

Hes creator is Mukund Johnson, I am trying to contact him, so if anyone knows him or know how to contact him, please let me know

Ejoy the rom and post your opinions!

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:38 pm
by MottZilla
It's actually be around for a little while but yes it is neat to see any good SNES homebrew. I wish there were more than there is.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:42 pm
by pichichi010
yea! Im trying to contact the owner to see if he would add to it and may be be interested in release it in a cart.'

this game was made out of a competition,

So Im thinking may be we should do a competition to encourage people that can do this to do it.

I can find some sponsors for monetary prizes.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:23 pm
by MottZilla
Encouraging development through prizes is not as good as encouraging development through easy to use but powerful development tools. The #1 thing I could think of that would help with SNES development would be a complete sound & music driver and tracker allowing anyone to easily add sound effects and music to their creations. The uncertainty of being able to add sound and music makes you less likely to bother developing a complex game as few people would want to play a game that lacks any sound.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:04 pm
by pichichi010
Have you seen or read about the SNES game maker software?

That might help with all the sound deal

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:10 pm
by Shiru
MottZilla wrote:Encouraging development through prizes is not as good as encouraging development through easy to use but powerful development tools.
I personally would be more encouraged with prizes rather than tools.
MottZilla wrote:The #1 thing I could think of that would help with SNES development would be a complete sound & music driver and tracker allowing anyone to easily add sound effects and music to their creations. The uncertainty of being able to add sound and music makes you less likely to bother developing a complex game as few people would want to play a game that lacks any sound.
I honeslty doubt that it would help.

We have a recent example - two complete sound libraries were made for NES. Not something 'ask that guy privately', but released for public, with docs etc. Very few people use them, because they either don't like the feature set, or want to learn sound programming by themselves (the most common reason), or simply don't want to use someone else's code, even PD one.

There are 2-3 working sound solutions for SNES as well, plus it is generally easier to make your own sound library for SNES than for NES (samples, hardware envelopes).

Main part of the problem with SNES developement (and other comparable systems), as I see it, is in quality content making. A 2600 programmer could draw something that would look nice compared with commercial 2600 games. A NES programmer could draw something that will look not too bad (but inferior anyway) compared with commercial NES games. A SNES programmer that would be able to draw something that matches to general expectations from the platform is a rare beast, and pixel artists not very interested in participating in such things, because they can do the same for a mobile phone game and get paid well. Another part of the content problem is not only quality, but quantity - you normaly would need more graphics for a NES game than for a 2600 game, and even more for a SNES game.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:17 pm
by pichichi010
Yea I see.

And only got the idea out what I read of that Game.

I mean

dforce3000

made a 8 player fighting game in 3 weeks and it looks like early Playstation graphics so I just figured.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:27 pm
by Shiru
You mean N-Warp Daisakusen? I would say it is a special case - very simple game (basically just 8 sprites moving around on a static picture, no level maps, no BG collision, no AI even) with very nice presentation. Not many games could be like this, and although there are people who could do such projects, that's certainly not something common - combination of good art and programming skills plus ability to work fast in a single person.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:33 pm
by pichichi010
have you seen his most recent job?

a

512Megabytes Snes games that is over 6k bits.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:42 pm
by Shiru
If you mean Super Road Blaster, it is even simpler - all content was created by TOEI in early 1980s (this means there are copyright problems), code for this kind of games is very simple. Similar ports of LD games were done by hobbyists for much inferior systems than the SNES, by the way.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:55 pm
by pichichi010
Oh well I guess.

well I still try to get a hold of the owner of Skypp and Friends to see if he would like to publish it.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:12 pm
by MottZilla
Shiru wrote:points
Good points. However personally, atleast with the NES I was interested in making my own games but put off by not understanding how to implement sound effects and music as well as allowing for a creative artist to make music for me I could use. That was eventually solved more or less. Unfortunately artistic support is still an issue.

So I suppose enough prize incentive might see something but I don't know how many participants you'd see. Might as well just pay capable people to make games for you.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:20 pm
by pichichi010
Well I've been saving up good to make a couple of investment purchases.

Im about half way through it.

After I get a whole of the investment I am planning and do what I got to do with it.

I believe I would have enough money to fund a very good game.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:33 pm
by Shiru
MottZilla, I agree - when I started with NES and then SNES, I was somewhat discouraged with lack of sound tools as well. But as I see it now, situation has changed since.

In my personal experience, getting help with music is way easier than with graphics. There are literally thousands chip musicians around that don't have a chance to apply their skills somewhere other than a self released album or something. Many of them are naturally able to work with given limitations as well. On the other hand, pixel artists got too used to color-per-pixel restriction, and their skills are much more demanded due to the mobile game industry (although it going to change, I think, with all these modern powerful 3D capable mobile platforms).

pichichi010, to get a very good SNES game made for money, you would need to invest a 4-digit number.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:43 pm
by pichichi010
UPDATE: By the way Mukunda Johnson (the guy that made skypp and friends)

made some kind of Snes sound effect and music converter.

http://www.mukunda.com/projects.html

I have a 4 digit number, but that 4 digit number has to double to pay for an investment and the investment will turn into a 5 digit number. Then we'll make the game