Checkout this project I'm a part of

[8bitmatt]

Hey guys,

I've been kind of quiet the past year. Still browse a lot just haven't posted much. I've taken a break from 6502 dev while I learn more about game design in higher level languages I'm more comfortable with. Anyway, I've been really focused on music with the 2a03 (using MML) this whole time. And I've teamed up with some great developers recently to try and make 6 games in 6 months! It's called Retro Game Crunch.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sha ... six-months

You can read more about my background with the project here:
http://8bitmatt.com/retro-game-crunch


Be sure to checkout the "updates" section of the Kickstarter there's a short interview video with yours truly.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sha ... sts/357998


We've had some pretty good press, at least here in the USA. Its been featured on G4tv, Polygon, Uncrate, IndieGames.com, The Verge, etc.

Any support is greatly appreciated (even if it's just spreading the word about it), we need all the help we can get!

-Matt

[Shiru]

Would be more interesting if it were six NES, SNES, GB, or some other console games. PC games, even retro styled, aren't that appealing, there are tons of them released every day and available for free.

[tepples]

The idea is that you prototype the game on the PC, and then you have someone port it to NES. That's how it worked for Streemerz.

[Shiru]

Prototype for $10K, then 'someone' porting it for free. Sounds fun. Guess I should do it this way for my next console games.

[8bitmatt]

Would be more interesting if it were six NES, SNES, GB, or some other console games. PC games, even retro styled, aren't that appealing, there are tons of them released every day and available for free.

Agreed. Console releases would be awesome. But don't get too hung up on platforms or the underlying tech. It's all about making good games. While not totally accurate, we do impose some of the limitations of the NES on ourselves to help us focus. The reasons for a PC release are because we know those tools, easy rapid development, and we're reaching a much larger audience than the homebrew scene. It's true there's a ton of free PC games released all the time but most of those lack in quality. You need to checkout Shaun's game "The Last Rocket" if you've got an iOS device. It's amazing. I truly believe he's one of the best game devs of our generation. He understands gameplay at a fundamental level and his skills are stellar. I also think you'd really enjoy the complete version of "Super Clew Land" (the first game we all jammed together on).

http://vimeo.com/53185929


P.S. I look at your site all the time and have learned a lot from you so thank you.

The idea is that you prototype the game on the PC, and then you have someone port it to NES. That's how it worked for Streemerz.

No plans to port anything. Of course, it is a lifelong goal for me to develop NES games. I mean I wouldn't be here otherwise.

[Shiru]

In fact, technically you can reach even larger auditory with a true NES game. Just bundle it with a preconfigured emulator for the platforms of your choice (Windows). It will also run on almost every other platform, because there are NES emulators everywhere, including browsers (Java, Flash).

[Denine]

technically you can reach even larger auditory with a true NES game. Just bundle it with a preconfigured emulator for the platforms of your choice (Windows).

But it means that he have to write his own emulator(right?). It can be troublesome.

[zzo38]

But it means that he have to write his own emulator(right?). It can be troublesome.

You could perhaps take an exist open source emulator to modify, or make an emulator (Windows or cross-platform or whatever you want) which is BSD or MIT license and is design to be used in this way, so it can easily be modified either in source codes or in a configuration file, to be packaged with a game to run on computers of your choice.

[Shiru]

There are plenty emulators around, including ones with permissive licenses, and many open cores. As you would only need an emulator that is compatible with just one or few games, it isn't as much troublesome to make as a general purpose emulator, with tons of mappers and emulated hardware quirks.

[tepples]

You could perhaps take an exist open source emulator to modify, or make an emulator (Windows or cross-platform or whatever you want) which is BSD or MIT license

Nestopia, Nintendulator, FCEUX, and NESICIDE are all apparently GPL. Which permissively licensed emulator or emulator core would you or Shiru recommend for those cases where some publisher bans copyleft?

[rainwarrior]

Mamiya's 6502 emulator is LGPL. I've recently updated the version of it in NSFPlay to do all the illegal opcodes available on the NES.

http://code.google.com/p/nsfplay/source ... CPU/km6502

Though you'd still need to emulate the PPU, APU, the bus, and all the memory mapped registers yourself. (NSFPlay is also permissively licensed though, so you could borrow its APU code if you like.)

[Shiru]

FakeNES is under zlib license.