Hi,
Can you tell me how a coder can import levels from an old NES game and then create an .nes file? The last freelance programmer I spoke with said they need source data - which I now understand to be unavailable (engineered in assembly only). But, Ive seen games modded into, and I know there must be some way it is done weather debugging in Nintendulator or FCEUX.
a) I've been told about logging writes to nametables during emulation in each level to enable nametable data to then be built.
b) Another option was to look in VRAM to see graphics in the game and then mod from there with a knowledgeable coder.
c) A third option was vgmaps.com, which led me down a flash game route...which inspired me to learn myself, but now I've found that will not translate into an NES game. Unless the .swf can be made into a video file perhaps and then converted, but I don;t think so.
c+) or, write an importer program that recognizes tiles from the image maps and imports them that way.
d) Yet another is offered by a new coder offering to do my game in level creator...of which program, and how it'll turn into a .nes file...I don't know.
e) the game needs to be done via reverse engineering in 6502; basically a very long process as I understand, and from scratch.
f) -this is difficult lol ...any other suggestions??
I'm not a coder and never will be...just need to know what to ask potential coders to ensure they are qualified to take on the project.
Or, if someone can try one of the options like debugging the orig. game through emulator or whatever, it'd be very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading, any solid help would be awesome!
Can you tell me how a coder can import levels from an old NES game and then create an .nes file? The last freelance programmer I spoke with said they need source data - which I now understand to be unavailable (engineered in assembly only). But, Ive seen games modded into, and I know there must be some way it is done weather debugging in Nintendulator or FCEUX.
a) I've been told about logging writes to nametables during emulation in each level to enable nametable data to then be built.
b) Another option was to look in VRAM to see graphics in the game and then mod from there with a knowledgeable coder.
c) A third option was vgmaps.com, which led me down a flash game route...which inspired me to learn myself, but now I've found that will not translate into an NES game. Unless the .swf can be made into a video file perhaps and then converted, but I don;t think so.
c+) or, write an importer program that recognizes tiles from the image maps and imports them that way.
d) Yet another is offered by a new coder offering to do my game in level creator...of which program, and how it'll turn into a .nes file...I don't know.
e) the game needs to be done via reverse engineering in 6502; basically a very long process as I understand, and from scratch.
f) -this is difficult lol ...any other suggestions??
I'm not a coder and never will be...just need to know what to ask potential coders to ensure they are qualified to take on the project.
Or, if someone can try one of the options like debugging the orig. game through emulator or whatever, it'd be very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading, any solid help would be awesome!