http://nesdevcompo.nintendoage.com/contest/
Thanks to Denine and Memblers, we now have two more entries.
YES! Then people get to feel like they are inputting on the project. Plus I think that'll get more sales and I think that nearly any compilation cart will do good just because of people who want a full set of games and variants and stuff. Shouldn't be hard to clear 50 sales, right?
I'd prefer files release first, cartridge release with some extra content next. By extra content I mean intro sequence, nice game selection menu with music, etc. Something like the
famous one.
If cartridge release first, files next, I think there should be certain goal, like number of copies sold, that could be reached in short time.
I absolutely would not like to wait a long period of time, like few months, before files release. If such a thing is required, this had to be clearly specified beforehand, in the rules (but in this case I'd skip the compo).
My main reasons to enter any compo is to get more attention to a release and to get more feedback. If I spent a lot of effort to make an entry in time, and then instead getting of these two things I have to wait for indefinite period of time (which I was not warned beforehand) I would not enjoy this at all.
I agree, release the ROMs first then make the multicart with an awesome load screen and menu.
Ill be buying one for sure.
As I understood it, I'd be making the menu software, based on the Midwest Gaming Classic 2011 multicart (
video). I guess I'd need to add a music engine though.
The people who submitted entries should have the final word I guess...
Quote:
I agree, release the ROMs first then make the multicart with an awesome load screen and menu.
Ill be buying one for sure.
Sounds like perfect idea.
But I won't buy any, though.(I have a little, financial crisis)
Is bunnyboy making it? Has a price been set? I would have to vote for roms first. I'd prob buy it either way but it's always nice to have a preview of what you're buying. Even if it was a demo of the first level or so for some of the games.
infiniteneslives wrote:
Is bunnyboy making it? Has a price been set? I would have to vote for roms first. I'd prob buy it either way but it's always nice to have a preview of what you're buying. Even if it was a demo of the first level or so for some of the games.
1. Probably not, maybe as a last resort.
2. Price has not been set, we are currently checking into pricing. We do not plan on using donors for this so it would require buying cart plastics.
It seems like the overall response is to post em up. I'm off work tomorrow and the next day, so I'll have something up by then. Perhaps I'll just list the games in the directory, then finish up the website.
WhatULive4 wrote:
2. Price has not been set, we are currently checking into pricing. We do not plan on using donors for this so it would require buying cart plastics.
Has anyone found a source of plastics besides bunnyboy? I would really like to put a 3d printer together someday and print off my own. They wouldn't be as clean or nice as his, but still cool in a DIY kind of way.
infiniteneslives wrote:
WhatULive4 wrote:
2. Price has not been set, we are currently checking into pricing. We do not plan on using donors for this so it would require buying cart plastics.
Has anyone found a source of plastics besides bunnyboy? I would really like to put a 3d printer together someday and print off my own. They wouldn't be as clean or nice as his, but still cool in a DIY kind of way.
I'd either buy a lot of $2 donors or just pay the $4 for his nice cases, I don't think that it's that big of a deal. When the molds cost like $5000+, I don't think many others have a reason to invest when they can get them from him.
Because once I get the ROMs, I can get started on making the menu.
3gengames wrote:
infiniteneslives wrote:
WhatULive4 wrote:
2. Price has not been set, we are currently checking into pricing. We do not plan on using donors for this so it would require buying cart plastics.
Has anyone found a source of plastics besides bunnyboy? I would really like to put a 3d printer together someday and print off my own. They wouldn't be as clean or nice as his, but still cool in a DIY kind of way.
I'd either buy a lot of $2 donors or just pay the $4 for his nice cases, I don't think that it's that big of a deal. When the molds cost like $5000+, I don't think many others have a reason to invest when they can get them from him.
Yeah you're right $4 is a pretty good price. I still think it would be cool to make my own though but that's probably just me
tokumaru wrote:
The people who submitted entries should have the final word I guess...
To me this is what it really comes down to, but my two cents: I'm more of a try-before-you-buy person. If I want to buy it, I will, even if there's a ROM available. On the other hand, if I'm not planning on buying it, but I can play it free, and it turns out I really like it, I might then consider buying a cart.
That said, I know not everybody operates that way.
http://nesdevcompo.nintendoage.com/contest/
The website has been updated! Come check it out.
Wow, awesome entries! Thanks to everyone for working on all these! And great ideas, shiru! Good job everyone.
I just tried out the entries with my PowerPak, and I'm impressed.
Thwaite: This one was really challenging. I only made it to the end of the second night. But I had alot of fun. I look forward to seeing where you take this project.
FHBG: Very unique, though, I think something is wrong with the collision detection. The player's character kept getting stuck on the walls
LAN Master: I really enjoyed this one. I managed to plow through all fifty levels in about forty minutes. There where some issues with the ending screen though. The music didn't play at a steady rate, and there where several flickering sprites on the right side of the edge of the screen.
Lawn Mower: This one was also very enjoyable, and very challenging. I didn't have any issues with this one on real hardware.
I look forward to purchasing the multi-cart and supporting the competition. Great job guys!
mbrenaman wrote:
LAN Master: I really enjoyed this one. I managed to plow through all fifty levels in about forty minutes. There where some issues with the ending screen though. The music didn't play at a steady rate, and there where several flickering sprites on the right side of the edge of the screen.
I also had this problem with an earlier revision of the rom. The newer one worked fine in an emulator (shows a scrolling message), but I hadn't tried it on hardware yet.
It always worked in all the emulators. If the problem was visible in an emulator, I'd fixed it long ago. It is also second time when none of emulators shows a problem that is present on hardware.
I'll try to fix it when I find someone with PP to test my fixes.
Bad news: Some of the 16 KiB games were linked at $8000-$BFFF and some at $C000-$FFFF. This means the fixed-$8000 mapper used for my last multicart won't be so helpful.
Good news: The NMI handlers of Thwaite and Lawn Mower are identical, so they can share a bank.
Code:
nmi_handler:
inc nmis
rti
And I should be able to hijack FHBG's NMI handler to act as the NMI handler for the menu code itself.
So the most likely candidate mapper for making this multicart is probably #34 BNROM. Here are a few sources of BNROM compatible boards:
- Deadly Towers was released on BNROM.
- AOROM games can be rewired to BNROM.
- SGROM, an MMC1 board, has a BNROM-like mode.
- BNROM and SGROM compatible boards are available from RetroZone.
- Memblers made UNROM and GNROM compatible boards; I guess he should be able to make BNROM.
Oh, and NovaYoshi sent me a revised copy of FHBG, after he did some intense debugging on the hitbox placement.
Why not ask for a recompiled version of the 16KB games?
I made a BNROM-type board, prototyped it almost 2 years ago and never ordered more because I hadn't needed it yet. It was that unpopulated yellow one I brought to the MGC show. It can go up to 512kB. It says "Garage Cart" on it, unless we want to pay $80 to get the design changed (I'd just as well not, it'll be in a case anyways
).
We'll probably have a lot of space for music (if not, we could use tokumaru's CHR codecs, heheh). Would be cool to get the space filled up with some interesting music, if we use NT2 I have some stuff, tepples has some great stuff too (that Mouser remix seems suitable here, heheh). If given the chance, I'd also nominate Neil Baldwin to make something.
I thought it was fun with Garage Cart, for the menu music on there there is a default song when you power it up, but when you reset it plays a different song depending on what game you played last (but you can change it with the controller anytime also).
Memblers wrote:
I made a BNROM-type board [...] It can go up to 512kB.
Then that settles it: BOROM (#34, 256 KiB PRG) it is, despite that it's a slight
waste of ROM space. The games put together total 96 KiB PRG and 40 KiB CHR. But at least this way, each game will get its own 32 KiB PRG space with its own vectors, even if half that space is covered up by other games' compressed CHR.
Quote:
We'll probably have a lot of space for music
Someone compared one of the entries to the Action 52 games.
Action 52 opens with the
"Yeah! Woo!" sample from "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins. How hard would it be to recreate that drum line in NT2?
Quote:
(if not, we could use tokumaru's CHR codecs, heheh).
I was already planning on using the same codec I used for the MGC cart. The fixed version of FHBG uses only about 6.5 KiB of its PRG after Nova stripped out a bunch of dummied-out code, and I'd bet at least two games' compressed CHR (if not three) would have fit in the remaining 9.5 KiB if we were still using 16 KiB banks.
Are there any official graphics to be used? The MGC cart used the logo from the MGC web site.
Quote:
It always worked in all the emulators. If the problem was visible in an emulator, I'd fixed it long ago. It is also second time when none of emulators shows a problem that is present on hardware.
I'll try to fix it when I find someone with PP to test my fixes.
I'd be more then willing to help you get it fixed, especially if the fix can make it on the mutli-cart. PM if you're interested.
mbrenaman, I'm actually PMed you few hours before your post, and still got no answer.
Anyway, I made an attempt to fix the problem. Those who both have PowerPak and know the passcode to the final cut, please
download updated version, check it, and tell me if the problem is still there.
Edit: as mbrenaman reported in a PM, the ending screen problem is fixed, but there is other one, when you continue the game using a pass code, a part of the cursor is missing. I made another fix that needs to be tested, download link is the same.
tepples wrote:
Are there any official graphics to be used? The MGC cart used the logo from the MGC web site.
I hadn't thought about it. I suppose I could whip something up unless you already have something in mind.
The bugs in Lan Master were fixed with help of mbrenaman. Both
the game and
source code available on my website. I think it is good idea to update it on the compo site too.
Thanks. Now I have an improved FHBG and an improved Lan Master. Now I just have to coax my menu software to boot the ROMs with 32K bankswitching.
For the multicart, I'll need 64x56 pixel screenshots and 32x32 pixel icons. Here are the pictures I came up with. If you think you can do better, go ahead (limit 4 colors, one of them black).
Looks really good Tepples.
I'll update the rom on the the competition website for you as well Shiru.
Also, if anyone wants me to link their name on the nesdevcompo website to a profile/website anywhere let me know. Who knows, someone might want to track you down or get ahold of you somehow.
Meanwhile, I was reported about a rare, but nasty bug in Lawn Mower. Haven't fixed it yet, need some time to figure out how it happens (misaligment of the lawn mower on the screen and in memory if you pick the fuel at the moment when it runs out).
Edit: it is fixed now, files are updated (there was a minor change in Lan Master by tepples request as well).
Bump for the new entries posted.
Finally got around to playing the first batch of submissions. Excellent games!
People say that it's easier to make a good (commercial quality) game for an 8-bit console than for newer systems. I don't think it's as much because of the technical limitations of an 8-bit system, but because the game industry in general wasn't as experienced back then.
Lan Master and
Lawn Mower prove this in a way. I am amazed by the quality of their music and graphics, it's a lot better than that of other NROM games I know. And both games are fun, too. Good job, Shiru!
Forehead Block Guy
The background collision glitches and dodgy physics made playing it a little frustrating, but it's a cool and fun concept. Dunno if there was any fix posted, all my roms are from June 5th.
Slappin' Bitches
My thumb died. I was a dirty cheater and enabled auto-fire eventually. I like how the music gets more intense as you go. There seems to be some strategy involved(?) to get most kills with a given wall integrity, but I found the game to be most enjoyable when I set it to 001 and just shot down tanks until the first one got me. Maybe re-balancing tank hit points and adding more unexpected events/different enemies that require fast reaction would make gameplay more diverse.
thwaite
Couldn't get very far, but loved it. The houses and people fleeing from them made me smile. It's a nice detail.
Panesian Power
Not sure what to say about this one. I remember discussing with a few people about how the NES needs more sexy treatment, heheh. Bunnyboy made it happen!
I lost motivation after the first level, you can blame the internet and its abundance of true-color sexy pics for that.
I have yet to try Memblers's and Denine's entries.
miau wrote:
thwaite
Couldn't get very far, but loved it.
When'd you fail? (day and time in lower right corner) Perhaps I need to add more hourly tips.
Quote:
The houses and people fleeing from them made me smile. It's a nice detail.
Thank you, and we both should thank tokumaru for the suggestion.
I kept losing at Sun 5:00, the increase in difficulty seemed too steep from 4:00 where I usually did not lose any houses.
However, just played again and got to Mon 4:00. I tried to shoot all missiles on my first attempts so the "wreckage" tip helped a good deal.
Yeah, the 5:00 levels are boss levels. Sun 05 goes from 25 enemy missiles to 30, which is the same as the ammo you get for each round. Are you remembering to look for double kill opportunities?
Sun 03 wrote:
You can destroy two missiles by aiming where paths cross.
I think I know why Mon 04 probably caught you off guard, but I won't spoil it yet.
I am now, the problem was I'd focus on the lower missiles too much instead of going for easy double or triple kills which are possible closer to the top of the screen.
Now that I got the basic strategies down the game is a lot more fun and it seems well-balanced so far.
Lan Master and Lawn Mower and Thwaite is good.
Super Bat Puncher Demo is good too but this is a demo version hopefully the full version would fix some things such as adding timed mode and fix the continue option, and more levels.
I have other ideas and stuff too but at this time I will not type it right now.
So recently I was contacted by one of the editors of
http://www.infendo.com/ (Blake).
He asked if I could send one of my controllers for a review on his site and asked that I send an emulator and games with it. Normally I deny requests to send games with my products for obvious copyright issues. But after a few seconds it dawned on me that I could send him some homebrews!
I'm sending the controller out today with the updated games from this competition and a few other homebrew favorites of mine including NES virus cleaner and Dpad hero.
I guess what I'm asking is if you guys are okay with this. I can tell him not to mention anything about the homebrews in the review if that's what you guys would like. But I figured you all would like the publicity and since you're all freely sharing your work it wouldn't matter much.
For what it's worth I did include all the blurbs and plan to inform him of the compo and the roms I sent.
If by chance he's interested in the games and expresses interest on doing a review of homebrew gaming would everyone involved be supportive?
I want to make sure I'm not stepping on anyone's toes. I can guess that you all would like to get your work out there as much as possible but I don't want to offend with improper assumptions.
Once again, great work on all these games guys! Looking forward to the multicart!
If you could send him the games and just mention that the games you sent were just released by the homebrew community and that you'd possibly like them mentioned, that'd be great!
infiniteneslives wrote:
I guess what I'm asking is if you guys are okay with this. I can tell him not to mention anything about the homebrews in the review if that's what you guys would like. But I figured you all would like the publicity and since you're all freely sharing your work it wouldn't matter much.
Go ahead and mention Thwaite, my compo entry. In fact, go ahead and mention my other homebrew games (LJ65 and Concentration Room).
This is exactly what I would hope would happen with the competition. We need more exposure for the NES homebrewers in the community.
Will do guys! I'm guessing he has a fairly constant need to report on Nintendo related items and this would seem like a great idea to write on.
I'll send him the links to the compo and give him the scoop.
I have PC, and Internet too!
Ok, now I played all of compo entries.
The "game of compo"? For m it's Lan master.
I never liked this kind of game much, but Lan master somehow is really good!
Law mover is also very good entry.
So does Bat puncher, but it's too short.
About that artile for
http://www.infendo.com/ thing..
Quote:
I'll send him the links to the compo and give him the scoop.
Um...I don't know if he'l be writing about NROM category only, but... If you\he can't wait then please ask him to do not write about Melanchony Of Existance.
Melanchony Of Existance is badly written and can make NES homebrews look as "poor" for some people, because of MOE bugs and collisions problems.
There will be Full version soon.But if ou\he can't wait then please don't mention MOE.
Denine wrote:
About that artile for
http://www.infendo.com/ thing..
Quote:
I'll send him the links to the compo and give him the scoop.
Um...I don't know if he'l be writing about NROM category only, but... If you\he can't wait then please ask him to do not write about Melanchony Of Existance.
Melanchony Of Existance is badly written and can make NES homebrews look as "poor" for some people, because of MOE bugs and collisions problems.
There will be Full version soon.But if ou\he can't wait then please don't mention MOE.
Yeah I'll mention that too him. I'm sure he'd understand if something was work in progress.
I should say that complete silence about judging and results for more than a month since the deadline does not produce any positive feelings and is not very good motivation to participate next time. It actually took less time to make a game.
Shiru wrote:
I should say that complete silence about judging and results for more than a month since the deadline does not produce any positive feelings and is not very good motivation to participate next time. It actually took less time to make a game.
Sorry I forgot to update this thread as well as the nintendoage thread. We are still working on the judging. Since this is a volunteer thing people have higher priorities. Honestly the contest ended at a really bad time for me (final exams etc) so I wasn't about to put my education on hold and let this take all my priority. On top of that there was some confusion about the judging and some people did not receive the judging criteria.
This is just meant to be fun and get some exposure on the NES homebrew community, I'm sorry that some people are upset by the way the contest is being run. I will agree that it has been far from ideal. Don't worry, it won't happen next time. Lessons WELL learned.
For the 1st year, the releases were good, just gotta get judging ironed out, next year I'm sure more people will volunteer and/or hopefully a public voting system could be done instead, as it'll get results quick and you get to see it happen.
WhatULive4 wrote:
Honestly the contest ended at a really bad time for me (final exams etc).
There were many problems with the compo, I just comment on this one. You is the organizer. You plan and decide when the contest ends. You probably know beforehand when you will have final exams or other time consuming things. When you choose the time when you, as organizer, have to do things that other people will expect from you, to overlap with the time when you will not be able to do these things, it is just a bad organization. That's that need to be improved for next time, because it is the reason for practically all the other problems.
I will certainly help out for next year's compo. Maybe even make a game
I would be happy to whip up a Google App Engine site to manage submissions and voting if you'd like.
qbradq wrote:
I will certainly help out for next year's compo. Maybe even make a game
I would be happy to whip up a Google App Engine site to manage submissions and voting if you'd like.
I'll keep that in mind and let you know.
So I heard back from Blake at infendo.com and he loved the homebrew games from the compo and some others.
I sent him tepples other games and told him about MOE being a work in progress.
But he'd love to do a review on homebrew gaming and would like to see any other games people are willing to share. So let me know if you have any projects you'd like to share and possibly get some recognition for.
You can point him to my old, not quite finished shooter Wraith:
http://www.nesdev.com/incoming/wraith-v0.5.zip
Also GemVenture: beta is here
http://www.pdroms.de/files/2172/, finished version available here (cartridge only)
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=92 Brief instructions are available on both pages.
Tom wrote:
You can point him to my old, not quite finished shooter Wraith:
http://www.nesdev.com/incoming/wraith-v0.5.zipAlso GemVenture: beta is here
http://www.pdroms.de/files/2172/, finished version available here (cartridge only)
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=92 Brief instructions are available on both pages.
Will do! Great games BTW
I received an interesting email today that pointed me towards this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekJ3nSIXtUA&feature=player_detailpage#t=146s. Looks like Shiru isn't the only one who has taken a stab at that game.
Also have a little update. We are just waiting for the last set of judging to come in and we will be able to announce the winners/distribute prizes etc!
Cool. Haven't seen this exact game and this game system, but no wonder there are similar games, considering that the
'original' game I was inspired with was made in 1986, and probably was a clone by itself.
That's crazy....and I played Shiru's game again and then watched the video, and I deff. think Shiru made a better game. Great job again dude! Hopefully you get rewarded since I like your fun creaztive games! Very polished.
I hope I can get a cart of this compilation!
The only substantive things holding the multicart up are 1. whether bunnyboy wants to redo Panesian Power to work in BNROM and 2. exactly how the credits should be worded.
Results are
available on the compo site for a week already.
Good work Shiru! I thought you'd beat tepples Thwaite myself, but surprise results are surprising and cool. Sweet job guys!
Then I know what I'm doing tonight: making a source tarball.
I've sent out Emails to all the competition winners regarding getting them their winnings. :-)
CONGRATULATIONS tepples and miau for winning, you really deserve it !!
I knew miau will win.
But tepples win is a surprise.
I was rooting for Shiru's Lan master.
Still, Congratulations to everyone.I hope we can clash in next Nesdev compo.
Bregalad wrote:
CONGRATULATIONS tepples and miau for winning, you really deserve it !!
Congratulations, Tepples!
Thanks. I just wish yar entry could have made it in.
And congrats to Shiru on placing and showing.
"Landmaster!" -- Fox
"Personally, I prefer the air." -- Falco
Say someone were to make a sequel to LAN Master about Wi-Fi. How would that play?
tepples wrote:
Say someone were to make a sequel to LAN Master about Wi-Fi. How would that play?
I like this kind of idea, but I don't know how that would play, if there are no wires.
Kind of a
lasers game, perhaps? Like, a wifi point has directional limited area coverage, and the goal is to set the coverage in a special way. With repeaters, to make it more interesting.
tepples wrote:
To reply to the original bump instead of responding to posts over a year old
... If I remember correctly, I believe that ms-dos game was the inspiration for lawn-mower.
That being said, i'd love to see a rebooted lan master game. It was one of my favourites from the competition!
Another defictionalization, another bump.
A radio control lawn mower was seen in Disney's
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the PG horror movie that people frustrated with WB's
Batman selling out settled for in June 1989. And now iRobot, the company famous for the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, has introduced the
Terra robotic lawn mower.
As for yet another
hacking minigame in the vein of
Pipe Dream and
LAN Master: That may happen this year.