Famicom homebrew: Kira Kira Star Night

The game is called キラキラスターナイト (kira kira sutaa naito; Kira Kira Star Night), or roughly translated as Twinkling Star Night.

Home page (JP): http://kirakira-star-night.riki2riki.com/
Author's Twitter: https://twitter.com/riki2riki

Video #1 (JP, Youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8kj7kytJp4
Video #2 (JP, Youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSQaQ8yTXLg
Video #1 (JP, Niconico): http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm21497613
Video #2 (JP, Niconico): http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm21365409

There are two things you can buy (and these are independent of one another, i.e. (b) does not include (a)):

a) A digital version for Windows (which is an .exe that has an emulator which runs the game), a mixed-mode CD (meaning it's both audio and data) which contains the music from the game as well as the .NES ROM file itself. Finally, you also get a book of design/artwork/development pictures. Cost: 2980 yen (~US$30)

b) An actual Famicom cartridge of the game itself. Cost: ~20000 yen (~US$200)

The audio layer/library used in the game is the NES Sound Driver & Library (NSD.Lib).

Any further insights that can be provided (especially by those who are fluent in Japanese) would be greatly appreciated.

Yeesh, the gameplay looks so monotonous (you just collect stars...?) can't believe such a simple game was wasted on an MMC5. Going to guess that it was used just for the extra sound channels. The music with the vocals that played at the end of the video demo was cool ... it would be awesome if that was actually featured on the cart but I think they faded from real NES audio to an mp3.

Maybe this could be considered a very expensive donor cart... do they at least give you the source code for that price? haha

Would there be download of demo version available, in case you want to try it a little bit first to see if you want to buy or not?

As far as I can tell, the CD include the iNES ROM image. I cannot find informations about sales though.

It looks cute and has decent music, but I have to agree that the gameplay looks like a waste of MMC5s. From what we can see in the trailer, all we get are auto-scrolling levels with stars moving in crazy patterns that you have to jump and catch. No level maps, no enemies, no power ups...

Wait, so it is a Famicom game after all? When I looked at the site I could only find info on the PC version =/

It doesn't use MMC5 but MMC4.

> The music with the vocals that played at the end of the video demo was cool

Thanks! I composed the song

Cute, reminds me of the bonus levels in Galaga where you try to shoot 100% of formations of ships. But instead of shots, it takes the run-and-jump dynamics from a sidescroller for grabbing them, drawing on people's skills at doing this in many games that have floating coins or similar to collect while going through a level.

hally wrote:

It doesn't use MMC5 but MMC4.

> The music with the vocals that played at the end of the video demo was cool

Thanks! I composed the song

Nice work, it's super catchy. Do you have a soundcloud or some link with more of your music?

I feel like since you speak English (assuming you're Japanese?? no American could have composed that, haha) your brain has to be picked. Who is the main character? Is it some well known character, or was she made originally just for the game? And how did all the artists come together to create it? How did you get involved?

If it's not using anything special about MMC4 (much less MMC5) maybe the creators should get in touch with RetroZone, or collab with this community to fabricate cheaper carts. Surely they don't need to use donor carts, or cost 20000yen!

I like the idea, the bonus scenes from jaws were so addicting, it seems like it! Looks good. But man if that's on MMC5, what a shame. No way that needs to be anything but MAYBE UNROM. Oh well. And $200 for a famicart...ouch!

I've updated my initial post to REMOVE any mentions of mappers on this game. The reason I have done that is because I have been told different things from different key people involved in this game's project. Let me explain what transpired:

1. I was initially told by a colleague about the game, and that that it used MMC5.
2. I made the post here.
3. hally (one of the musicians/composers for the game) stated above it's MMC4.
4. I check with my colleague, who knows ChibiTech (another musician/composter) personally, who has stated that the game uses MMC5 because, quote: "one of the donor carts you can use for Kira Kira Star Night is Sangokushi 2".

"Sangokushi 2" is too vague -- there are two games with this name that were released in Japan: Sangokushi 2 from Koei (uses MMC5), and Sangokushi 2 - Haou no Tairiku from Namco (uses N163).

Furthermore, from the nesdev wiki, MMC4 and MMC5 are completely register-incompatible. MMC4 and N163 are also register-incompatible, as are MMC5 and N163.

TL;DR -- Someone somewhere is wrong and I'm not going to continue to get caught in the middle of this.

I'm also fairly pissed off at the comments here on nesdev where everyone is bitching/crying over the game itself ("all you do is catch stars?"). Not a single person so far seems to be focusing on thus supporting the most important part: people are still making games for the Famicom/NES, and that it's fantastic to see any/all types of homebrew. It doesn't matter if it's being sold for money or not, the point is that there are still great people out there keeping the spirit of the system alive.

What I've learned: the next time I announce something of this sort, I will be sure to lock the thread immediately once created.

My daughter is almost 3 and is just starting to get into video games.

She would love this game. It's not that hard, has all kinds of bright colors, lots of action, and fun music.

I'd pay $200 in a heartbeat.

koitsu wrote:

What I've learned: the next time I announce something of this sort, I will be sure to lock the thread immediately once created.

Hey, koitsu, sorry I started off with criticism and only that - I really am fascinated by the production and love this news showing that commercial homebrew is alive. Read my reply to hally... I actually mean to be constructive, even if I'm kind of irreverent about it Anyway, I think that we should all strike a balance between enthusiasm and encouraging good standards. I think it's our responsibility to try to come up with ways to provide affordable products - in the end because I want NES homebrew to be big That was really the crux of my thinking.

Follow-up on the mapper ordeal:

I can't quote names/etc. because the individuals have asked to remain anonymous (and I understand why -- has to do with the fact that the sold game/etc. comes with an actual book that contains pictures of the in-progress development of the game, including what cart/board to use, mapper, etc.), but here's the confirmed results:

Kira Kira Star Night uses a TKROM board, driven by an MMC3 (which revision (3A or 3B) is unknown but doesn't matter). This correlates with INES Mapper 004 ("mapper #4"), as most of us know.

The confusion about what MMC it used was also explained:

- hally meant "mapper #4" not MMC4 -- this is an easy/common mistake, lots of people make it, so don't feel bad! :-) People assume the INES mapper numbers correlate 1:1 with MMC numbers, which isn't the case: List of INES mappers

- The confusion over the game potentially using MMC5 had to do with some of the development pictures/logs/designs, where the developers were considering using MMC5 at one point, but instead chose MMC3.

I've also updated the original description of what purchasing choices (a) and (b) come with, since I've been given accurate statements (I misread the machine-translated Japanese of the home page and another site).

Too bad I'm at work and can't listen to the music but once I'll be at home I'll check it out !
It doesn't matter how simple the game is, if there is good graphics (for the NES) and good music it'll be better than most home-brews so far !

Quote:

Mapper #2 = MMC2

Cough cough....

koitsu wrote:

the next time I announce something of this sort, I will be sure to lock the thread immediately once created.

Why, is criticism forbidden now? Are we forced to praise every little piece of software that's released just because it is? Every release has flaws, and it shouldn't be a crime to point them out, so that maybe the same mistakes won't be repeated in the future and the overall quality of game releases improves. Of course this is very subjective, and not everyone will even agree on what is or isn't a flaw, but it should be OK for everyone to voice their opinions.

I felt like it was important to note that, to me, this feels more like an art showcase (pixel art and music, the strong points of this program) than an actual game, because the gameplay itself doesn't look very elaborate. It might appeal to young kids (like shadash's daughter), but for almost everyone else I can see it becoming tiring very quickly. This is my opinion, which doesn't mean I can't appreciate the artistic side of the game and doesn't invalidate contrary opinions.

Also, a lot of us are technical guys, so we'll obviously look at the technical aspects of the program... whether the hardware (mapper) was underutilized, the complexity of the game's engine... things like that are expected in a forum full of programmers.

Anyway, I sure hope people keep releasing NES games, no matter whether I like them or whether they're free or not. It's always good to know that there are still people interested in the old consoles.

Bregalad wrote:

Too bad I'm at work and can't listen to the music but once I'll be at home I'll check it out !
It doesn't matter how simple the game is, if there is good graphics (for the NES) and good music it'll be better than most home-brews so far !

Quote:

Mapper #2 = MMC2

Cough cough....

*laugh* I thought UxROM was #6! Dammit!

See, point proven. :-) I've updated the post to simply link to the mapper list on the wiki.

> - hally meant "mapper #4" not MMC4 -- this is an easy/common mistake, lots of people make it, so don't feel bad! People assume the INES mapper numbers correlate 1:1 with MMC numbers, which isn't the case: List of INES mappers

Oopse! Thanks for your follow-up, and I'm sorry to everybody for my confusing post...
Kira Kira Star Night comes with a thick booklet including development journals by the game planner Riki himself, and it mentions the early version of the game used MMC5. He had to move to mapper 4 because at first it contained plain (i mean super large) logged sound data that was too huge even for MMC5 and farther more the mapper didn't run on many Fami-compatibles and emulators.

> Nice work, it's super catchy. Do you have a soundcloud or some link with more of your music?

Here's my soundcoud accout:
https://soundcloud.com/haruhisa-hally-tanaka
though Ｉ put only one song (with some remixes) here for now.

I've composed for the Famicom/NES since 2003 and many of my songs are available at various websites.
Here're some of my early works:
http://2a03.tctd.us/NSF/H/hally/

> I feel like since you speak English (assuming you're Japanese?? no American could have composed that, haha) your brain has to be picked. Who is the main character? Is it some well known character, or was she made originally just for the game? And how did all the artists come together to create it? How did you get involved?

The main character is named Fami-chan, designed by Riki himself just for the game. At the early development Riki contacted me via my friend. At that time I was too busy to do everything by myself and decided to introduce Bun, Robokabuto and Tappy to Riki as some of the best Famicom musicians in Japan (I know Chibi-Tech of course, but this time I wanted to pick up other talents who were not widely known).

Last but not least... Although the game might look simple, the level design is pretty well-conceived. I'm sure it's not a disappointing game and really want to see any good way to be sold outside Japan.

* oopse again... my soundcloud account was wrong. fixed.

Hey Hally, I've noticed that you're using 2ch's quoting system with the > arrows. Here in the USA, specifically on 4chan, it's referred to as >greentexting. Anyhow, this comment aside, I have a few questions.

In the videos, it seems like there are many stars in a single scanline, but there is no flickering. Is this because of emulator settings, or did the programmers use special tricks to avoid flicker as much as possible? If you don't know what I'm getting at, the Famicom has one large flaw in that it can only display 8 8*8 or 8*16 pixel tiles in a horizontal line without either flickering, or disabling them. If the programmers did use special techniques, then those guys must be magicians!

Speaking of programmers, who programmed this game? I don't want personal information, I want to know if you searched for and hired various hobby programmers. If so, would there be plenty of programmers looking for a job?

Finally, the music is among the most advanced I've ever heard from an NES game, be it an official title or a homebrew game. What tools did you use for the music? Did you program the music in hexadecimal all by yourself, or did you make this in Famitracker, and had the programmer(s) decode it into 6502?

Listening to the music, it kinda reminded me of "Artificial Intelligence Bomb" by NARUTO, making me think he did the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gtGeZ2wOmo

Finally, would the cartridge purchase for $200 also include the $30 disk and books? I personally think this would be a good deal, and I would buy it immediately if that was the case. If not, I'm not too crazy about spending $230 if I want both the FC cart and the other stuff that's much cheaper. Oh, and will the cartridge be complete with a box and booklet?

First and foremost, here are some sites/links to look at that contain pictures of stuff (since I imagine most can't read Japanese):

* http://iharadaisuke.hatenablog.com/entr ... /17/170805
* http://ponrevival.blogspot.com/2013/08/blog-post.html
* http://www.bit-games.com/?pid=62275650
* http://d-stage.com/shop/detail.php?seq=44711

Yes they're in Japanese, but the pictures should give you some insights as well -- it gives some pictures of the book and mentions some of the things I'm stating below. Otherwise just Google for the Japanese name of the game and dig around a bit, you'll find all sorts of stuff to look at, even if you can't read the text.

Onward ho!

1. Good question. If what's shown in the video is the PC-running-an-emulator version, then it should be noted that the emulator used is a heavily modified version of VirtuaNES (many features are removed, you can't load other ROMs, etc. -- this is confirmed/factual, not speculative); as such it may have VirtuaNES's "No-limit sprites" option enabled (this is speculative). Riki would probably know.

2. hally's one of the games' (many) musicians. All the musicians in fact are fairly well-known. Riki, as I understand it, is the individual who did the programming. I don't know if Riki speaks English or not, and I will tell you right now machine translation of English->Japanese is often very wrong.

3. I imagine each musician did the music in their own way. However, as my initial post says, the audio/effect library used in the game is the NSDL, which tends to focus heavily on MML. MML is extremely prevalent in the Japanese community.

4. There were many/multiple musicians involved in this game. If you watch the Youtube video at the 1:25 mark onwards you'll see the names of the composers.

5. The cartridge purchase and the digital EXE/CD/book purchase are separate. If you want both, then you need to pay ~22980 yen (~US$230). Here's a Twitter picture (from Riki) showing more or less what you get (you can see the cart, and the book (what's called doujinshi) as well as the CD). I believe it was available for initial purchase at Comiket 86 which happened a few days ago. I believe right now preparations are being made to make the game available for purchase online or through some retailers.

And because I'm certain someone will ask it: I can't speak for Riki but it's extremely uncommon for international sales to occur, so you would need to use a third-party service to do the purchase for you, or know someone in Japan who could act as a middle-man for you. I want to be clear: this is an extremely common thing in Japan universally, and if anyone in this thread starts bitching/crying about it I will lock the thread immediately. Different cultures/countries are different: respect it or GTFO. (Yes I am quite militant about my feelings on this :P)

6. No idea if there is a game manual (what you call "booklet") and case/sleeve that comes with the cart. I should be clear: most commercial Famicom games did not come with cases/sleeves, they simply came in little cardboard boxes with plastic holders.

I would urge you to dig through Riki's Twitter and look at lots of the Kira Kira Star Night posts since many have pictures.

I want to take the opportunity here to mention that there is an amazing amount of Famicom development going on in Japan in general, and has been for decades now. The main reason people in other countries don't hear about it is because of the language barrier. And that's a real bummer, because there's a lot of duplicate work/effort going on, and it'd be fantastic to combine both knowledge from the East and West (if you will). I hope during my lifetime I'll have the chance to see that happen.

What I meant by case was indeed the little plastic tray most FC games come in. And I find it strange that this game has literally dozens of composers, unless some were the actual composers and others were the programmers. I guess finding musical talent in Japan must be either really cheap or really easy, maybe both.

I was hoping the $200 bundle would've been a large box release that includes everything, as I like completeness, but seeing as they're mutually exclusive, I'll take the cart. As for international orders, I think the $200 price would give them second thoughts about the overseas market.

I wonder if former NES programmers, like the guys at SunSoft, lurk around in the Japanese NES development scene. They're likely out of a (programming) job, so I doubt screwing around with NES games like they did 30 years ago would be bad, if anything it'd be a nostalgia trip and a hobby.

This might be the link to the Western and Eastern NES scene we've been waiting for! Also, am I the only one who sees that Japanese homebrew games are fundamentally different than our own? For example this game, all you do is jump around and collect stars. Blade Buster, all you do is fly around and shoot things. Mr. Splash is a simple sports game. It seems like they stick with one idea, but refine it as much as humanely possible.

tokumaru wrote:

koitsu wrote:

the next time I announce something of this sort, I will be sure to lock the thread immediately once created.

Why, is criticism forbidden now?

I think the point was at a higher level, covering different kinds of energies people bring to a discussion. The one that is out to find flaws in things I think was being pointed out. The twist that it's not actually MMC5 is entertaining.

Quote:

I felt like it was important to note that, to me, this feels more like an art showcase (pixel art and music, the strong points of this program) than an actual game, because the gameplay itself doesn't look very elaborate.

I'm assuming that the goal is to catch every star, which means that the patterns and motions of the stars have design behind them, and that it's only noticeable if you carefully follow or play the game.

Quote:

And that's a real bummer, because there's a lot of duplicate work/effort going on, and it'd be fantastic to combine both knowledge from the East and West (if you will). I hope during my lifetime I'll have the chance to see that happen.

I plan to release the game project I've worked the most on in both English and Japanese, so maybe it'll be a step in this direction ? However I haven't made serious progress since 3 years now, I only tweaked things there and here. (it's as if I was afraid to continue the work).

Also, the language barrier is not the only thing. I bet half of active members of Nesdev doesn't have English as their native language.

Quote:

since I imagine most can't read Japanese

I can read hiragana and katakana and the major part of 1st year kanjis very slowly. (that being said I will never understand more than 0.5% of a random japanese text)

And I agree with tokumaru, critism shouldn't be forbidden and the game looks quite boring, like those iPhone or whathever games where you just have to collect things again and again. Good for killing time I guess but not really something to write home about.

Quote:

They're likely out of a job, so I doubt screwing around with NES games like they did 30 years ago would be bad, if anything it'd be a nostalgia trip and a hobby.

Why would they ? It's not Greece we're talking about

The $200 price is a little worrying. Is the classic gaming infrastructure that much worse in Japan? I thought we were on the brink of relatively inexpensive flash based boards for homebrewers.

Might have something to do with the fact that there's 54 people involved at least, all apparently musicians.

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Might have something to do with the fact that there's 54 people involved at least, all apparently musicians.

The CD version only costs $30.

Haha

slobu wrote:

The $200 price is a little worrying. Is the classic gaming infrastructure that much worse in Japan? I thought we were on the brink of relatively inexpensive flash based boards for homebrewers.

See price skimming. The authors might be attempting to support themselves, which requires charging more than production cost of the cartridge.

That's something that always bugged me.

If you really wanted to make a bunch of brand new PCBs, insert them in brand new cases, print a professional quality looking box and manual and cartridge sticker, handle the distribution costs, and do a decent (50%) margin on the retail price with low quantity production (<100 copies) it's not surprising it costs $200. Especially if you pay the artists.

This is why I've always been septical about making homebrew cartridges. It would be extremely hard to make them at a decent price, and if they are too expensive, nobody will buy them, which makes you make a smaller production batch which results in an even larger price per copy.

Of course one *could* take the risk to produce 1000+ copies resulting in a smaller price and hope people buy them, but it's very risky.

(PS : Sorry for being off - topic)

Bregalad wrote:

That's something that always bugged me.

If you really wanted to make a bunch of brand new PCBs, insert them in brand new cases, print a professional quality looking box and manual and cartridge sticker, handle the distribution costs, and do a decent (50%) margin on the retail price with low quantity production (<100 copies) it's not surprising it costs $200. Especially if you pay the artists.

This is why I've always been septical about making homebrew cartridges. It would be extremely hard to make them at a decent price, and if they are too expensive, nobody will buy them, which makes you make a smaller production batch which results in an even larger price per copy.

Of course one *could* take the risk to produce 1000+ copies resulting in a smaller price and hope people buy them, but it's very risky.

(PS : Sorry for being off - topic)

I think that the passion for doing it overrides any risk at that small a quantity (and yeah I think that's small - there are way more people in the world desiring to buy new NES games than I think you think)

You could kickstart the production costs and then you'd have customers already lined up. This would be almost guaranteed to work if the game is finished and good. This is my plan, anyway.

100 quantity is more than enough to make PCB's and Labels DIRT cheap. I'm talking $2 each for NROM Boards, and then $2 per label...vinyl....die cut.

Bregalad wrote:

Of course one *could* take the risk to produce 1000+ copies resulting in a smaller price and hope people buy them, but it's very risky.

Which is why I see INL-ROM v2 as so important to the future of NESdev. INL manufactures 1000+ blank cartridges, and they're programmed with games as needed. It'd be like the later days of GBA homebrew, where one could buy a bunch of $10 Fire Linker carts and put a game on those.

3gengames wrote:

100 quantity is more than enough to make PCB's and Labels DIRT cheap. I'm talking $2 each for NROM Boards, and then $2 per label...vinyl....die cut.

Oh man. That sounds so encouraging. Because 100 was going to be my initial production run. If I sold that many in a certain period of time I'd call the entire project a ridiculous success. Of course ... it's an UNROM+CHRRAM game (at the very least) so ... probably not quite $2 a board... you also need memory chips... the enclosures ... and boxes.... and manuals. Wonder if this is a realistic breakdown?

Per product:

• custom PCB $5 or ReproPak $4 ($3 in bulk?)
• Cartridge $4 in bulk ?? or cannibalize a few lots of crappy sports games from ebay... maybe $1 apiece if lucky
• Label $2
• Box $5
• Manual $5
• 1mbit eeprom $4
• 8kb sram (chr) $3
• 8kb sram (prg, maybe) $3
• plus shipping $?? i guess a lot

that's just cost of materials ... consider the labor (which is massive; ordering parts, assembly, testing, packaging, marketing, setting up shop, filling orders) and cost of any services like Paypal

And this is not even counting the work put into development of the PCB if it had to be custom

All the sudden the Kira Kira Star Night project warrants some new-found respect from me.

Edit: the INL thing sounds like it will relieve a lot of the cost and headache. but as you can see, not all!

Don't forget the risk involved; it's an investment with an uncertain payoff.

blargg wrote:

Don't forget the risk involved; it's an investment with an uncertain payoff.

Yeah, but, regarding risk as to whether or not the game is good enough, personally, I'm not worried about that. And as to whether or not there will be demand ... I'm not worried about that either. In today's return-to-roots-obsessed climate, it's a certainty. Eventually every copy of the 100 (assuming they were successfully produced) would be sold, and it wouldn't affect my ability to pay rent because I'm a freelancer. One risk though - if manufacture or filling orders are botched and all the investment goes down the drain due to non-working or destroyed products. That's a legitimate risk in a production this small-potatoes. Really the biggest concrete risk is failure to deliver and losing face.

Sorry for derailing the thread though... it just helps me to use concrete examples (in this case, my project) to think about abstract concepts

Personally I'd release the ROM for free, and then if this is commercially possible sell hardware copies of the game for profit. The risk is low because people know exactly what they're buying since they can play the emulated game for free.

The greatest problem I'd see is those infamous repro guys which will of course get in the way.

Bregalad wrote:

Personally I'd release the ROM for free, and then if this is commercially possible sell hardware copies of the game for profit. The risk is low because people know exactly what they're buying since they can play the emulated game for free.

Or distribute a ROM containing only the first few minutes' worth of levels without charge. That's how Doom worked, and that's how OUYA games work.

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Might have something to do with the fact that there's 54 people involved at least, all apparently musicians.

There were not 54 musicians.

From 1:12 to 1:25, the 2x3 grid of names with drawn avatars are the artists (as in drawing) who did art for the book and character design for the game. There's too many to list so I'll pass on that.

From 1:25 to 1:27:

Code:

<参加チップチューン・アーティスト>
BUN
ROBOKABUTO
TAPPY
HALLY
KUNIO
SW

Roughly translated: <Chiptune musicians/composers> followed by the 6 composers.

From 1:28 onward:

Code:

<ドラマ参加アーティスト>
シナリオ：都月景
声優：君島りさ（ファミちゃん）
   ：日暮哲也（パソくん）
<主題歌>
歌：とろ美
曲：HALLY

Roughly translated:

Code:

<Dramatisation>
Scenario: 都月景 (not sure if someone's name (TSUZUKI Kei) or an alias/nickname)
Voice actors: KIMIJIMA Risa (a.k.a. fami-chan)
            : HIGURASHI Tetsuya (a.k.a. paso-kun)
<Theme>
Vocals: Toromi
Music: HALLY

And here are the Twitter feeds or home pages I can find for some of the above folks:

* BUN
* ROBOKABUTO
* TAPPY
* HALLY
* KIMIJIMA Risa
* HIGURASHI Tetsuya
* Toromi (also wikipedia)

As for the coding/etc., I'm left to believe Riki did that.

TL;DR -- The amount of effort that went into accomplishing the above was extremely large, much like how a professional gaming company probably would have back in the day, but with more overall fun/"doing it for the kicks". Many of these people are actual professionals who do this for a living, not beard-furrowing dudes living in basements (which is usually what the term "homebrew" brings to mind in Western culture). This was a deep collaboration of many people to create something great, so as I see it, a US$30 price tag is pocket change for something like this.

I refuse to discuss the nature of the Famicom cartridge costs because discussing that takes away from the entire point I'm trying to make (here and in earlier posts). My message is that I fully support things like this and have absolutely nothing negative to say about such. I'm taking it at all at face value, because when it comes to projects like this, I feel that's the right thing to do, not get caught up in the financial semantics or some technical babblebutt; I've mentioned in the past (see last bullet item) that certain things in the NES/FC world are best just left accepted and enjoyed and not "psychologised" over ad nauseum.

Can I go home now? :-)

That's still a lot of people involved, most professional games from back in the day seemed to have a staff of at most 20 people, unless they were Nintendo's games.

I wonder if this could be sold via the eShop, for example, considering it's a game that runs in an embedded emulator. Then again, maybe Nintendo wouldn't allow anyone to make anything, just like they did 30 years ago. Only difference now is that Nintendo isn't as financially viable as they were when they were a monopoly.

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Hey Hally, I've noticed that you're using 2ch's quoting system with the > arrows. Here in the USA, specifically on 4chan, it's referred to as >greentexting.

I'm sorry, I knew it's uncommon for English speaking people but just didn't know how to use quotes on the phpBB. Now I learned

OneCrudeDude wrote:

In the videos, it seems like there are many stars in a single scanline, but there is no flickering. Is this because of emulator settings, or did the programmers use special tricks to avoid flicker as much as possible?

As I'm just a music composer, I've never talked with the programmer about the game. But I'm sure no flicking is not because of emulator setting. Although he was not experienced for NES software development, he's basically a skilled programmer formerly worked for Konami since SNES days. All the programs were done by him except the sound driver. Riki is not a programmer but a planner and graphic designer btw.

OneCrudeDude wrote:

If so, would there be plenty of programmers looking for a job?

I don't know... but I cannot believe there are plenty of programmers looking for a job.

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Listening to the music, it kinda reminded me of "Artificial Intelligence Bomb" by NARUTO, making me think he did the music

Naruto is not in the NSF scene nowadays...

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Finally, would the cartridge purchase for $200 also include the $30 disk and books?

I'd say the cartridge selling is still "under planning." The $200 price is just a possibility. At Comiket 86, Riki showed real cartridge's demonstration but there was no initial purchase. Although Riki is very positive for selling the cartridge, no details have been decided yet. For now the only chance to get the cartridge is to win the music arrangement contest:
http://kirakira-star-night.riki2riki.com/j_event.html

koitsu wrote:

All the musicians in fact are fairly well-known.

Yes, they're well-known but just in the Famicom music scene. Unknown for most of people outside chiptune culture.

koitsu wrote:

3. I imagine each musician did the music in their own way. However, as my initial post says, the audio/effect library used in the game is the NSDL, which tends to focus heavily on MML. MML is extremely prevalent in the Japanese community.

In the beginning we used mck. However RIKI went to NSD Lib. because he realized that was not good for the game programming.

koitsu wrote:

4. There were many/multiple musicians involved in this game. If you watch the Youtube video at the 1:25 mark onwards you'll see the names of the composers.

Actual composers are Bun, Tappy, Robokabuto and me. Kunio offered a GB remix medley of the songs and S.W. is the sound programmer behind NSD Lib.

koitsu wrote:

I hope during my lifetime I'll have the chance to see that happen.

Me too!

OneCrudeDude wrote:

I wonder if former NES programmers, like the guys at SunSoft, lurk around in the Japanese NES development scene.

There're no former NES programmers in Japanese homebrew development scene AFAIK.

koitsu wrote:

Many of these people are actual professionals who do this for a living, not beard-furrowing dudes living in basements (which is usually what the term "homebrew" brings to mind in Western culture).

Other than the above, the booklet is really well-done, 89 pages including tons of pictures by famous doujin-book artists (most of the names on the video are picture contributors for the booklet). For Riki, the booklet is also an important part of the release as he's also a well-known doujin (and even professional) picture artist.

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Hey Hally, I've noticed that you're using 2ch's quoting system with the > arrows. Here in the USA, specifically on 4chan, it's referred to as >greentexting.

I always thought it was called Usenet quoting.

tepples wrote:

OneCrudeDude wrote:

Hey Hally, I've noticed that you're using 2ch's quoting system with the > arrows. Here in the USA, specifically on 4chan, it's referred to as >greentexting.

I always thought it was called Usenet quoting.

I am well aware that 2ch uses a relatively archaic system, and uses the Usenet codes. 4chan is basically an Americanized 2ch, so yeah.