infiniteneslives.com also sells some games that are good.

The Haunted Halloween games are really good too.
https://cashinculture.3dcartstore...

I haven't played any megacat games, but they look cool.
https://megacatstudios.com/...

Piko ins't well liked around here, but I thought Quest Forge was a lot of fun.
https://www.pikointeractive.com/s...

I'll also recomend Spook-o'-tron, but I'm not sure where you can get a copy.  I got mine from the kickstarter.

I thought you were sold on the 5 you listed already. If you need more people to say Battle Kid 2, I will also say Battle Kid 2 is one of the best NES games period. Black Box Challenge definitely worth it too.

I'm not trying to make it hard to find copies  ! So many production issues, but the regular release will be out soon, have no fear! Happy to hear that people seem to be liking it, the few who have received their copy anyways (still shipping the rest).

;;;;;;;;;;;;

The Mad Wizard, Quest Forge, The Rise of Amondus, Star Keeper, Lizard, The Incident, Twin Dragons, the Haunted Halloween games, Streemerz, Larry, and a lot more are all worth checking out. Some of those I put in my top ten NES games period list. I have also played way too much of 0-to-X, in the name of err, testing. Yeah, that's it...

And when in doubt, if looking for a copy of something, see if the creator is on here and send a PM. Even if they do not have one handy, they might know someone who does. Welcome to the forums by the way.

Battle Kid for sure.. hard to believe it's a homebrew made by 1 guy, it feels like a game from Capcom from 1989. That's how good it is. I haven't played Owlia but it looks amazing.

While it is considered, by many, to be a great homebrew, it is not made by one guy. It may have been programmed by one guy, but there were multiple people on the project.
 

Sivak programmed it and did some of the graphics and the music.
Gimmick did the rest of the graphics.

There were a handful of us playtesting.

I don't remember there being anyone else involved beyond that.

 

I never felt most of them were good enough to really play and stick with it, let alone considered good enough to be period release quality except for a select few. The timed Blade Buster comes to mind as do the Battle Kid games but more so the sequel. A lot of them just feel more like learning adventures and fan games, people just supporting what someone else put good time into in their adventures of learning how to make things or craft good ideas for a game. I'm mostly basing this off the games people asked money for and didn't distribute a free download to enjoy if you had a kit or emulator to play by. A lot of the free ones just feel like stuff that really demands to be free with what is there. There would be special cases like that Leisure Suit Larry conversion as that's solid work, but it's also basically a port of a very old DOS game now isn't it?

Did anyone mention armed for battle or swords and runes?

Both good different brews if you get sick of action platformers or puzzle.

Disagree with you. The passion and commitment displayed by the homebrew community is nothing but amazing. I can understand if that's not your interest but they put in solid work, make quality releases and I'm grateful they're around to continue to make future games for all of us to enjoy. I respect people who put their creative endeavors out here for us, it's brave to say the least.

I respect your opinion, but you're opinion is wrong   This is mainly bc you're basing your experience off of free demos and downloads . If you don't pay the price of admission, how can you comment on the film? You're basing your review from the previews, not the films.

Oh my goodness ! I forgot Armed For Battle.... I'm mad at myself.

Some people dump still so they can be found despite efforts to stop that, but the many that are not people tend to make youtube play throughs so you can watch how the game unfolds without playing.  It's fairly easy to reason out if you would personally find something enjoyable watching a few stages up to a full longplay of a game on youtube.  I would never base anything on a preview as they tend to be peppered with a mix of bs and fanboy goggles happy to suck up to a creator of a game as often seen with mainstream gaming media sites.  While there are many, some notables are not on it but the smokemonster setup for everdrive kits has over a couple hundred homebrew titles too.

The Incident

What would you say your top 5 homebrews are?

Pretty awesome we can have a discussion about the "best homebrews" and there are enough good ones that we can actually argue about it.  


@SoleGooseProductions: While we're on the subject of spook-a'-tron, where can I get one of those SNES to NES adapters at?

Well I won't include a conversion of LSL in there despite being top notch, it's an honorable mention.

Battle Kid and Battle Kid 2 deserve two spots.  And as I like when the mood is there the caravan timed shooter stuff as some of my PC Engine games have it Blade Buster is a third.  The other two well, I've always had a like for Super Bat Puncher.
As far as a fifth goes kind of torn between either Quest Forge or Assimilate which are nothing alike but both nicely well done.  None of those games to me had an amateur level feel in game play, general mechanics, style, the audio and visuals, the all around package.

ROM City Rampage is worth a nod, though not really home brew the old Retro City Rampage did have some NES roots that kind of got put together on the back end as a hand out if I remember right not wanting to leave it unfinished as it's hardware accurate and pushes the limit enough that audio wasn't added.

Woot! Honorable mention, son!

That might get you a shiny silver ribbon if you are lucky
 

I think your original games (Study Hall and The Incident) are at least as worthy of the honor.

Larry is def some of my favorites. Right up there with Battle Kids.    

I just didn't consider a conversion really homebrew, I guess it could fit depending how you view things. It's stunning either way seeing the original Larry there in fine form on the NES of all things. You did good work on that one Khan.

If I did include conversions that would have bumped out the decision over those other two titles no question about it.  But then I'd probably bump another off to give a big nod to that DK arcade recreation too.

I wanted to jump back here and say that I got a copy of Battle Kid 2 and The Incident. I also have a trade going on for Battle Kid 1 and Swords and Runes. I booted up Battle Kid 2 last night and was blown away by the quality of the experience so far. Just wow.

Going to continue to follow announcements and new goodies. New quality releases on the NES is SUCH a cool thing!

I am really having a good time with Lizard. I have not played a game quite like it. I love the freedom of exploration

I think that is a point that a lot of people miss with Homebrews, there is more quality there than they realize. Sure, there are a few turds that have been churned out to make some money (I think thos days are behind us), but I would say that the majority of Homebrews are very good. I have over 350 NES Licenced and Unlicenced titles and an Everdrive but the majority of my game play is Homebrews. There is just somethine about playing something new quality games on the system. It also helps that I get ask to beta test quite a bit (which for me, breaking games is just as fun as playing them).