If anyone is interested in writing an online RPG for the NES, please let me know.  Need someone with homebrew experience and preferably someone who has dealt with client-server apps in C.  More interested in the homebrew experience, though.  I managed to make an embedded ethernet adapter for the NES but my artistic ability is still limited to drawing crappy stick figures and playing the kazoo.  If you've ever had a crackpot idea of making an MMORPG for the NES, speak now or forever hold your peace.

And for the love of all that's holy, please do not start going on about how the NES can't handle that many sprites.  I KNOW!  We're not talking about Everquest.  There will be limitations such as only having visibility to those in your party or only having X number of parties on a given map.

If you're seriously interested and have the skills as well as some time to waste on this little venture, send me a PM.  A sample of your work would be great, too.  I'll provide an ENIO EXP & CPU board set.  You'll need to have a toaster NES and preferably a PowerPak.

Oh, and if anyone knows of a Google Maps API that would allow the game server to retrieve and parse map data, I'm really tempted to write a functioning Google Maps 8-bit edition and send it to them.  For those living under a rock, this is what I'm talking about...




Let the trolling begin.

I only can say that you really need to make your hardware emulated in a good debugging NES emulator before going to work on a large project. Without emulation this will be a nightmare to develop and debug ('small change - reflash - crash - hmmmmm - repeat'), not to mention that it limits your choice of potential developers a lot, that is very limited as is.

You do have a good point.  About a year ago I ported the IP and buffering functions from the PIC32 C code into the FCEUX emulator.  The problem was that I ended up making a number of changes to the firmware and didn't have time to keep updating the FCEUX source.  If anyone out there wanted to do so I'd be happy to share the relevant PIC32 C code with them.

so you are the one that is making the Neso?

Jake? or something like that?

I see I have competition now.

Would it be better (easier) to tap into an existing project like the multiplayer versions of nethack/angband?

Oh boy. Volunteering to program an NES game is a long shot, pal. You stand a better chance mastering alchemy.

Yeah, it probably would be.  I've never really played either one; will have to take a look.  Thanks for the suggestion.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not holding my breath.  But stranger things have happened.

Online RPG sounds like an overly ambitious goal to me at this point. I think it would be better to start with a more simple "proof of concept" type game first.

There is also a fan-made NES-style Dragon Warrior MMO...at least, there used to be.

Are you looking for someone to write the whole game, or for someone to collaborate with?  Do you have any particular game design plans?

Collaborate.  I do have a few ideas in mind that I'd kick around with anyone who is interested.  I wouldn't expect to retain full creative control of course; this would be worked out prior to any work being done.

One of the things that will make this project unique is the ability to dynamically (and quickly) stream code from the server.  Not just graphics and sound data, but most of the executable code as well.  The idea is to use SRAM at 8000-BFFF.  The cart starts up from ROM as usual at C000-FFFF then has the ability to load code to the SRAM for execution.  I believe the PowerPak could do this with a custom mapper.

You'll probably want some RAM in the $C000-$FFFF space so that you can dynamically load DPCM samples.

I think this would be an interesting project to work on, but I don't really have the time to commit to anything.  Sorry!

I'm not trying to sidetrack this, but maybe you could have someone bring Famicom Basic over to an NES cart for use with the USB keyboard? (or I suppose you could load the software via the EXP port?)

I'm really interested in seeing anything that comes about from this. An online RPG would be really cool, and fantastically ambitious. I hadn't thought of anything so big, I was just hoping for some multiplayer shooters or something.

Are you gonna try to port nethack (neshack?) or some other rogue-like? Those graphics were as basic as you could get, just colored keyboard characters, with an "@" representing "you". I'm pretty sure it or one of its forks are open-source. So it is possible to make a fork for the NES.

I don't know anything about game design, but I'll be happy to try out anything you make. I'm afraid all I can offer is ideas, encouragement, and constructive critisism.

Thanks a bunch for mentioning that.  If you go that route you could just use a 32K SRAM from $6000-$DFFF.  The last 8K, $E000-$FFFF, would basically be a bootloader.

And great job on I Wanna Flip the Sky!  Awesome!



I kicked that around for some time, but I have neither the FC keyboard nor the Famicom Basic cart (or PowerPak) to test with.  I'm almost certain the CPU board can emulate the FC keyboard, though.  If I ever get a PowerPak I'll be able to give it a shot.  No CNROM donor boards. 

I know it's a crazy idea; an RPG is pretty ambitious for the first game.  In reality I doubt it will be the first.  I'm sure the CPU board beta testers will crank something out before I do.  So why an RPG?  Time for a flashback sequence!

Like most here, I grew up on the NES.  I was a huge fan of the Dragon Warrior series as well as Final Fantasy.  In 7th grade I sketched out an overworld map of a game I wanted to make.  My friends and I on a local BBS thought it would be cool to play it head to head.  But that little thing called reality got in the way.  Fast forward 17 years to 2010.  My wife and I are in the attic organizing and found a box of stuff from middle school.  Along with some horrifying 90's photos, I found the map.  Not a single tear or crease.  Just how I'd left it.  So I've spent the last two years learning about microcontrollers and embedded systems to develop the hardware necessary to make the game.  Waste of time?  Maybe.  Will I get my money back out of it?  Probably not.  Overly obsessed?  Absolutely.  I think the Blues Brother said it best...

I hadn't originally planned on it, but as bunnyboy pointed out it would probably be the fastest way to get something going.  Given the fact that there are already large communities built around these games, an individual wouldn't have to worry about 100 other people purchasing equipment in order to enjoy the game.  It's the most logical route.

You know, creative (and constructive) input count for more than you'd think.  I'll definitely shoot you a PM when I get to the point that I have something functional.

I too agree that a rpg would be a little too complicated for a first project. What I think would be really great would be a online Legend of Zelda game were players could create their own dungeons and share with anyone  else to play through. True, it wouldn't have much player-with-player interaction. But I feel that it would produce a game that is lots of fun without being overly complicated.

Wait... Why ISN'T there a nethack home brew on NES??? It's on every other system in existence

There are far more systems in existence than those that NetHack was ported to. I don't see any 8-bit platform in the list of ports, all of them for 16/32 bit computers with good amount of RAM.

I had nethack on my crappy mobile phone from the early 2000s, before we even had color cell phone screens, so surely a NES could run Nethack right?

That crappy phone probably had hundreds of times more RAM and 10x more speed.

Nethack has been ported to Atari I believe. If it runs on Atari, it can probably run on an NES.


Yeah it was ported to Atari actually
"NetHack 3.0 was ported to the Atari by Eric R. Smith"

NES hardware is from 1983. 17+ years between it and the crappy mobile phone. In 1983 the phone's hardware would be a good workstation.

Atari is a company that produced many consoles and computers. NetHack was ported to Atari ST, 16/32 bit computer with 512K RAM (specs close to a 2000s phone).

Youre killing my dream here Shiru