Hello,

I've been wondering for a while how nes games were created. Can anybody give a run-down on how they were made?
I don't know much about programming at all. I  would like to know the process, names of computers, details and how it worked overall. Were there specific custom programs just for the nes (defining the graphics, sounds, color scheme etc..)? How was it different that making a computer (pc)games? Where these programs just available to nintendo?

Any info would be helpful

I don't know how to answer your questions specifically but there is a series called "Nerdy Nights" by the user Roth that teaches NES programming for beginners:

http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/...

i'm more interested in how these games were created back in the 80's. thanks for the link though

You should find this interesting:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/secre...

The tutorials were written by bunnyboy, Roth just made a nice little index to keep it clean and organized. He even states it in the first sentance

Very good questions and I also would like to know more.

Since I have seen a lot of old concept arts for sprite graphics (e.g. Donkey Kong: http://www.mariowiki.com/File:Jumpmanconcept.jpg ) that might mean people in those times used less computers. Well of course the computers were used when writing the game itself. But I mean during the design process everything was done with just a paper and a pen.

The computers they used must have been like some old Commodore computers were (probably much older than the famous C64). They didn't have any advanced graphical user interfaces and simple command lines were used a lot. I believe the coders had some sort of specifications or utilities to make programming easier but I'm not sure what exactly they were like.

Thanks for linking that site!

Yes Thank you, that was pretty neat.

You're probably right. In the bonus chapters of this Iwata Asks column there are pictures of Nintendo's Zelda design documents from 1985.