I've been working on this sci-fi Metroidish type game for the NES for about a year. It is NOT a homebrew, but a very elaborate rom hack, so I apologize if it somehow annoys people who don't like them for whatever reason. 



Prior to now it has only made one public appearance, at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo back in September, where the first level was a playable demo at the NintendoAge booth. The guys running the booth who allowed me to demo it, (Josh and Matt?), encouraged me to give updates of the game and talk about the game on this site, so here I am. I made a website for it, to give an idea what the game is like, and to talk about what's in the game and what it's all about etc.

Some of you might be wondering why in god's name I am using this method to make a video game. Well, it's just the way I learned how to do it. After this game is done, I would much rather move on to straight homebrewing. Just over half of the work is done (the more difficult half, I'd say). I intend to complete this game by the end of the year. I will not have a demo of this game, but I hope to put up a video or two demonstrating some of the gameplay. For now, enjoy the website.

looks great, the enemies look really interesting. what rom is this based on?

Looks sweet man

hopefully the game it is based upon has tight controls

Very cool, concept and artwork look great. I can imagine the hack was pretty difficult, maybe even more so than a straight homebrew (I've never hacked a ROM and am currently learning to create homebrews). Really looking forward to playing with the Gravitron

It was definitely a fun game to play and you get this really cool flame whip like castlevania. I can't wait for the finished product!

This looks really good. I look forward to seeing it completed.

from my understanding thats how alot of nes games were developed from programmers reverse engineering other games and building their own good work!

Looks great. Is it actually a hack of Metroid? If so, I'm impressed that you worked in a diagonal-direction attack.

Overall, this looks like a serious hack that deserves a place on the same pedestal as the small handful of other greats.

Looks like it will be a good game. The look of it reminds me a little of Journey to Silius for some reason.

Are you the same Optomon that as doign the CV2 hack with Thaddeus? That looked/sounded amazing, I hope you release that as well!!

Yes, I am that Optomon. But that hack is on hiatus, as I currently have no idea where Thaddeus is.

I am a fan of sci-fi oriented NES games, so I've been really excited about this project. I was intimidated at first about doing my own artwork, which I consider my weak point. I spent a lot of time observing techniques used in other games. I tried really hard for it to come out halfway decent. I think my years of experience playing Mario Paint helped out, just a little bit. As for the controls, they were the first thing I worked on in this project, along with the design of the player.

It's cool to see someone here that played the demo, making a reference to the flamethrower weapon, which does look suspiciously like the flame whip.

Looks awesome! I'm also a fan of SF-themed games. Art looks much better than "halfway decent" to me. Any chance you can throw up a YouTube video of gameplay? And out of curiosity, which game are you hacking to make this?

looks great! cant wait to play it!

looks like kid icarus

I added a video of the gameplay action. You should be able to get the gist of how the game operates by watching.





This game is a rom hack of Castlevania II btw.

This actually looks really good! Seems like there's a lot of variety in the backgrounds, which is always nice. And the jetpack/hovering mechanic should make things interesting.

Looks very interesting. I'll be watching for more information!

I think the main character should fall faster.

It's in space, man!

THAT'S Castlevania II hacked? You could practically pass it off as a homebrew from scratch - no one would know the difference! In other words, very nice work. (When you get the Jet Pack, that's really the only thing reminiscent of Castlevania II that I noticed. =o)

It´s on a planet, man!

Earth is in space too.

Hey dont worry about the art! It kinda give me a shadowgate feel, which I like!

Maybe it's a small planet or planetoid, with lower gravity.

Looks very nice.