Hey friends, I am brand new to Nintendo age and am just getting started with the whole process of homebrewed gaming. I've never done any coding or anything of the sort, but I am totally down to start the process of making a game from scratch. The first game that I wanted to try my hand at is a turn-based RPG. I'm posting this with the hopes that this community can point me in the right direction. I wanted to make it for the SNES, but most of what I see is an interest in NES. Is there a reason that homebrewers stay away from the SNES that I am unaware of in my ignorance, or is that a misconception that I've projected? I found the Nerdy nights lessons on NES developmment, which I'm going to continue to go through, but is there something comparable that anyone is aware of from SNES development? Any other advice for a beginner would obviously be appreciated . If no one replies I understand, I'm asking you all to take time from your day to post so I don't need to search the deep recess of the internet for the info. If I have to do that work, then I will, but I figured I'd ask for some help from some wise people in this new group that I've joined. I am going to be using a mac as of now. I appreciate anyone who took the time to read this and anyone who takes the time to help me on my journey

The SNES is an extension on how the NES operated and implements much the same ideas on architecture and coding philosophies. Going through Nerdy Nights will be very helpful when transitioning to SNES cause it will more or less be a lot of the same but in a more complex and capable form. This should help you along your first ventures into SNES: https://georgjz.github.io/snesaa0...

Dude,
Thank you so much for your speedy reply and taking the time to help a brother out! You the man!

You will find several long threads on Nesdev discussing exactly this.

SNES is about as hard to develop for as NES. It's more complex so there's more of an up-front learning curve. But SNES can easily do things that are considered advanced tricks on NES, so it kind of balances out.

I think the main reason people avoid the SNES though is because it's held to a higher standard. If you make an NES RPG, people might compare it to Final Fantasy. If you make an SNES RPG, people might compare it to Final Fantasy 6. It takes quite a bit of talent to meet the expectations people have for a game on the system, very difficult for one person to pull it off working on their own.

RPGs tend to be pretty big projects, if you can keep it extremely small in scope, maybe it's OK for a first project. But most people will advise starting with a smallest project possible and finishing it (like Pong or something). Your skills will grow over the course of a project, and you might find the code you wrote when you were inexperienced becomes a hindrance later. Which can lead to rewrites, stagnation, frustration, etc.. That's part of why people recommend smaller steps that are easier to complete, the experience is valuable later on.

You could always start with a project that will give you an engine that you can later expand from when developing an RPG. Maybe a top-down puzzler or something would be a good starting point. A lot of the same logic for that genre would carry over quite nicely to an RPG engine, and once you've gained some confidence, you can transfer those skills to a larger project.

Great advice. Thanks for the perspective. I definitely think I will do something very small at first, with that larger game in mind as I learn. I definitely never thought about how atrocious my first code will function ha. I will definitely take this advice and temper myself and make sure my expectations are about learning and not soe unrealistic goals.

Thanks for taking the time to give me your advice!