/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5075603
Looks cute, I'll keep an eye on it

>>5075603
This actually looks really good, I'm excited to play it and I typically can't stand NES homebrew.

>>5075603
Really impressive stuff. The way they did the level designs really blew my mind.

Yet another proof that knowing how to market your game is everything. While it's just a 32k game with techniques common to almost every serious NES game, it's also well polished and has the programmer explaining the technical "wizardry" that goes into it in an easy way and without downplaying the techniques used.

This should be used as a guide for anyone wanting to kickstart a game programmed for old vidya.

tangentially related pic of an absolutely crap homebrew game that wouldn't be out of place on Action 52.

More info here:

http://morphcat.de/micromages/presskit/

I wish pixel art guides would stop demonizing pillow shading. It's the only think keeping it from looking like an "authentic" NES game.

Am I understanding right that it's a 'mapperless' game like Super Mario Bros. or Donkey Kong?

How does it look that good on the NES? I didn't think it was capable of showing that much colors at the same time...

>>5075662
I believe so, yes.

>>5075665
You mean 3 color characters, enemies, and objects? They aren't even using a full palette in the background.

>>5075659
But most NES games used flat shading, like this one.

>>5075719
Probably talking about the more detailed sprites, like the bosses.

>>5075603
Saw the second video in my YT recs the other day. The tech and graphics look good, but the gameplay looks quite dull. I've got my eye on it, but it's a vague, mildly interested eye. Look great, nice tech even if they're limiting themselves to basically the very smallest size possible on the NES for reasons I don't quite understand, but I'm waiting to see what people say about how fun it is to actually play.

>>5075603
This is how you do a retro title. I'll have to give it a go when it is released / the rom goes public.

>>5075659
>I wish pixel art guides would stop demonizing pillow shading
anon why the fuck would you NOT demonize pillow shading

Looks fun but why is all modern pixel art so fucking horrendous

>>5076569
The fuck are you on about? This looks better than the vast majority of NES games.

>>5076576
Maybe if you display them in RGB.

>>5075719
You can up to six colors via sprite stacking. Mega Man most famously did that.

>>5076548

That was a dumb post, sorry. I guess my beef is that indie pixel artists mostly learn from the same tutorials, who teach in black and white terms like "always light sprites from the top" and "always use warm colors for highlights and cool colors for shadows" and "always tint your greys and blacks". Retro games regularly broke those rules and were better off for it.. Even the palettes are similar.

It looks very impressive, and it's sorta entertaining to see the usual /vr/ contrarians pretending it isn't.

That said, I do hate the modern "small character that wall jumps" aesthetic, and generally don't find such games fun.

>>5076629
The game looks barely better than modern Amstrad CPC homebrews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrUAV9QLTpg

I get they went with small sprites for memory and practical reasons, but I'm wondering why other devs didn't do this as often back then. Would this game be an unreadable mess in a CRT?

>>5075958
yeah, looks boring. The graphics might be good technically but they look really generic.

>>5076632
The title screen alone blows the new game out of the water.

>>5076638
No one did a 4-player co-op game in the early days. Remember they're limiting themselves to 40kb. Many NES games are larger than that.
Also it probably would be a bit of a mess using RF or even composite.

>>5076606
The first one here is meant to look better, right? right?

>>5076674
>Remember they're limiting themselves to 40kb. Many NES games are larger than that.
Sure, but you'd still imagine someone thinking how with these cuts done to keep memory use to the minimum possible, it'd free space to a lot more tilesets and levels or something.

That said yeah, my main doubt was whether this has a negative effect in visibility on a tv. I'm imagining a game with sprites this tiny in a Game Boy which was what I actually had as a kid, and it'd be a nightmare to read anything. NES'd probably be better what with colour and so on, but still.

>>5076679
Oh I see, all context is removed and the second image is meant to be a quick alternate shade on the first one without texturing and so on. I mean. It's a pretty bad image if you totally ignore context I guess.

Looks great, reminds me a bit of Nightmare on Elm Street which is underappreciated. I also like vertically scrolling games like Kid Icarus

>>5076638
Yes, I'd say that modern retro games absolutely show awareness that people will be playing them on much larger sharper displays than they would have been back in the day. Some of those projectiles I think I saw enemies firing off would be practically invisible over bleedy RF.

It would be interesting to see how it looks on a standard CRT via composite. The promotional material shows it on a PVM and probably on an RGB modded NES.

Personally I'll be playing it on an NT Mini + 40 inch TV so there shouldn't be any visibility issues.

>>5075603
>that generic indie platformer 2187378123871# artstyle
Making a game without having even basic taste should be a crime.

>>5075958
Yeah I turned it off about halfway through. It may look good, but the game still looks like the same dull homebrew shit that is usually churned out.

>>5075603
lol this is why Nintendo will always be king. 30 years later and they are still developing games for their first console.

>>5075603
Not retro
Sage

>>5077438

>1392415
>Retro gaming means consoles, computer games, arcade games (including pinball) and any other forms of video games on platforms launched in 1999 and earlier

>video games on platforms launched in 1999 and earlier

>>5075603
Cool shill bro. So the nesmaker guys weren't lying when they said any unskilled hack can shit out a game with their software. OK, this game wasn't made with that but it might as well have been. It's meh at best.

>>5077418
>30 years
>their first console
wew lad. You will immediately cease and not continue to access the site

>>5077703
it's like (you) are not even trying

I expect this game will be a big hit among the speedrunning community.

Am I experiencing crazy delusions or does it look like one of the best games on the system period?

>>5077703
what nintendo console came before the nintendo?
>inb4 arcade cabinets

>>5077987
It looks really fun, but we'll see how it actually feels. Being mapperless, it should run on the EverDrive without issue, or even be an easy candidate to get a custom $12 cart made on AliExpress. I backed the ROM version with the intention of playing it on hardware. I've spent $9 on almost certainly worse NES games at any rate.

The technical explanation for this was pretty cool
i'd snag a rom of it for sure

>>5076865
i feel like indie stuff hasn't really progressed a lot since N+ and binding of isaac

>>5076682
if you want to see some neat tricks look at what hudson did on kirby's dreamland on the gb. kirby also used smaller sprites and had very tight controls

>>5076682
if you want to see some neat tricks look at what hal did for their games. I went and dug up an old blog post about it if you're interested.

https://ecc-comp.blogspot.com/2016/03/reverse-engineering-kirbys-dreamland-2.html

if you're really interested you should try loading a rom up in bgb and poking around the vram to see how it loads and scrolls the screens. dk and kirby are good ones to look at.

>>5075603
Wait, is the main character the wizard or the horned demon guy?
If it's the purple wizard then that's way too fucking small. I don't know why indie devs always do that.

>>5078192
the second video in the OP explains exactly why they chose to do it although yeah it is pretty small

>>5078194
Interesting watch, although I still would've preferred a main character sprite the size of, oh say, megaman. But at least these guys actually have justification for the tiny sprite, whereas there is no justification in most others I've seen.

Wonder if they'll ever make a game that goes above the 40k self-imposed limit. Really interested in what they could possibly do then.

>>5077991
The ones people old enough to use google have no problem learning about

>>5076862
I'd say something similar if this wasn't a 40kb NES game. I just gotta respect the craft.

I'm a homebrew newb and I have a question. How do these games get around the lockout chip?

>>5078182
>What led me to the reverse engineering? While playing there was a level that resembled a woman.
LOL

rom dump when

>>5078481
Nowadays there are reverse engineered clones of the lockout chip that homebrew games and flash carts use. Lockout chips are a non-issue these days.