A Homebrew Draws Near!

A blog series by @Scrobins

Episode 49: Former Dawn

Introduction:

Many homebrew developers and fans survey the games released for their favorite old consoles and consider the quality & skill relative to the releases of the licensed era. A common question is when (if they haven’t already) will new releases reach or exceed the point where well-staffed, well-trained, well-funded companies left off? When will we get “there?” Some conceptions of “there” are more of a philosophical exercise that members of the community chew over like a bunch of friends reminiscing on a front porch on a summer evening. But sometimes “there” is a tangible experience, a glimmer on the horizon racing toward us as we watch on in open-mouthed awe. We have seen several games push at the limits of what our favorite console can handle, a few even forcefully shoved them, but never before has a game tackled those limits to the ground and beaten them to a bloody stupor. The future is now.

For this entry, I’m covering Former Dawn (or more formally, Chronicles of Astraea: Former Dawn) for the NES and PC by Something Nerdy Studios. As of the time of this writing, the Kickstarter campaign has launched and is still live, so fans can pledge their support for the game here on their Kickstarter.

I heard their mapper had lots of space, but THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

 

Development Team:

Jared Hoag: creator, designer, programmer, director

Dominic Muller: lead programmer, Verilog coder

Hali Hoag: art goddess (concept art, pixel art for backgrounds, characters, character portraits), general advisor on art

Brent Hamel: pixel artist (backgrounds & characters), animator

Nicholas Flynt: 6502 assembly wizard, audio engineering advisor

Angus Heydon-Corrie: composer

Mario Azevedo: pixel artist

Josué Oliveira: Verilog coder

Sunder Raj: FMV animator

Ellen Larsson: pixel art animator (character sprite animations)

Joey Provencio: storyboard artist, concept artist

Luciana Cacik: pixel artist (backgrounds)

Ryan Klesmit: pixel artist (background animations)

Paul Molloy: hardware engineer

 

Game Evolution:

Former Dawn first crept over the horizon with a February 1, 2021 tweet. Their post teased the public announcement of a game that they had already devoted significant time to. Then referred to as the Inversion Project, the game would combine action RPG and science fiction with mystery, intrigue, puzzles, and exploration. In the following years more rays of light were shed to whet fans’ appetites, from concept art and the announcement of the Former Dawn title to discussions of the capabilities of the MXM-0 (and then the MXM-1) mapper and gorgeous tech demos. Meanwhile, Something Nerdy Studios posted blog entries on its website with more detailed insights into the game’s development, and just how far they intended to push the limits of the hardware.

It was then with immense excitement that Former Dawn’s Kickstarter campaign launched on October 15, 2024, with an initial goal of $160,000. The campaign offers a variety of tiers focused on ensuring the team can obtain the funds needed to pay its people and complete development. Rewards include combinations of a Steam key, game rom, cart only, or CIB of the game, accompanied by a digital manual, digital world map, digital poster, digital OST, digital art book, physical world map, poster, sticker set, holographic insert, vinyl OST, SNES to NES controller adapter, SNES controller, SNES mouse, expansion audio bridge (or deluxe expansion audio bridge), Durple plushie, your name in the credits, the ability to design a mob, and your likeness as an NPC seen through a detailed portrait. Initially most tiers were limited, especially any with physical rewards, but as they were quickly gobbled up on the first day of the campaign, Something Nerdy Studios created new tiers and add-ons to respond to the voracious demand. As a result, fans will notice a Founder’s Edition for those who followed the campaign and backed early, and Patron Editions to accommodate additional interest, which will have a different box and label (for all you variant enthusiasts).

All hail the Durple!

 

Gameplay:

Former Dawn describes itself as an RPG with both action and turn-based combat. You play as Jekuthiel (a hunter), Ava (a Persuader), James (an aspiring scholar), and Kwen (a punk) who together resist the dogma pushed by The Org. A failed terraforming mission far from Earth has left humanity decimated. In its place we find a child species, the Formers, who have no clue as to their origins. Jeku assembles his band, with more to be recruited as the quest unfolds, in pursuit of the truth surrounding his people, and ultimately justice.

Controls are intuitive, and come in a variety of options, depending on your preference between the NES controller, the SNES controller, and the SNES mouse. Jared was kind enough to create a graphic below that helps illustrate the layout below. Use the D-pad to move your character or reticle in all 8 directions, use the A button (marked B on the diagram to correspond with the SNES controller) to attack or interact with people & objects, use the B button (marked Y on the diagram) to run, press Select to toggle through weapons during real time or activate the reticle during combat, press Start to open the menu, press L on the SNES controller to open the local area map, press R on the SNES controller to use a quick item you’ve assigned. With the SNES mouse as second player support controlling the Durple, press 1 to attack, and press 2 to cheer! Additional commands can be mapped to A and X on the SNES controller using the menu.

For those who like options!

 

Review:

I was fortunate to play Former Dawn’s demo, and the word I would use to describe the game is alive. The smooth animations, the detailed sprites & environments, all of it paints a picture that feels more fluid and immersive than any game that I can think of. Even the grunt of Jeku getting hurt in the Zelda-style combat brought a jolt to me that I wasn’t expecting, not to conserve my character to keep playing, but to genuinely protect him! Even though this demo was a mere taste to whet our appetites, the potential and more importantly the fun are there. The Zelda components make for fun exploring, poking around a world so carefully drawn that I want to see how I can interact with it. The Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy elements are a challenging interlude with strategy to add complexity to battles that the 8-bit area did not previously consider, with its reticle for targeting different aspects of your enemy’s body. Is the game fun? I played the demo to completion, and I am going to jump back in to see if there are any corners I missed. And that’s knowing even more is going to be put in later. This is the aftermarket RPG I’ve been waiting for.

Town layout from Former Dawn

Graphically Former Dawn is an absolute feast. Even after years of promoting itself, people still can’t believe it’s playable on the NES. Something Nerdy Studios took a game that would be comfortable on a 16-bit console and made it work with every ounce of passion and wisdom they could muster (and perhaps some dark magic) and brought it to the previous generation console. And their love shines through. The detail of the sprites, animations, backgrounds…just everything exemplifies why this community is different than the licensed era which was built around timelines and corporate profit. Former Dawn is the kind of beautifully crafted game that only happens when passionate developers are able to take their time. Every color bursts forth to illustrate this new world, whether it be the alien creature, the humanoid main characters, or my favorite: the Durple. If dawn is the best time of day when light brings out the most vibrant shades of the world around us, then this game is aptly named.

Accompanying those graphics and gameplay, Former Dawn’s soundtrack is simply beautiful. I feel as though I am listening to a polished PC game from the 90s with orchestral music. The music conveys exotic moods of a world blended in fantasy and sci-fi. My mind races with the possibility of what waits beyond the next screen because the soundtrack tells me I haven’t begun to sink my teeth into this story. Journeying through the world, the music possesses an ethereal quality that has notes for Jeku's adventurous optimism with we, the player's feeling of otherworldly wonder and apprehension.

 

Interviews:

Something Nerdy Studios assembled a brilliant cast of talent to develop Former Dawn, including their core team, as well as additional creatives to support them over the course of the game’s development. Understandably that can make interviewing the team more than a light lift, but with Jared’s help, I interviewed as many people as possible to illuminate the stories of Former Dawn.

 

 

Jared Hoag, Something Nerdy Studios

@aquishix / @SomethinNerdy

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer and producer? What is your origin story and the story behind Something Nerdy Studios?

Sure!  When I was still 5 years old, my mother brought home a TRS-80 Color Computer Model II and it changed my world.  Even before going to kindergarten, I taught myself how to type on that keyboard and read from computer manuals and other books.  The first few programs I wrote were Mandelbrot Set generators that my father helped me with.  Throughout my childhood, we'd go to the Fort Worth Central Library, and I would head straight to the Dewey Decimal 000 section to find books on programming and game design.  I'm not sure how old I was when I really began writing my own games from scratch, but it had become my first real passion in life by the early 90s.  (At the same time, I played and beat my first RPG – Chuck Bueche's 2400 A.D.)  Probably the most ambitious thing I did back then was create a whole series of games called Kid's Quest, inspired by the King's Quest games from Sierra.

Screenshot from 2400 A.D.

In my teenage years (mid 90s), I was heavily involved in the emerging NES/SNES emulation & homebrew community on IRC and the web.  It was around this time that I began to get into (J)RPGs more intensely (Seiken Densetsu III, Chrono Trigger, Terranigma...) and began to dream of making my own.  At the time, though, I was too intimidated by 6502 Assembly to get into the programming part of it, so instead I created logos for emulators and emulation-related websites (ZSNES, snes9x, Zophar's Domain, Archaic Ruins...), beta tested software, and just generally provided enthusiasm and support for others' efforts.
Fast forward to my college years (late 90s/early 2000s): I matriculated as a Fine Arts major because my graphic design work had evolved into a desire to pursue computer animation as a career.  That didn't work out, so I switched majors to Computer Science.  Unfortunately, I didn't like how the material was taught, so I switched again to Mathematics, which is what I stuck with and earned my degrees in. 

After I left graduate school, I had a successful career as a financial Risk Analyst and then Software Engineer, but game development for some big company was never appealing to me.  Wise people told me to stay away from it and I heeded their advice.  But my passion for games, especially designing games, had never abated.  Eventually, I found myself in a good enough financial position to be able to team up with my best friend and found Something Nerdy Studios, and here we are.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

I've drawn inspiration from a variety of genres, platforms, and companies.  In the early years, it was definitely Roberta Williams at Sierra who had the biggest influence on me.  Despite the obnoxious difficulty and clunky interfaces, her games always made me feel immersed in those worlds.  Later on I was more inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto (Zelda), Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy & Chrono Trigger), and Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III (Star Control).  Star Control II ended up being my favorite game of all time.  Tim Cain is another huge influence, but I arrived to his party late; I didn't get around to playing the Fallout games until 2010.  Finally, I'd say Thomas Happ (Axiom Verge) is the indie developer I respect the most; he's awe inspiring in his polymathic genius.  Roberta Williams has (except for a recent remake) retired from the video game industry, but I still follow everything that those other game designers put out.

 

-In addition to your game development work, you are a software engineer by profession. Do you find your past professional work has informed your indie work?

Absolutely.  It's done that in at least 3 major ways.  First, becoming a professional Software Engineer boosted my confidence enormously.  It was very important to step outside my comfort zone, because only then was I able to dig in and learn data structures and algorithms, low level computing concepts, and the design principles that keep complexity at bay throughout the creation process.  Secondly, serving as an Analyst and reporting to C-level executives taught me how to focus on the information that really counts, make judgments based upon it, and argue for courses of action with a minimum of distraction.  Thirdly, becoming a Team Lead at several different companies gave me the opportunity to develop my leadership skills and understand what it's like “on the other side of the table”.  I conducted dozens of interviews at those companies and that skill became directly applicable in SNS's recruiting efforts over the years.

 

-How would you describe your design aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

Because video games are fundamentally mechanical and interactive in nature, the most important thing in game design is to make the core mechanics fun, intuitive, and smooth.  A game should convey mechanics in such a way that they feel natural and “get out of the way of the experience” (this contributes to immersion).  After that in importance are the direct aesthetics of the art.  In this I include graphics, music, and story.  (Yes, a game's story is art!  It is just another form of literature.)  I have a strong conviction that the art used in a video game should be beautiful and, ideally, enjoyable outside the context of the game itself.  Examples: The soundtrack to Chrono Cross, the graphics in Gris, and the storyline/dialogue of Planescape Torment.  As to the hallmarks of a game designed by me, I will have to leave it to the audience... but my hope is that it will be a combination of general high quality and internal consistency of the lore.

 

-What tools do you use to code and create?

Languages: 6502 Macro Assembly (ca65), Java, C, C++, PHP, and bash.
Off the shelf tools: VS Code, Eclipse, notepad++, Quartus, Open Office, Photoshop, Aseprite, Tiled, 3ds Max, and good old pencil & paper.
Internal SNS tools I've written: Virtual Paletter, Image Demaker, Camera Tilter, and Parallaxer.

 

-With Former Dawn, you’re working on a game for decades-old hardware. How does producing a game for the NES compare to your experiences developing solutions for newer tech?

Obviously, almost all of the problems associated with creating a game for the NES come down to the extremely limited hardware.  I think the biggest obstacle to creating Former Dawn is the set of restrictions that the PPU imposes.  The biggest one of those is 8-sprites-per-scanline, which just has to be accepted and dealt with carefully.  Many of the others such as the attribute grid, tile mapping, nametable handling, bus timing, and color palette(s) are very restrictive out of the box.  Much of what we've done on this project is alleviate those restrictions partly via our custom memory mapper for the NES called Memory eXpansion Module 1 or MXM-1.  Right behind the PPU is the CPU, which is both primitive and clocked very slowly.  There's nothing that can be done about this on a stock NES without doing anachronistic things on the cartridge, which is against our philosophy.  So CPU cycles are the most precious resource we have, really.  We try to spend them very wisely.  Dominic is quite good at low-level optimization, which helps greatly─especially because we're forced to use ca65, which means modern luxuries like optimizing compilers just have no role.

 

-What was the working dynamic like across the development team and in your collaboration across Something Nerdy Studios? How did you first connect with everyone?

Initially, it was just Dominic and me renting a tiny office and exploring the NES's hardware while we brainstormed innovations and game design concepts.  Then my brother joined the project for a while and created tiled-based background graphics for us to use with our code experiments.  After about 1 year of that, my wife Hali (who is an accomplished and classically trained artist) stepped in to create concept art and help establish the game's visual style and quality via character portraits, main character sprites, and eventually sophisticated hand drawn background graphics that leverage our custom cartridge tech.  I also recruited one of my former co-workers to do pixel art animation and a pixel artist I had met when Dominic and I attended Retropalooza 2019 in Dallas.  All of this early period was what I think of as the “golden age” of the project, in which the dynamic was very healthy and vibrant; almost everyone working on the project knew each other in person and worked together in person.

Retropalooza: a convention, an expo, a networking opportunity!

Then COVID-19 hit.  Our office space was shut down and we moved the whole operation from Texas to Tennessee.  After getting here, I began to recruit in earnest over the Internet.  The contractor part of the team emerged as a combination of (a few) people from my past, pixelation.org, various Discord servers, and personal recommendations from a demoscene guru I had met because of being a vintage gaming enthusiast.  The intensity of collaboration has varied both with the number of people working on the project and what, specifically, we've focused on.  At peak we've had 4 full-time workers and another 10 or so part time.  Right now it's sitting at 3 full time and 8 part time.  In any case, I've made the best of working with people remotely but it's far from ideal.  Thankfully, by pure coincidence, one of the most recent additions to the team (Zeta, an extremely talented programmer and musician) that I met on the NESdev Discord server moved to a nearby city here in East Tennessee.  He, Dominic, and I have been able to meet in person several times which has rejuvenated some of the original spirit.

 

-What is the story behind the Former Dawn’s…well, dawn? What is the inspiration behind its name? Why develop for the NES in particular? And why choose to create an RPG right out of the gate? What is so resonant about this console and genre for you?

In the backstory of the game, the Formers (short for “Terraformers”) were the bioengineered humanoids that were sent to Astraea to carry out the multigenerational terraforming mission to make it suitable for human colonization.  The core members of SNS brainstormed for quite a while before Dominic suggested the name “Former Dawn” and it quickly became obvious that it was the right choice.  It's a double entendre because of details of the game I won't get into here.  Scrapped ideas for the name include: Inversion, Unexamined, and (jokingly) Caves & Computers.

The concept for the story is something that I had come up with about 8 years prior to founding SNS; it was just a science fiction story and wasn't even intended to be the basis for a video game.  It evolved over that 8-year period into something that I noticed could be the basis of a good RPG, so I decided to “spend” my idea that way.  The decision to make the game for the NES specifically was born out of the fact that I'd wanted to develop an NES or SNES game for decades, and my controversial opinion that the NES is lacking in the RPG department.  The SNES and PlayStation were the consoles that the JRPG genre really flourished on, and I want to bring some of that goodness to the more primitive precursor hardware.

I did vacillate between creating a platformer or some other kind of action-adventure game instead of (what we now call) Former Dawn, but my team pushed back strongly and told me we should stick to the RPG concept.  I'm grateful for their wisdom, faith, and encouragement.  This project would be absolutely nothing like it is if I had gone the other route.

In my opinion, the NES is the greatest console of all time.  The SNES is my favorite, but the NES is the greatest.  Why?  Many reasons, but the main one is that it was the first truly viable system for elaborate, long runtime games with intricate mechanics and fleshed out worlds.  It's no coincidence that some of the most successful franchises of all time (Zelda, Super Mario, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Kirby, Dragon Quest, Castlevania, Metal Gear, Mega Man, and others...) had their first entries on the NES.  It made it possible for the first time to really tell a story in a video game, either explicitly through text, elaborate scenes and level designs, or a combination.  Video games up until that point had been purely action based, with the fancier versions being at arcades and stripped down “mini-game” versions being for the first and second generation of home video game consoles.  The NES changed all that.  Not every good game on the NES had to be an RPG, but it was the first console on which an RPG was really possible.

The RPG genre is so special to me because it sits at the sweet spot between explicit storytelling and interactive gameplay.  If you focus more on storytelling than an RPG does, you end up with an interactive novel.  If you focus more on interactive gameplay, you get an adventure or pure action game.  There's nothing wrong with any of those other genres, but they aren't optimal for what makes playing long games satisfying.  Enjoying a good story is a crucial part of what makes us human, but so is participating in meaningful struggle.  RPGs offer a way to experience both, and from the safety of one's home!
 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

On a personal level, I'm proudest of the story, characters, and lore in general.  When it comes to the rest of the team, I would say Hali's demonstration of just how good graphics can look on the NES, and Dominic's incredible work on the Verilog for the FPGA implementation of MXM-1.  He's accomplished things with this hardware that no one else in the world has.  The project would not be the same without their stellar contributions.

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

There are so many that it's hard to know where to begin.  Perhaps the most surprising thing has been how hard it is to recruit for graphic artists that are able and willing to create graphics with the particular hardware restrictions we have in place.  There are a lot of “pixel artists” out there but their self-imposed restrictions are ad hoc and just kind of generally mimic old computers and game consoles.  On the other side is the much smaller group of NES enthusiasts who know how to make stock 16x16 attribute graphics and use a very tile-based approach.  Our project sits somewhere in the awkward middle where no one has any experience. 

Another of our biggest challenges has been trying to support as many versions of the NES hardware as we can.  If you push the limits of the system, you will find that most “famiclones” fail badly – even “100% compatible” ones like the Analogue Nt Mini. 

The biggest lesson I've learned is that you simply have to keep moving forward with your chin up, even when you feel like you're going to fail.  The road to success is never smooth, and developing innovative indie games is certainly no exception.  Developing such games on ancient hardware is even rougher, but it can be done!

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon? Any dream projects?

Well, Dominic has an RPG concept of his own that I've agreed to help him create as SNS's second title, if we're successful with this first game.  I've also sketched out rough ideas and storylines for 2 sequels to Former Dawn.  If I'm able to pursue those projects, I intend to target the SNES for the 2^nd game in the series and MS-DOS for the 3^rd one.  As far as true dream projects go...yes, definitely.  After creating all these games that are in (now) classical genres, I'd really like to move on to something truly innovative on the design front.  Something that would leverage my training in higher mathematics.  I'd love to distill some of those more cerebral concepts and use them in a game that could be enjoyed by a general audience.  Hopefully I get to explore that front someday.

 

-Are there any other new NES games in development that you are excited to play?

Absolutely!  I follow the modern NES dev scene very closely.  I was an immediate top backer on Morphcat's Triple Jump, and I'm looking forward to whatever they do next.  Summer Island Tactics looks very cool, as does Kingdom Crisis.  Halcyon seems to have a lot of potential but development has been slow on that one.  (Same with Project Borscht.)  I would love to be the one to convince Mugi to finish developing Dimension Shift.  Cross Paint honors the Mario Paint legacy better than anything else I've ever seen; impressive style and substance.  And of course, I will almost certainly play Super Sunny World and anything else that Matt Hughson releases.  I'm also looking forward to Pio Pow and Space Soviets.

Screenshot from Summer Island Battle Tactics by Ninja Dynamics

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

Yes: stick with us!  We've had a lot of delays on this project, and I'm sure that a lot of people are getting impatient.  Some of those delays were just unfortunate acts of God (e.g. COVID-19), but 2 of them were my wife and I having our 2^nd and 3^rd child.  As the kids have gotten older, life has gotten easier.  Progress is being made, and we've overcome some major technical hurdles recently.

 

 

 

Dominic Muller

@domgetter

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer and programmer? What is your origin story?

I started programming to make video editing easier.  Back in 2012 I was helping my cousin with his YouTube channel, and learned how to automate things using After Effects Expressions, which is basically JavaScript to control moving around layers and their colors and stuff.  From there, I got deep into learning Ruby and more programming in general.  In 2018, Jared and I made our first Pong clone for the NES.  I still remember the background scrolling moving all over the place because I didn't really understand how the PPU registers worked.  Shortly after that we decided to make an NES game for real, and in late 2019 I looked at some Verilog for the PowerPak for MMC3 for the first time.  After that I started developing our new mapper and learning more and more deeply how the NES works.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

My influences in programming have always been more for ideas than for work.  Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) has some conference talks where he does a deep dive into important programming topics like the difference between something being hard vs something being complicated.  I am interested in trying out the Jai programming language by Jon Blow (creator of Braid and The Witness) once it finally releases.

 

-In addition to your game development work, you are a software developer by profession. Do you find your past professional work has informed your indie work?

The only professional developer work I've done is some web programming, so not directly no.  However, the surrounding tools for the job like make, git, and the Linux terminal have helped streamlined the build system we have set up.  The game builds from scratch in about 8 seconds, and it's all created from the ground up in Crystal (a language like Ruby but compiled).

 

-How would you describe your aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

I've only made one game that I've put out in public, which was for a Ludum Dare.  The theme was “An Unconventional Weapon” and the game I made had the player pick up lines on a grid to separate the enemies from healing each other.  In games I design, I like there to be a set of simple things which can be mixed together by the player to create new experiences.  That way, the player only has to understand a handful of concepts, and the game comes out from how those elements interrelate.  A good example of this in the wild is the class system in Golden Sun: depending on the elemental types of Djinns the characters equip, they get new and unique classes with special abilities.

 

-What tools do you use to code and create?

For Former Dawn, we're using Tiled for the level design, Aseprite (mainly) for the sprites and portraits, ca65 for the assembly code, Crystal for the build system, and a couple of custom tools to help with palette selections.

 

-With Former Dawn, you’re working on a game for decades-old hardware. How does producing a game for the NES compare to your experiences developing solutions for newer tech?

It's harder in some ways, but also easier in others.  With the NES, you're not competing with an Operating System and other programs for the CPU or graphics, so when you write code, that is the only thing that happens.  On the other hand, code management is a lot more annoying since you have to swap out chunks of memory to load code to run for the game.  Luckily we have a good system built on top of the mapper to load code and data when needed for the main game, for NMI (when the graphics need to be swapped out), and for interrupts (which we're using for dialogue rendering). 

 

-Tell me about your experience learning to code with Verilog?

As mentioned earlier, I started by looking at one of the implementations of MMC3 for the PowerPak, and after seeing that it was only a couple pages long, I figured “this can't be that bad”.  A month later, Krikzz released the Everdrive N8 Pro, along with the source to be able to make your own mapper.  Over the next few months, I learned more and more about how the NES itself works, specifically the PPU signals.  This was necessary to have 8x1 attributes, since you need to supply the PPU with unique palette choices depending on the scanline it's currently on.  Giving the CPU access to more memory was the easiest part, since that's just more of what mappers already do anyway.  Instead of 1 byte for the bank number, we have 2 bytes.  This gives full access to the full 8 megabytes for code in the N8 Pro.  I also made some internal tooling to read NES signals and display them on screen from a custom NES rom, which we will be releasing soon ever since Krikzz updated the N8 Pro OS to support custom mappers on a rom-by-rom basis.

 

-Following your and Something Nerdy Studios’ tweets talk about the MXM-0 mapper, and then in early 2022 begin to give way to references to the MXM-1 mapper. What can you tell me about the evolution of the mapper across its iterations? What is possible now that wasn’t before?

At the very beginning, Jared mainly just wanted more access to memory.  More code, more graphics.  In fact, before the project really took off, he was asking the community if it was possible to have a mapper for a gigabyte-sized game.  Since then, we've added a lot of small features that are very reminiscent of small, nice features in traditional mappers.  For example, along with a scanline interrupt feature, the programmer can query the mapper for how many cycles have passed since the interrupt happened, to help with small visual glitches and jitters.  The mapper has a small bank to easily present different OAM to the CPU for loading different sets of sprites.  It is also important to us that the mapper can't do everything.  We are very careful not to put general computation in the mapper, since that would just be the same as slapping a Raspberry Pi in the cartridge.  But any mapping and small timing features are up for grabs.

 

-What lies ahead on this path? Is there an MXM-2 and beyond in the future?

I couldn't really say.  MXM has grown as needed to support Former Dawn, and we don't plan on making the sequel(s) for the NES.  That's not to say we're done making NES games; they would just be a lot smaller in scale and scope.

 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

I personally am very proud of everything that has gone into the dialogue rendering system.  It is a complicated mix of special timing and scrolling and palette updates to bring forth a near-modern experience.  There's a small gradient border between the normal game and the dialogue which uses previous PPU palette writes to display, and the portrait of the dialogue gets its own set of 64 sprites for overlay, and its own 9 background colors, and 12 sprite colors, all which is loaded between the render of the main game and the dialogue.

You can see the gradient border and the exquisite detail of the dialogue portrait

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

Almost everything NES related, really.  The engine is built completely from scratch from the ground up and the NESdev wiki and the Discord have been incredibly thorough and helpful in understanding everything about the system.  The biggest surprise was probably learning just how simple bankswitching is in terms of wires and voltages in the cartridge.

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon? Any dream projects?

After Former Dawn, the next game will be directed by me (Jared and I are taking turns), and that one will be a modern tactics RPG with lots of pixel art.

 

-Are there any other new NES games in development that you are excited to play?

Since my role has been more focused on programming than design, I'm not as up to date on the upcoming NESdev releases.  Many of the games I was looking forward to earlier in the project have already been released, like Micro Mages, Full Quiet, and Alwa's Awakening.

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

If you want to try something, try it!  This project has been a long chain of experiments and challenges we've given ourselves, and has grown out of that over time.

 

 

 

Hali Hoag

@Aitchess55

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer and artist? What is your origin story?

I have a lot of interests, but art always had the strongest pull for me since I was a child.  My first publication was when I was 12.  It was a goofy little comic strip about a cat and mouse and it was printed in the local paper for a Summer.  I started doing commissions and selling work when I was 13 and went on to the Maryland Institute College of Art after high school where I expected to be a painting major.  I was turned off by one too many eccentric painting professors and what I felt was a serious excess of pretense.  I also didn’t want to sacrifice exploring other media.  I ended up in the more down to earth and pragmatic Illustration department.  It was a good fit as I was primarily interested in figurative work and loved reading, books and narrative art.  While there, I studied abroad for a semester at a small school in rural Ireland, the Burren College of Art, where I immediately went to grad school to pursue my MFA after MICA.  I hadn’t felt terribly fulfilled doing commissions and illustration work as an undergrad and thought I would eventually work in a museum doing curatorial work, which I felt was a type of storytelling with the work of other artists within a gallery setting.  I intended to pursue my own practice simultaneously.

In grad school, I did a deep dive into the relationship between visual art and language and how language functions visually to convey meaning.  My work became increasingly interdisciplinary.  I made sculptures to take photos of them, made paintings of handwriting, did digital mashups from images from Internet searches, made drawings to turn into reproducible items like bookmarks, t-shirts, etc.  I do love seeing original art in person, but I always liked the accessibility of illustration and the idea of meaningful, interesting art being easily reproduced and accessible to lots of people.

Over the years, I’ve done a variety of creative endeavors including freelance illustration, graphic design, fine art commissions, furniture refinishing & restoration, faux finishing, murals, curatorial work, etc.  Game developer is just the latest “thing” thanks to my husband making Former Dawn.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

The only people I’m watching closely these days are my three kids and especially my infant daughter!  She’s right on the verge of walking, so it’s full-time suicide prevention mode for me.  I couldn’t tell you what the latest exhibition at MOMA was or what the installation at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall was last year.  Suffice it to say, I’m pretty out of touch with the art world right now.  As for influences, the Dutch Old Masters are always inspirational.  I love almost everything that came out of the Brandywine School of Illustration, including N.C. Wyeth and subsequently Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth.  I like all the Wyeths, hahah.  Illustration can often easily drift into tacky or cheesy territory or not function well as standalone work outside of the context of the books or whatever it is they accompany, but the Wyeths always hit the mark.  They’re just lovely.  On the more contemporary fine art end of the spectrum, I admire Ed Ruscha, Wayne White, Erwin Wurm, Xu Bing, Gregory Crewdson, Vincent Desiderio, Thomas Demand, Gabriel Orozco...I could go on.  I like a range of fun, colorful and absurdist interdisciplinary work to serious figurative painting and intense text-based conceptual installations.

 

Treasure Island by N.C. Wyeth

I’m not a gamer, but I did play a few games as a kid & teenager that probably influenced me.  I’m still fond of the way that they look as an adult.  Toe Jam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron was great.  The characters and world are so vibrant and memorable.  I did a lot of messed up stuff to my Sims, but used cheat codes and treated it more of an elaborate interior design/architecture simulation.  I downloaded so many furniture pieces and decor items from sketchy places on the internet that it fried my poor Dell desktop.  I was obsessed with the original Rollercoaster Tycoon.  I hate real theme parks and don’t even ride rollercoasters, but I think it’s amazing and have actually played it a little bit in recent years.  It’s still fantastic.

 

-How would you describe your aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

I hope my pixel art aesthetic is technically sound, has a certain level of realism but also novelty and fun while maximizing the technology to its fullest potential.  Hallmarks?  Gosh, I hope that at least parts would stand on their own as low-res art outside of the game but also bring the game to life as much as possible within context and tell the story effectively.

 

-In your opinion, what makes good pixel art and game animation stand out?

What makes good art is what makes good pixel art- it’s got to be beautiful, meaningful, interesting, maybe a bit challenging and effectively utilize the principles of design.  I’m not an animator, but I believe the same applies to great animation.  Disney’s 12 principles of animation seem pretty solid to me.

 

-What tools do you use to create?

Pencil, paper, various sources for references, Photoshop and Aseprite along with a rather large 24" Wacom tablet hooked up to my MacBook Pro.

 

-Do you have a preference creating for a particular platform? Does your process differ when working within a different set of limitations?

This is the only game platform I have worked on, so I can’t say for certain, but I doubt my process would be very different.  The limitations may change along with the details of implementation, but my general M.O. is generally pretty consistent across different media.

 

-Tell me about your creative process while working on Former Dawn? How did you transform the concept art from the page to the screen for this game? How do you maintain the important details of that art given the limitations of coding for a decades-old gaming console like the NES?

Jared will give me a rough or pretty detailed description of what it is he’s wanting.  It varies.  I’ll take his guidelines along with my understanding of the lore and do my best to deliver.  For portraits and characters, we’ll talk about important features and traits, I’ll take to the Internet and pick references.  I usually combine 3-5, do a drawing, get approval, scan it in and resize it.  I trace directly over it, botched and pixelated as it is, and reference the full resolution drawing as I work.  To make it translate, well, I squint and blur my eyes a lot, hah.  The process is similar for backgrounds.  We’ll talk architecture, look at some potential references, geography, plant life and so on and he’ll give me a rough layout.  I pick all of the palettes first before starting to make sure all of my transitional areas are going to flow nicely.  I draw freehand with the grid turned off and get all of my main elements established.  Then I color, make grid adjustments, copy and paste.  I try my best to ignore and hide tiles/attributes.

 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

I’m particularly fond of the avatar portraits.  I love drawing people and it’s been a very satisfying creative problem-solving challenge to make those a reality using careful palette choices and strategically placed sprites.  Also, the Durple.

 

Love that Durple!

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

It’s all a new medium to me, so it’s nothing but surprises and challenges.  And that’s fine.  I like a good problem to solve.  I’ve done digital work before, but in terms of vintage, console specific graphics, developing for Former Dawn is all I know.  I’m still very much learning and getting better at it as we go, but as for anyone wanting to follow in my footsteps, as it were, I’d say it’s just another medium.  It has its strengths and weaknesses that can be manipulated and exploited in different ways.  Like any artistic endeavor, the better you are at the principles of art and design, the easier it will be.  Like Banksy said, “All artists are willing to suffer for their work.  But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?”

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon? Any dream projects?

Long term, I’d like to get back to studio art and participate in exhibitions again, but it’s basically impossible while my kiddos are so little.  And that’s fine.  They’re my biggest, most important long-term project!  The only other endeavors I have lined up right now are carving pumpkins for Halloween and designing some crochet projects.  I’ve done lots of blankets, but just started getting into amigurumi and making clothes.

 

-Are there any other new NES games in development that you are excited to play?

I’ve never voluntarily played an NES game, to be honest.  We didn’t have an NES or any gaming console at home until the PlayStation 2 and that was my brother’s thing.  I had a few friends that would make me play Super Mario Bros at their house and I would die almost immediately.  I’m just excited to watch my husband and other people play Former Dawn someday

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

Thank you for your interest, patience and appreciation.  I hope we succeed in making something special and fun that you’ll enjoy!

 

 

 

Brent Hamel

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer and artist? What is your origin story?

Origin story? Wow, no radioactive spiders here I'm afraid. I grew up (and still reside) in a small forest town on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. I'm an only child and spent much of my youth in the 80s and 90s playing video games, primarily NES.
I got into drawing and art very early; lots of marker scribbles of the Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters, etc. At random one day, my parents brought home an NES with Marble Madness and Zelda II... that's when the scribbles turned into Link, Luigi, Mega Man, you name it. A Nintendo Power subscription elevated my interest and really got me excited to make games someday myself.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

I'm pretty disconnected from the current pixel art scene honestly, though there are lots of great artists out there doing really cool stuff. I always come back at the past masters. I reference a lot of Konami, CAPCOM, Jaleco, Square, Enix. Spriter's Resource makes up a lot of my browser history lol.

 

-How would you describe your aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

Personally I tend more towards stylized and cartoonish. I'm a big fan of limited frames, and I try to incorporate the 12 principles as much as possibly where applicable. That said, I've been doing game art and animation for a little over 10 years now, so thankfully I've managed to get better at integrating a client's desired style, as opposed to simply relying on my own.

 

-In your opinion, what makes good pixel art, backgrounds, and game animation stand out?

I think good pixel has all the same requirements as good art of any kind. Pixels are simply the medium. The principles are the same regardless. There needs to be an awareness of anatomy and locomotion for animation, and an understanding of lighting, shadows, how to direct the eye, colour theory, composition, etc. That said, knowing those things (or not knowing them rather) should never deter someone from diving in.  Everyone starts somewhere, the trick is to make sure you start if you're inclined to.

 

-What tools do you use to create?

I use Aseprite for all my pixel art, and Clip Studio Paint for all my high res work (though that usually ends up in Photoshop eventually depending on the client)

 

-Do you have a preference creating for a particular platform? Does your process differ when working within a different set of limitations?

I guess I could say I prefer NES as a target platform simply due to nostalgia and familiarity. Each has their own challenges and techniques. DMG GameBoy, for example, seems best when the backgrounds use the lightest colours and leave the darker colours for the foreground as it helps the composition. I've also been quietly sorting out a custom palette and accompanying "system limitations" for my own dream fantasy console, as I find the limited toolsets really engaging to work with.

 

-Tell me about your creative process while working on Former Dawn? How did you transform the concept art from the page to the screen for this game? How do you maintain the important details of that art given the limitations of coding for a decades-old gaming console like the NES?

Much of the concept art had already been translated into pixel art before I came aboard, so I can't take credit for any of that. My job has primarily been the animation of the characters, and then work on the world map tiles and their animation. The biggest question in character animation is usually to do with who the character is, and how to show their personality or mindset in their body language. Each character ends up having numerous conversations regarding personality, athleticism, attitude, etc.

 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

I think the technology of the new mapper that's been developed for Former Dawn is pretty cool. It's neat to think that there are still new tricks a 40-year-old machine can perform. Having to keep track of an 8x1 attribute grid VS the standard 8x8 is definitely a challenge. It's rewarding though, as it obviously allows for a much more colourful artstyle.

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

Every project will always have new issues that come up, and old problems that resurface, that you then need to try and remember how you solved last time. The trick is to try and serve the project and team first. Be open in discussions, know when to back up your viewpoint or to stand down and concede. There's a hug interpersonal aspect to game development that hobby solo devs often don't get as much exposure to. Learn how to communicate. Learn how to give and take. And learn how to be accountable for your own time and respectful of the time of the people around you.

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon? Any dream projects?

I have a couple of spare-time projects that I've been chipping away at for a while now. Tobu's Adventure is the first game (in a planned series) in an original IP, with the trick being that the game presents itself as having been made and released in 1984 for the Famicom, but being lost to time and only now rediscovered. On paper, there are multiple sequels scribbled out, and their presentations evolve along the same path the game technology did.

Screenshot from Super Tobu Adventures by Fireskies Studios

 

-Are there any other new NES games in development that you are excited to play?

All of them lol

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

I'd just like to say that I think the "Aftermarket" scene (as I like to call it personally) is a really cool space to see devs emerge or rediscover a love of game dev. Indie games exploded a little over a decade ago, so I'd like to think that we're approaching a similar critical mass for aftermarket games soon. Super stoked to see where things continue to go!

 

 

 

Nicholas Flynt

@zeta0134

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer and programmer? What is your origin story? What is the basis of your handle: zeta0134?

I cut my teeth on an old TI-82 graphing calculator, which had about ~22kB to store BASIC programs, and deleted everything when it was time to change the batteries. If I wanted to keep a program long term I had to write it down in my notebook. I had no formal experience and the internet wasn’t quite a thing yet. I was just copying programs out of the math textbook and trying to guess at how the syntax worked. Of course I was the kid that got their calculator taken away because it was more interesting than the math problems I was supposed to be working on. Good times!

One delightful property of this environment was that programs were so slow that you could watch the steps of an algorithm execute in real time. This was frustrating, but also rather useful for debugging. The first time I tried image processing on a “real” computer, I was blown away; it drew the whole thing in an instant!

My handle is the letter z in the Spanish language. There is no deeper meaning, I just thought it sounded neat. The numbers are a tribute to my grandfather, they’re an ALT code he taught me when I was very young: † (I’m not religious anymore, so feel free to interpret that as a dagger.)

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

I tend to be drawn to indie studios more than big productions. Some of my favorites include Happy Ray Games, Bytten Studio, Team Cherry, Extremely OK Games, and ConcernedApe, though there are way too many others to list. I’d say my favorite composers are aivi & surrashu, though Lena Raine is up there as a close second.

Screenshot from Ikenfell by Happy Ray Games

 

-What tools do you use to code, create, and compose?

For code, any plain text editor will do; fancy IDEs tend to get in the way. Right now I prefer Sublime Text, but I’m not picky. For artwork, I use a combination of Aseprite and Python scripts, and occasionally NEXXT to quickly block out entire nametables. (I have no idea how to draw.) I use Tiled for level design, the files it makes are easy to read with my own scripts. I do all my development on Linux, which somewhat limits the NES-specific tools I can use, though Wine helps bridge the gap.

For music I’m most comfortable with tracker programs, and currently fluent in Dn-FamiTracker and Furnace. I haven’t written serious music for anything other than the NES. I own a Yamaha P-95 and several instruments, but when composing I tend to just type things directly into my tracker, maybe after noodling on the keyboard for a bit. One day I’ll learn a “real” DAW. (One day...)

Generally I try to avoid tools that aren’t open source; my two exceptions (Sublime / Aseprite) can be substituted easily. (VS Code / LibreSprite) The goal is to keep my work accessible to folks without disposable income. If you own your device and can run a compiler, you can build my projects with a little effort.

 

-In addition to your work on Former Dawn, you are a significant presence across the homebrew community, showcasing your own projects, such as RusticNES, as well as providing guidance to others. Which is more fun, working on your own projects or collaborating on others’?

If I’m not talking about a project, I’m probably not working on it. Personally, the joy of sharing my progress with others is a big part of the motivation. As nice as it is to have full creative control, it can be easy to design myself into a ditch as a solo dev. Without the energy of a partner or a community to motivate me, that can be where the project goes to die. Even my “solo” projects feel like they’re secretly collaborations with the entire NESdev community.

 

-Much of your work is open-source, so others can do what they want with it. Do you have any secret, specific hopes what some will use your projects to create? How would you describe your philosophy about the public availability of creative tools such as your templates?

Personally, game programming was the gateway into my computer science career, and it’s easy to see why: games are fascinating spaces to explore and the systems are fun to think about. The work is intrinsically motivating, and its ability to teach you systems design, concurrency and linear algebra feels more like a side bonus. I’d like nothing more than to inspire this same joy in others, so that young engineers can find their own fun and develop their skills. This is why all of my hobby projects are open source, because it’s not really for me. It’s for them.

 

-What does it mean to be the “audio engineering advisor” for Former Dawn?

I’m tasked with overseeing the expansion audio prototyping stages, as we explore what capabilities will be possible within our hardware limitations. I’ve been working on music conversion utilities and test environments, and a 6502 music program to get a feel for CPU requirements. Basically, I get to write music for a sound chip that doesn’t yet exist, and produce recordings of how it might sound. That’s my job in a nutshell.

 

-What makes sound, whether as music or as an effect, compelling/engrossing to players?

One of my old college buddies described music as a spice. It’s no substitute for compelling gameplay, but it very much sets the stage for the experience. Good sound design is atmospheric, filling in the imaginative gaps left by the artwork and implying story beats that are currently happening or about to occur. They’re responsible for the satisfying kick of a firearm, the crunch of a critical hit, the devastation following a dramatic loss. If a game has bland sound design I’m much more likely to put it down even if the rest of the experience is well made, so I think it’s critically important that Former Dawn sounds as good as it looks.

 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

Mostly due to Jared’s insistence, the “hardware” we’re working on feels like it could feasibly have existed back in the day, if Nintendo decided their NES console really needed a disk drive attachment. Several otherwise very cheaty ideas have been shot down. As a direct result, everything you see in trailers and screenshots is running on the unmodified 6502 and PPU, with all of their quirks and limitations. The mapper helps, and it’s certainly moving VRAM around quicker than you can do on the PPU alone, but it isn’t running the game. We still code all of that the hard way.

Personally I’m really happy with how the in-game map turned out. It uses a simple hardware trick: we can count the number of cycles since an IRQ happened and then compensate to remove the jitter. This allows incredibly stable raster tricks. The effect is otherwise just careful cycle-counted code. Like, I could totally see Rare pulling something like this off in Battletoads, if their otherwise plain mapper had our stable IRQ feature.

 

An early version of the mini map shared to the NESdev Discord in 2023

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

So far the biggest challenge is fairly unique to this project: the ever changing prototype hardware. It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, but every time we add a new feature or tweak an existing one, now we have to go fix all of the bits of the code and that time adds up in a hurry. We have a mix of modified emulators, internal tools and physical hardware that all implement a subset of the final design, so getting new demo builds running is always a coordinated team effort.

If I were to offer advice for a complex project like this, it’s to document your requirements well. This is the only reason we’re seeing success. If it isn’t in the design spec, it doesn’t exist and I shouldn’t try to use it. A mismatch here causes wasted effort and extra meetings. It’s critically important to keep these documents up to date so that the engineers know what they can and cannot target.

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon? Any dream projects?

Oh sure! I’ve got untitled dungeon game, a top-down pseudo-3D dungeon crawler. There’s Tactus of course, a rhythm-based slay-em-up which needs to be expanded into a full game. Recently I’ve started a port of Heat Death, a side-scrolling platformer that some friends and I made for a ludum dare. Then of course there’s the various libraries (bhop, z-saw), the emulator projects, the mapping tools…

(You can follow zeta0134’s work at:

https://github.com/zeta0134/dungeon-game-neshttps://zeta0134.itch.io/tactushttps://github.com/zeta0134/heat-death-neshttps://github.com/zeta0134/bhophttps://github.com/zeta0134/z-saw)

 

-Are there any other new games in development that you are excited to play?

If FrankenGraphics ever finishes Halcyon, it’s like a day-one purchase. Her artwork is stunning given the console’s strict palette limitations. Morphcat has a teaser out for a new game, which I’m not even sure has a working name, but given their history I’ll probably pick it up right away. Outside of the NES sphere, I’m really looking forward to Hollow Knight: Silksong. The original was such a joy to get lost in that I’m sure the sequel will be a good time.

 

 

 

Angus Heydon-Corrie

@HEYYYDON

-Before we talk about Former Dawn, I want to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to be a homebrew composer? What is your origin story?

I’d never really had any formal music training, aside from a few lessons as a child. I was always interested in playing the music I heard, especially from video games, but I was too impatient to stick with lessons! I ended up just teaching myself through YouTube and learning the songs I wanted to. Pulling songs apart and looking at chords they used and trying to figure out why they used them was basically all the training I said. The only formal training I had in an instrument was singing, which helped me vocalize the melodies I wanted to hear in my songs. The start of my chiptune days was really the start of me writing music for people other than myself. I had always had a passing interest in the NES, despite never having grown up with one myself, but I was still able to play the games thanks to emulation and digital downloads. Early YouTube is where I discovered there was still a scene for older video game consoles, and that our interests weren’t defined by the current console generation. From there, I discovered Famitracker, and realized that I had the power to recreate those old chiptune songs I loved so very much, or even make my own. Having only 5 channels on the stock hardware seemed incredibly limiting at first, but in those limitations I found it to be a satisfying puzzle when everything finally clicked. Learning what techniques people used back in the day in order to get the most out of such limited sounds was really an eye opener, and caused me to see the possibilities in all different kinds of music. I truly think that chiptune can teach people how to get the most out of not very much, which is a great skill to have as a musician. Once I realized that people actually needed chiptunes for projects and games, all of a sudden I saw all these doors open up with possibilities. I got my first paid commission while I was in university, and I’ve kept up at a steady pace since then!

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

My biggest chiptune influences include Tim Follin, Neil Baldwin, Rob Hubbard, Nobuyuki Shioda, Jake Kaufman, Toby Fox and Masashi Kageyamai. I think all of their work pushed the systems they worked on to the limits in their own way. My greatest musical influence is probably Jim Steinman, whose work I feel transported by every time I listen to it. He taught me that music doesn’t have to be so polite in its structure, it can be absolutely outrageous and bold, telling all sorts of stories and letting you see all sorts of colors you’ve never seen before. He also taught me that long songs aren’t something to be feared, they’re meant to be embraced. If you can hold someone’s attention for an elongated period, they’re be more receptive, I feel.

Jim Steinman

 

-Do you feel that your music & sound have any qualities that are quintessentially you? How would you describe your aesthetic?

Well, if I were to flatter myself, I would describe my aesthetic as “big” and “audacious”. I try with whatever I can to fill up the silence in interesting and appealing ways, while structuring my songs in a way that feel like they could be telling stories on their own. The way I see it, if it works in game as a general vibe, then I’ve crossed the bare minimum threshold. I want to maintain that level of atmosphere and immersion while also trying to take the listener from one place to another. It’s no good just to vamp in one place for 8 bars, really. Music has the power to tell a story without any need for words, you can just express yourself in the rhythm itself. With that power, I hope to take people on an epic odyssey before showing them the way home. All in a day’s work!

 

-In your opinion, what makes for compelling video game music and sound?

For me, motif and leitmotif are what separate a good score from a great score. I love when music has a strong identity, tying itself to a character or a concept that even if you don’t recognize it, your subconscious can connect the dots and carry across the intended feeling. It doesn’t even have to be strictly melodic, either. I love when I know from a certain artist’s style from the drum sounds they use or how they arrange for big chords. I love when I can feel the artist in the music, almost inviting me into this world of their own creation. Stimulating the paracosm is an absolute must.

 

-What tools do you use to compose, generally as well as for games?

Famitracker is as essential for me as air and water at this point. It seems like no matter what, I always seem to gravitate back to the humble 2A03 and its 5 channels. It’s simultaneously simple and sophisticated, so there’s an infinite number of ways to arrange or write for it, even now. I had to learn how to use Furnace in order to bring the MXM-1’s expansion audio to life, and while I was initially frustrated with it, the flexibility of Furnace and the power it offers the composer really can’t be denied. I’ve written music unrelated to Former Dawn in Furnace, just on my own time, and I hope to show it off soon. Aside from those two, Logic Pro X is my go-to DAW. Simple, easy, straightforward, and I can get an idea down in seconds. When I started writing for Former Dawn, I was using a DX7 synthesizer to program in some of the FM sounds (this is back when the expansion audio was FM-based), but when we switched to samples, I started using a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 in order to give the score a more analog sound in places. Now I’ve upgraded to a UDO Super Gemini for all of my synth stuff, while using Roland sample libraries in order to be authentic to the time period. So many old SNES and PS1 games used old sample boxes like the SC-55 or the JV-1080, so I’ve been exploring all of those in order to find the best authentic samples, while also recording my own where I feel it’s appropriate.

 

-What is your composition process? How do you translate your ideas to the game?

For me, I’m just humming stuff to myself almost all day, trying to land on a melodic idea I feel will stick with me. It’s important that I get a great lead melody before I write anything else down, because I want that initial motif to be strong and instantly identifiable on its own. Usually from there, I’ll sit at the piano and hash out some basic chords and harmonies. Usually the goal of the song is to create whatever atmosphere is needed, but sometimes I like to set myself little side-quests I can include that won’t disrupt the flow or energy of the song. Key changes/modulations, time signatures, certain patterns, stuff that just amuses me while I work on the structure as a whole. Usually I would write at the piano and then arrange in my DAW, before transferring it to Furnace for the MXM-1, but sometimes I’ll just go straight to Furnace with an idea and start working on that.

 

-How would you describe the development process and working with the team on Former Dawn?

When I initially joined the team, they just wanted music that could best show off the audio capabilities of their system, just so they had something to play with. Once things started to become more focused, we started talking about aspects of the world, what they might sound like, and how best to communicate the intended atmosphere. For example, the starting town song has had probably more than a dozen different revisions during the course of the project, both due to changing audio hardware, and because we wanted the initial atmosphere to be perfect, as it’s likely to be one of the first areas a player will hear and explore. Looking at concept art is obviously a big help, and discussing characters/areas in detail are essential for us to develop a sound we’re both happy with. Communication is absolutely key, as it should be, though I have been given a lot of freedom to define the sonic identity of the project, which is very exciting!

 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

The fact that the expansion audio is working at all is nothing short of a miracle. We tried and tested so many different expansion audio options that seemed possible, that when the day came that Jared said “it’s now 4 channel PCM”, I didn’t believe it was possible! PCM audio is possible on a stock NES, but it’s heavily compromised and not really possible during normal gameplay. The fact we have basically half of the channels of a SNES running along the 2A03 isn’t as amazing as the fact that we were able to get it to work at all. I can’t take any credit for that, though. Nick (zeta0134) is the one who’s made actual magic with his bare hands here. He’s the one that helped me achieve a composite of what the expansion audio would sound like on the system so I could best write for it (as well as tidy up my messy, messy modules). He’s also a talented musician in his own right, so his input and feedback are utterly essential for me.

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in your work on Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

The expansion audio is the result of us both trying to determine what’s possible on the NES, and asking ourselves the question “if we could get the NES to sound like anything, what would it be like?”. Naturally, this meant a lot of experimentation for both me and the rest of the team, as we tried to find someone that satisfied both of these curiosities. Initially, when we were just starting out, we had made a sort of quad DPCM system, splitting the DPCM channel into four distinct sample channels, allowed for some really complex DPCM arrangement. It worked well, but it lacked the repitching you get from normal DPCM, so it meant that if we wanted to do melodic DPCM, it’d require a separate sample and get expensive fast. We experimented with FM and LA synthesis, as well as considering the SID chip, but decided that it wouldn’t be worth it. The biggest hurdle for me was that I had to learn each of these new systems that came in, and some I had never even touched before. I had to get good at programming FM synthesis, as well as dip my toes into the C64, which required me to grow a second brain. Even when we finally landed on the four-channel PCM audio we have now, it was still a learning experience. Learning how to find good samples, how to get clean loops, how to prepare samples for a tracker, minimizing cost while maximizing quality, these are all skills I had to learn just to write a half decent demo. Of course, thanks to the support of the team and a lot of hard work (most from Nick), we’ve got something that sounds totally unlike any NES that came before it. I suppose if I was to impart some wisdom, I’d say to be prepared for any curveballs, and have faith in your ability to adapt. It’s good to know your limits, but I think most people can learn quicker than they think they can. I wouldn’t exactly call myself “qualified” to write music for certain systems, but if someone asked me to, I’d give it my all, and then try and try again until I feel comfortable with what I’ve made.  It’s all about being eager to make great music, no matter the circumstance or specifics/limitations.

 

-Is there another project after Former Dawn on the horizon? Another dream project that you hope to bring into existence, video game or otherwise?

I’d love work on a full album of chiptunes, when I have the time. I have certain goals I’d love to follow through with, really push myself to new limits and make something stupendous just using the 2A03. I’d love to do more stuff with MXM-1 expansion audio, I’m sure I’ve barely scratched the surface. If the gods are listening, I would love the opportunity to work on the score for a shmup or a run-and-gun, something really high energy that would be tons of fun to make music for. Aside from that, I’ve got some smaller, more personal projects I want to work on, but I’m always keeping my eyes and ears open for people who need some bombastic chiptunes!

 

-Are there any homebrew games in development that you are excited to play?

Changeable Guardian Estique is probably the game I’m most hyped about. Music and graphics look great, and I’m a sucker for shmups with big boss sprites. I don’t know if RIKI is planning on doing another NES game after the 8 Bit Music Power series or Astro Ninja Man, but whatever they do next, they have my full attention. Their games are visual and audio treats for the eyes and ears to feast on. Aside from that, Nick (zeta0134) has been working on his own game called Tactus for some time now, and it’s really starting to come together and take shape. He’s really excellent at pushing the NES to its limits, so it’s a no-brainer that I’m eager to see what he does next!

Screenshot of Tactus by zeta0134

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

Thank you everyone for your time, your support and we hope that you get to enjoy the game! I’ve had a great time writing songs for the NES like you’ve never heard before, so if you’re like me, do your part and support Former Dawn on Kickstarter! I appreciate your time immensely, and I hope that you all have a great rest of your day.

 

 

 

Josué Oliveira

@Trirosmos

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a game developer and programmer? What is your origin story? What is the basis of your handle: Trirosmos?

I’ve liked video games for as far as I can remember. I used to go nuts over Daytona when I was 4 or 5. I had to play it every time we went to a mall with an arcade that had it… well, or at least pretend to play it, haha.

My uncles run a web dev company, so I always had some idea of what coding was. But I actually taught myself to code when I was 12-13, specifically because I had watched Indie Game: The Movie and had decided that that was what I wanted to do for a living.

Over time, I came to realize that the indie market was insanely overcrowded and that I probably wouldn’t be happy as a professional game dev. Doesn’t mean I can’t still make games.

Trirosmos actually came from a character name generator on a MMO I used to play when I was 9 or 10 called Taikodom. It was like Eve Online, except buggy, unstable and monotonous, but the community was great.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

I definitely do admire the people that were doing hardware-related stuff before me: Krikzz, Paul from INL, Antoine from Broke Studio, Jorge (who developed hardware for Watermelon). At the same time, I feel like it’s such a niche within a niche that each person’s path is very particular to them. There’s no career path to speak of and the market looks a lot different now than it did when the first EverDrives were released.

 

-How would you describe your aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

As far as music goes, I really like jazzy chiptunes and I take a lot of influence from European composers like Tim Follin and Neil Baldwin, as well as a lot of the newer stuff in the chiptune community.

In terms of design, you’re probably always gonna find me making fast-paced platformers with nimble characters and wall jumping. I practically play platformers exclusively, haha.

 

-What tools do you use to code and create?

Depends on what kind of development I’m doing at the moment. From the top of my head:

- VSCode is my editor of choice, mostly because I couldn’t easily find something else with a Verilog linter.

- Reaper, Famitracker, Furnace and Musescore for all my composition and arranging needs.

- Mesen2, Blastem and Emulicious are the emulators I usually run.

- Kicad and ngspice/LTSpice/PSpice for whenever I need to do hardware design.

- Icarus Verilog and Intel Quartus

- Wiz and CA65 for assemblers.

- I do a lot of prototyping and tool writing in Javascript.

 

-You are studying electrical engineering. In what ways do your studies inform your indie work?

While college didn’t teach me all of the specific skills I needed for projects like this, it was massively helpful. I was already into nesdev and had even tried to write a NES emulator before college, but I’ve since gained a lot of the more fundamental knowledge that I lacked before.

They didn’t teach us Verilog, for instance, but I did have to design a CPU using logic gates. Getting a grip on Verilog was thus a lot more about learning the syntax than anything else.

 

-In addition to your work on Former Dawn, you are a significant presence across the homebrew community, showcasing your own projects, such as Project Chocoblip, as well as providing guidance to others. Which is more fun, working on your own projects or collaborating on others?

I can’t do art to save my life, so pretty much any homebrew project I end up working on has to be a collaboration, haha.

Lately, I’ve found that I enjoy the technical aspects of development way more than the design elements anyways. As much as Chocoblip was a collaboration, a lot of the design vision came from Yoey and I was mostly occupied with coding the engine and the core gameplay, which I like better.

I don’t really see myself doing homebrew completely solo. At most, I might develop tech on my own.

Screenshot from Project Chocoblip

 

-With Former Dawn, you’re working on a game for decades-old hardware. How does producing a game for the NES compare to your experiences developing solutions for newer tech?

In the end, the actual target when developing hardware is the FPGA in the cartridge. In that sense, developing hardware cores for a NES game isn’t too dissimilar to developing circuits for FPGAs in general.

I did have to write infinitely more 6502 assembly than on any project in college tho, that’s for sure, haha.

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

Testing and debugging things on hardware is always interesting because it’s difficult to get diagnostics a lot of the time.

Since my development setup consisted pretty much entirely of a NES and an EverDrive, I had to come up with a lot of creative ways to figure out what was going on internally in the modules I was developing. That mostly ended up looking like exposing internal state to the 6502 so I could show it on screen or using the LED on the EverDrive as a binary “does this register/counter/wire have the value I expected it to have”  display.

I’d definitely recommend having a proper logic analyzer and oscilloscope when doing something like this. Or even better, develop targeting custom hardware from the get-go, implement a logic analyzer on the FPGA itself and expose that through USB or serial to collect data.

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon? Any dream projects?

Way too many to list exhaustively, haha.

I’ve been working on a Master System flash cart for the past couple of years and I’m pretty excited about finally getting it out there, which should happen (hopefully) in 2024. I think it will be especially neat to be able to sell them directly in Brazil, since a lot of times our options are either cloned flash carts from China or paying absurd import taxes on an EverDrive.

 

-Are there any other new games in development that you are excited to play?

Orange Island, definitely.

The thing that I miss the most with homebrew is cutesy, story-driven games and OI seems like it would be right up my alley.

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

Electronics is fun and developing hardware is not as difficult as it might seem (although it can definitely get kinda expensive).

 

 

 

Mario Azevedo

@bitinkstudios

-Before we dive into Former Dawn, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a pixel coder and bit artist? What is your origin story?

Video games are fascinating, aren't they? There's something almost magical in it. I have always been a tinkerer. In my youth I played with what was within my reach: I doodled, made big Lego buildings and learned lots of origami. Video games though, puzzled me. I had no idea how they could possibly be made. This is something that remained a mystery for decades. In 2004 a friend asked if I wanted to make a game. “I have no clue how, but yes, please!”. I worked as an artist, always leaning on the technical side of the craft. It wasn't until 2009 that I first compiled a program. Accomplishing that opened the floodgates.

 

-What is the meaning behind the names Nesrocks and Bit Ink Studios?

The “nesrocks” alias was created in probably the year 2000 for my first e-mail account. At the time I was used to the DOS 8.3 file name scheme, so I thought it was fortunate that saying the “NES rocks” fitted into 8 letters. It took me a long time to trust the new file systems with bigger words!

“Bit ink” comes from the fact that I was the coder and artist for Super Hiking League DX and have been doing low level coding for ROM hacks, as well as pixel art. It felt interesting to play with the idea of painting with bits, which is very close to what pixel artists actually do, especially on very old consoles.

 

-Who are your influences? And whose work are you watching closely now?

My influences are a bit scattered around because I don't consciously focus on specific creators—to a fault, admittedly. However, there are some people in the NES development scene who have really caught my attention. Marcelo Barbosa (@tchecoforevis)'s passion for the NES has constantly driven me to push myself forward. I'm also intrigued by the pixel art from @Vinikdev; the mastery of the console's limitations. And @work3studio's Famicom game development is worth watching. Really, go take a look!

 

-How would you describe your aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of a game designed by you?

My aesthetic is all about clean lines, bold colors, and really squeezing every bit of performance out of the hardware. I believe in creating games that are visually striking but also play smoothly, with challenging yet fair mechanics. If there's one thing you can expect from my games, it's that they'll keep you on your toes and be visually appealing while doing it.

 

-In your opinion, what makes good pixel art and background animation stand out?

There are many elements that make pixel art pop. Lighting, shapes, texture, and mood all play their roles. But when you're working with the limited resources of older systems like the NES, efficiency is key. Using the palette effectively to create a variety of visuals is crucial. When pixel art stands out, it's often because the artist has found clever ways to use limited space and colors to convey depth and atmosphere.

 

-What tools do you use to create?

I primarily use the Nostalgic Assets Workshop (NAW), a tool I've been developing and maintaining myself. It's my go-to for NES assets. I also utilize a suite of other tools like Photoshop, Aseprite, yy-chr, I-chr, NEXXT, Overlaypal, Mesen2, Fceux, NESFab, and ca65. Each one has its strengths, and I enjoy exploring different options to find the best tool for each task at hand.

 

-Do you have a preference creating for a particular platform? Does your process differ when working within a different set of limitations?

The NES is my platform of choice, no question about it. I've worked on graphics for other systems professionally, but to me nothing feels as engaging as creating for the NES. The limitations push you to be creative, and that's where the fun is. When I work on other platforms, it's often less enjoyable because the tools aren't as refined, and I don't get the same satisfaction from the process. Perhaps as I improve NAW that could change in the future!

 

-You’re also known for your work on such projects as Super Hiking League DX, the NES Simpsons Arcade port, and the NES Assets Workshop tool. How does working on another’s game compare to working on your own projects?

I've gotten used to working on other people's projects. In fact, Super Hiking League was my first attempt at a solo project, and it was an eye-opener. It was overwhelming to handle everything, but it also helped me to grow as a developer and to build self-confidence. Now, I'm glad to be back at working with teams because there's something special about collaborating with talented specialists. And it takes some pressure off my shoulders, for sure.

Screenshot from Super Hiking League DX by Bit Ink Studios

 

-How did you connect with the Former Dawn development team?

We've all been active on the NESdev Discord channel for quite some time. We'd share artwork and ideas in the graphics channel, and it was a great way to connect with other NES enthusiasts. I was invited to join Former Dawn earlier, but due to some real-life issues, I had to wait until I could fully commit. Once I was able to join, it felt like stepping into a creative family.

 

-Tell me about your creative process while working on Former Dawn? How did you transform the concept art from the page to the screen for this game? How do you maintain the important details of that art given the limitations of coding for a decades-old gaming console like the NES?

The process of bringing concept art to life on the NES involves a lot of creative problem-solving. For the boss with triple claws, I actually modeled a rough version in 3D first to get the perspective right and to have a base for brainstorming. Once we had the general idea, I used the render as a reference in NAW and started drawing directly on the screen. It's essential to remember that both the limited resolution and palette choices will influence not just how you draw but also what you can draw. The key is to focus on clarity and readability. If something isn't clear, you have to rethink your approach. It's a mix of analytical thinking and aesthetics.

 

-What aspects of Former Dawn are you especially proud of?

I'm really proud of the team that has been assembled for Former Dawn. We have talented people from the NES development scene and even folks from outside the community. This collaboration shows in every aspect of the game, from the music to the graphics. Even the cartridge hardware is groundbreaking, allowing us to create music and graphics that were never possible, or not practical to do on the NES before.

 

-What new challenges or surprises surfaced in developing Former Dawn? What lessons did you learn that you would like to share with the people who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

One of the big surprises was realizing that you don't always have to stick to the traditional tile-based approach. Instead, think of the screen as a canvas. My in-house version of NAW lets me draw 8x1 attributes graphics, which opens up a lot of possibilities. It's a liberating concept that I'd encourage others to explore. Keep an open mind, and don't be afraid to push the boundaries of what's expected.

 

-Are there any other projects you have lined up on the horizon (including your NES Simpsons arcade port)? Any dream projects? Any plans to port Super Hiking League DX to the NES?

Yes! I'm working with a team in Brazil on a remake of Magic Carpet called "1001 Noites" (1001 Nights in English). I'm doing the graphics for that project. As for Super Hiking League DX, porting it to the NES would be challenging, so it's not on my radar right now. However, I would like to make a sequel, Super Hiking League 2, with online versus mode, leaderboards, or even a battle royale feature. But that's just a dream for now. My hands are already full with Former Dawn, 1001 Noites, and the Simpsons arcade port for NES, which I want to rewrite using the new NESFab programming language.

 

-Are there any other new NES games in development that you are excited to play?

Absolutely! I'm looking forward to "Saru Crab Panic" from @work3studio, "Guild Quest" from Johnnybot, and @FrankenGraphic's “Project Borscht”. These are just a few examples. It's nearly impossible to keep up, and it's great to see so much creativity in the NES development community.

 

-I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your experiences. Is there anything else you would like to tell readers and fans?

Thanks for having me! I hope you're as excited about Former Dawn as I am. It's a milestone in modern NES development, and I can't wait for you to play it. Keep following us for updates, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts when you get your hands on it!

 

 

Conclusion:

Thanks for tuning in to this latest episode of the series that learns the juicy stories behind homebrew games. What are your thoughts on Former Dawn and the many sunny faces behind it? What homebrews are you eagerly looking forward to? Perhaps you’ll see it here soon when…A Homebrew Draws Near! Command?