A Homebrew Draws Near!

A blog series by @Scrobins

Episode 5: Rollie

Introduction:

Homebrewing is a level of NES-fandom defined by both discipline and creativity. If we lived in an RPG, learning to code and develop would mark the class change/level up from being a fan who merely talks about what a fun game would look like to becoming the fan capable of actualizing it. While learning to code, brewers also discover how to implement gameplay features, and thus learn how to make their own games stand out. The vast catalog of hacks is testament to the education of countless developers playing with the code of their favorite games to understand how the original game works and ultimately create something new. In time, some of these rom hackers will step into new territory, drawing on their experience to build a game from the ground up: a homebrew.

For this entry, I’m covering Rollie, a side-scrolling platformer with tag-team co-op for the NES developed by Chris Lincoln aka Optomon, with artwork by Daniel Adams aka HobotiX. As of the time of this writing, initial Kickstarter backers have received their orders, and the rom for this game is available on Optomon’s Itch.io page while the physical release is now available through The 6502 Collective.

 

Development Team:

@Optomon (Chris Lincoln): developer, programming and music

HobotiX (Daniel Adams): illustrator

 

 

Game Evolution:

Rollie’s story begins in 2016 when Chris decided to develop a game completely from scratch. Up to that point Chris worked on a number of prominent NES hacks including The Guardian Legend: Secret Edition, Castlevania: Chorus of Mysteries, Castlevania: The Holy Relics, and Pyronaut, an extensive hack of Castlevania II still in-development. Chris shared his progress with fans across the country at various gaming expos and conventions, as well as online on such forums as NintendoAge, methodically building enthusiasm for the game.

Chris showcasing Rollie at various expos to fans such as Chris Cacciatore (center)

When the game was finished and ready to be shared with the world, Chris launched a Kickstarter campaign for Rollie on August 31, 2019. Within 24 hours Rollie had exceeded its initial funding goal of $5,000, ultimately netting more than $21,000. The campaign offered 4 tiers: a rom of the game, a cartridge-only option, a CIB option, and a limited edition CIB featuring a numbered translucent cartridge and special yellow box.

 

Gameplay Overview:

Rollie describes itself as a tag-team co-op side-scrolling platformer that draws on the gameplay of Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog, crammed into 40 kilobytes.

You play as Rollie and Lorrie, two raccoons living in Paradise Gorge at a time when serpents have been moving into the forest en masse. The ensuing overcrowding transforms the once peaceful environment to one fostering greed and fear. Rollie and Lorrie hope to show everyone how to trust and play well with others again, which starts with taking down the more mean-spirited leaders of the community.

If it’s a snake problem, I know someone you can call

At first glance, Rollie’s controls seem like a typical platformer, but the rolling feature opens the world to more elaborate gameplay. It all starts by pushing down, which makes Rollie curl into a ball, while pushing up unfurls him. While rolled up, Rollie can fit into tight spaces, move more quickly, and bounce (especially if he falls from a great height). You can jump on enemies while Rollie is rolled up or in his default state, but if you roll long enough, you will build up a static charge that can be used to zap enemies with the B button. Rollie can otherwise throw marbles with the B button, or blow bubble platforms with up and B. If Rollie needs a break, he can tag out with Lorrie by hitting Select. Meanwhile throughout the levels are helpful items and snacks: 100 sweet clovers nets you an extra life, hot dogs grant invincibility, ice cream makes you faster, while an assortment of sodas will make you either jump higher, float, or shake the earth. If you find a cake, you can make new friends by offering them a piece instead of jumping on them!

What would happen if Rollie entered Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest?

 

Writer’s Review:

Rollie offers a fun 8-bit experience that will charm gamers of all ages. Though I’m reluctant to argue that other homebrew games are not family-friendly, Rollie seems especially oriented toward an experience that adult gamers can share with their kids and introduce them to some old-school fun.

Gameplay is easy to learn as you navigate the forest and jump on enemies, much like the original Super Mario Bros. game which served as inspiration. But as I mentioned earlier, where the basic mechanics are familiar, Rollie’s rolling feature is a key to a wider world of play, with an endless combination of play styles that will encourage gamers to tackle the game anew again and again with different approaches to challenge themselves. Learning the various controls can take some time before you grow accustomed to them, but once mastered are second-nature. I remember when I played Rollie for the first time at Chris’ booth at PRGE in 2018, I struggled to go in and out of rolling mode, starting and stopping like a teenager first learning to drive. But now that I’ve put meaningful time into the game, my movement is smooth and I’ll catch myself bouncing in levels just for the fun of it. Turning Rollie into a ball to squeeze through tight spots is necessary in some parts of the game, but this feature is too fun to wait for when it’s necessary.

Rollie’s graphics provide cute, colorful sprites against a woodsy background that evokes the Pacific Northwest region Chris calls home as well as parts of New England where I grew up. Something about the forest’s particular shades of green and brown and the title screen’s sign aesthetic remind me of visiting a state park and exploring the outdoors.

Fun fact: all of these signs were made in 1974

Meanwhile Rollie’s soundtrack is addictively fun. Hours after turning off the game, I catch myself humming its playful chiptune and I cannot get it out of my head until I play again.

Rollie is a game that fans have eagerly awaited for years, and the finished product delivers all that it promises. Chris believes that creative gameplay features can elevate a game above more generic entries in its genre, and Rollie is proof-positive that imagination is the key to making a game fun and replayable.

 

Interviews:

Rollie is a fun platformer that was years in the making. To learn more about the passion and creativity put into this game, I chatted with the development team.

 

Optomon

-Before we dive into Rollie, I would love to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to become a homebrewer? What is the origin story of Optovania?

Even though I dreamed of making my own games as a kid, I started as a rom hacker, because I was much more into creating new challenges for games I grew up playing. I worked on progressively more complex projects over the years, and collaborated with some people online to make versions of existing games that began to feature modified code. Eventually many of the modified games I worked on felt like completely different games. When I had enough coding experience and knowledge of the NES's architecture, I started to lean more toward homebrewing. I was inspired largely by the growth of the community and this idea that making NES games as something of a profession could be a reality.

 

-Given the Optovania portmanteau of Optomon and Castlevania, and your previous work on Guardian Legend and Castlevania hacks, I guess it is safe to say you are a fan of both games. What about them resonates with you?

Optomon is a handle I've used since the days of AOL. Guardian Legend was my favorite game growing up, and while it isn't a general favorite for most, it is one of the more prominent cult games on the NES. The Castlevania series on the other hand, is very popular, and I more generally liked those games. I'm drawn by the huge variety of environments, weapons, and enemies. The bright colors of the graphics and the memorable soundtracks are also a draw. I'm mainly a fan for subjective reasons though, as these were games I had the pleasure of watching my older brothers play through first before playing through them myself once the NES eventually trickled into my room.

Screenshot from The Guardian Legend featuring Green Optomon

 

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

My primary influences are the many people who worked on NES games when they were new in the 1980's and 1990's. The articles and interviews on these people are priceless, and they feel like heroes to me. They had to figure out how to engineer NES games with little precedent under some tight deadlines and archaic tools. In the modern homebrew scene, I tend to watch those who work on multiple titles. Gradual Games, Morphcat, and Dullahan are three studios that immediately come to mind.

 

-Your games are known for creative features that bring something new to the genre and elevate gameplay. How would you describe your design aesthetic, and what to you are the hallmarks of an Optovania game?

While my projects have matured over the years, I've always been very much into building something familiar around original ideas, and crafting new challenges for a game's intended audience. Over the years I've come to embrace three core principles in artistic design: 1) features need to be novel, 2) logic needs to be valid, and 3) matter needs to be vivid. In short, things need to be fresh, sensible, and alluring. A perfect game commands the focus of a player in a deep and meaningful way, like a book that can't be put down. Enchantment, not addiction.

Screenshot from Optomon’s hack Castlevania: The Holy Relics

 

-What tools do you use to code and compose?

For homebrewing, I code 6502 in Eclipse, using the WUDSN plugin, intuitive to navigate and easy on the eyes. For graphics, I use YY-CHR, I can't think of anything more necessarily comprehensive. Outside of that, I use some archaic equipment that causes me to do way more grunt work than I should. My emulator of choice is the old FCEU, which I like for its simple debugger and memory viewer. On hacking projects, I exclusively use hex editors for coding, and usually some kind of game-specific editor for the levels. It's good for getting fast results if you take notes and know what you are doing, and if there is a good amount of free rom space available. For NES music, I compose first in Noteworthy Composer, then transcribe the notes into hex values.

 

-On your website, you mention how you essentially taught yourself to code and developed your first games by getting your hands dirty, developing “through data corruption and examination of hex values in the code.” What lessons can you share to others who also learn by doing?

Do things in ways that best work for you, even if they seem impractical and unrelatable. It's probably to your advantage if you think rationally and enjoy reading up on new tricks, but I am definitely not one of those people. However, as I've matured more, I've come to understand that you absolutely need to do your homework if you want to make it. I generally read up on how to do things now before I get to a point to where it is an absolute necessity, such as learning an assembler for homebrewing, or getting hung up on some specific NES architecture quirks that I've never come across. I have never been able to successfully convince someone to do things in the tedious manners in which I traditionally do them. Learning by doing things in difficult ways makes sense to me only because I enjoy doing it that way. I feel like my methods are conducive to mastering a narrow set of skills very well as opposed to becoming a jack of trades. As a result, most stuff that should be fairly straightforward feels utterly taxing for no good reason.

Remember here that Chris has mastered a narrow, or rather a particular set of skills

 

-Before Rollie, you were primarily known for your elaborate NES game hacks, such as The Guardian Legend: Secret Edition, Castlevania: Chorus of Mysteries, and Castlevania: The Holy Relics. Was the experience of developing a game like Rollie from the ground-up different?

Engineering is different than reverse engineering in a way that building a house is different than giving it a makeover. So the experience was very different. Every part you unscrew is something that you have screwed in so you tend to know what you are dealing with all the time but it's more labor intensive. In hacking, you risk unscrewing something that could make the whole house collapse for a good while and you have no clue why. So while you have a nice shortcut in not having to do a lot of the groundwork you tend to be coding on eggshells.

 

-Did you have a different attitude toward developing Rollie compared to your previous games? Does playing within the existing worlds of established characters impose limits on what you can do with them or do you feel it offers a larger sandbox to play in?

I had to act more like a gamer making a game for gamers rather than a fan making a game for fans. With hacking, the sandbox is immediately larger and more established, but the more you break down and understand a game's code, and the more you manage it properly, the less imposing its limits. While you could make the sky your limit in homebrew, I chose to operate within a 40-kilobyte constraint, so in that sense, it felt as restricting as many NES game hacks. Toward the end of its development, the constraint felt suffocating, so I had to be wise with my data use.

 

-You also developed the game’s music, is your creative process for composing the soundtrack similar to when you are working on the game’s code?

It's completely different. I tend to compose in my head, at a piano, or at the computer, depending on my mood. Rollie's soundtrack was mostly composed in my head before I wrote out the notes. With game design, things are much more technical and less emotional, so being in the trenches with your ideas is a must. New ideas consisted of doodles and bullet points on graph paper. Most major implementations were fleshed out in a makeshift design document written in notepad before it was coded. Level design was drafted on graph paper, then configured as hex values in several tables. I would say sound effects had a much more similar creative process to the code than music, as each sound effect was composed as a snippet of code manipulating sound registers. With composing music, I didn't have to watch people listen to the music the way I had to watch people play through the levels hundreds of times to get them just right.

 

-At the heart of Rollie’s gameplay is the rolling, bouncing feature, which seems reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog, but more versatile in how it is integrated into the game. What inspired this feature of the game?

Chiefly, Rollie's definitive mechanic was influenced by the morph ball from the Metroid games. More specifically, it was the incorporation of spring ball into an NES fan game I worked on at the time as the composer, Metroid: Rogue Dawn. While I would test sound implementations throughout the game, I often cruised around jumping and bouncing all over the place as a ball. The developer programmed it very fluidly and it was a fun way to navigate the terrains. I was just starting out Rollie at the time, and I thought, “this has GOT to be the mechanic I am building my game around”, and so I did.

Screenshot from Metroid: Rogue Dawn

 

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

Make sure everything is stable as you build incrementally. I ran into some nasty defects involving sprite collisions with the background graphics throughout the game's development because I improperly programmed the scrolling engine early on. Also, test on real hardware, some weird stuff can happen on the console that doesn't in the emulators, such as if you try too many tile writes during vblank. Lastly, ditch the 40-kilobyte constraint unless you absolutely know what you are doing, or are creating a very small-scale game. Rollie is absurdly compressed beyond necessity, right down to modularizing several four-byte instructions that are frequently used into three-byte sub-routines. I can safely guarantee that there is no unused content in the game file. There was no special reason to have done it this way, except to impose a deadline for myself to get the game done and challenge my creativity.

 

-Ever since my first episode, M-Tee planted this idea in my mind that a game’s protagonist serves as both the player's point of immersion in the game as well as a reflection of its designer. What was the intention behind Rollie and Lorrie’s design, and are there elements of yourself that you see in them?

I always like to think we have inside us a world as complex and beautiful as the one we are presented with, and we inherently divulge our worlds into the one we share together. It sounds like Rollie and Lorrie are the medium which I have chosen to bridge my world to that of others. As raccoon heroes, they reflect four things: 1) a very short-lived homebrew project I was originally commissioned to work on which involved a red raccoon shooting snakes (which evolved into Rollie after it was canceled), 2) a creature that is apparently capable of rolling, 3) an homage to Mario 3, in which the player physics are particularly an influence, and 4) a personal motif from my adolescence, when I played NES games most passionately. The game's target audience are primarily small children and parents with small children who are familiar with NES games. So the cartoonish woodland setting in which Rollie exists is something that is immediately recognizable and appealing to children, yet has something of a mature story.

Gameplay gif from Rollie

 

-What was the working dynamic like in your collaboration with Daniel Adams?

Daniel and I have known each other for 30 years and we are best friends who grew up together, so working with him was super fun and easygoing. We met and chatted frequently online about the game and the physical product. I would give him a detailed list of what I expected for each illustration. I generally gave him creative freedom so long as what he drew clearly represented what was in the game. He did a good job giving personality and detail to my crude artistic style.

 

-There has been a lot of support and enthusiasm for Rollie on social media. How does it feel to see so many people enjoying your game?

I'm quite impressed with it. It's particularly fulfilling when there is someone who really loves the game, it makes me feel like that all that energy into realizing all those dreams was worth it. I try not to get too caught up in praise, in a same way that I try not to get caught up with criticisms. What really makes me happy is the bigger picture though, that people still really love NES games, and that they are holding up to be a timeless product.

 

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

While I am a blank slate for the time being, I still want to make more games. I have some ideas, but they'll have to bake in my mental oven. For a next project, I want to collaborate with more people, especially graphical artists. I'd also want to effectively master plan the game, rather than “master improvise” it like I did with Rollie.

 

-You were/are also working on Pyronaut, which is built from the game engine of Castlevania II, and Bomberman Classic, which creates a world more in tune with Bomberman’s original cover art. Do you have any updates on either game that you would like to share?

I wish I could actually say something about Pyronaut other than it being on an indefinite hiatus for the last five years. I put it on ice after I had kids. The rom needs some serious re-organization. As for the Bomberman fan project, it's actually been finished for the last 6 years, but we never gave it a proper release for some reason.

Screenshots from Pyronaut (left) and Bomberman Classic (right)

 

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

Sam's Journey looks to have some gameplay depth to it that is treading somewhere along the lines of Kirby. Orange Island also looks to reach that level of complexity. I look forward to seeing both finished. For games with a more serious tone, Halcyon and Project Janus appear to have a high level of technical sophistication and mood that is intriguing. I'm following those when I can.

Screenshot from Sam’s Journey

 

-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?

Not much at this time, just thank you for reading and supporting.

 

 

HobotiX

-Before we talk about Rollie, I want to talk about you and your background. What first inspired you to be an artist generally, and more specifically how did you break into homebrew game art?

Without getting too much into it, I always enjoyed drawing and doodling throughout elementary and high school. After that, I went to take a wide range of art classes from my local community college and art school, building up my portfolio. I found myself gravitating more toward digital illustration, 3D modeling, and animation more than anything else. Once I felt my portfolio was at a good spot, I started applying to internships and found work at a startup called Tapulous as a Visual Designer making mobile games, which was a very new market at the time. 

Once I found a relatively stable career, I started meeting up with my co-workers after hours and working on little side projects, spitballing game ideas, and seeing what we can hack together. One year, we decided to enter a Ludum Dare, which is a 48-hour game jam held online. We created a neat prototype of a game called Unforbidden Planetoid, which was meant to be a small Metroidvania, but we ran out of time. I worked with one of my co-workers who did all of the programming, and I managed to produce a lot of art for the project though, and animated the main character. The demo still exists on the Ludum Dare website if you wish to check it out.

Screenshot from Unforbidden Planetoid

Needless to say, I love designing and making games, writing up design documents for various games and spitballing ideas with people. I have since left the “professional” game development scene, if you can call mobile games that, and have gone back to school for Computer Science, which I am finishing soon. Making your own games is fun, but the professional scene for game development is really jading. You can find articles on that topic if you look for them, but I digress. I plan to do solo game development from this point forward.

Bruno Mars Revenge, art by Daniel Adams

Personal Portfolio (needs updating, but relevant): https://daportfolio.me/

Unforbidden Planetoid: https://daportfolio.me/Unforbidden-Planetoid

-What is the significance of your HobotiX handle?

Nothing too significant really. My old online handle was “Starscream,” but needed a new handle that wouldn’t be used as frequently. Especially as more and more services came online. I settled on “HobotiX” because I thought it sounded funny. It’s a mix of “Hobo” and “Robotics.”

 

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

It is hard to say if I have any one influence, because different art influences me in different ways. Back in high school, I was definitely influenced by anime and game art, specifically Gundam and Mega Man, but later found myself drawn more toward the simplicity and design of Eyvind Earle and William S. Rice, and the raw brush strokes of Spanish comic book artists, like Sanjulián. While different, these things definitely influenced me while I was still in college and during my career. 

Summer Twilight by Eyvind Earle

Night – Yosemite by William S. Rice

Vampirella #13 "The Silver Thief and the Pharaoh's Daughter" by Sanjulián

These days, I have been following the work of Temmie Chang, M-Tee, and Shafer Brown to name a few. I usually end up making some art boards on Pinterest, and end up noticing that I have added multiple pieces from the same artist. While my focus is now more on the programming side, I still do a lot of drawing and illustrations for fun.

Screenshot from Temmie Chang’s Escaped Chasm

Slobberoth Fight by Shafer Brown

I believe you’re familiar with M-Tee’s work

Eyvind Earle: https://eyvindearle.com/

William S. Rice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Rice

Sanjulián: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120326342/sanjulian-master-of-fantasy-art

Temmie Chang: https://tuyoki.itch.io/

M-Tee: https://mteegfx.itch.io/

Shafer Brown: http://www.shaferbrown.com/

 

-Do you feel that your art has any qualities that are uniquely you? How would you describe your aesthetic?

Hard to say. I don’t think there is anything particularly unique about what I do vs another artist. I like dynamic angles and lighting if I am painting a full scene, but can do some very static pieces as well. I like trying to capture the feel of a scene with these elements.

 

-What tools do you use to create your art?

For the most part, I will draw and ink my artwork in my sketchbook, and scan it into my computer and do all the painting in Adobe Photoshop using a Wacom Tablet. When I was working in the studio setting, I had a Wacom Cintiq, where the computer monitor doubles as the tablet surface, and I would draw directly on that. These days, I have been getting into using Procreate on the iPad with the Apple Pen. I have been renting one from my college to get by, but it has been a great experience. 

 

-Tell me about the development of the art you created for Rollie, what is your composition process? Is the creative process different compared to when you create for other projects?

Chris had a pretty good idea of what he wanted for the project, and I simply had to go down the list and bring the sprite work that he did to life. The hardest part was really settling on the style that I wanted to draw the characters in, which meant that I had to get the look of Rollie and Lorrie down first. To do this, I looked at a lot of cutesy character art, and some classic Super Mario artwork, and kind of settled at a happy medium. Once I got that down, and the ok from Chris, the rest was just following that style, while trying to match the sprites as closely as possible.

All of the characters and items were illustrated over the course of a couple of months, where I sketched, inked, and then finished them in Photoshop. The next piece that I got started on was the front cover, which took a lot of work. I first did multiple sketches of different cover art ideas, from something very simple, to something very complex. I always liked those NES covers that have amazing illustrated covers that convey the gist of the game, like Gradius or Castlevania. To that end, I went with something showing the action of the game, jumping, surrounded by the enemy, the woodland creatures, and set it in the forest. I set the perspective looking up because I wanted it to look amazing and fun. All of these are factors that play into how the game is played, and where it is set. Once the sketch was complete, I pulled it into Photoshop where I did a more in-depth painting of the characters and scene, spending a bit of time on the lighting and texture of the world. I like how the cover came out.

Rollie box art

 

-The manual is full of fun, cartoony illustrations; my personal favorites are the “making friends” and cola illustrations. Was there anything in particular that you drew on for inspiration in your illustrations?

I have made a lot of icon art during my time as a visual designer, so I have a lot of experience boiling down a complex action to a simple two-tone representation. Creating full illustrations representing these things was much more straightforward. But, put simply, Chris wanted something like the Super Mario Brothers manual, where there were illustrations that represented the different actions, and I followed that request.

Image from Rollie’s manual

 

-What do you think makes a game’s manual stand out?

A game manual needs to be fun to flip through and it needs to flesh out the world it is a part of. When you get an item in the game, you might not be entirely sure what it is, or how it fits into the world. But when you find that item in the manual, you can see what it is, and keep that image in your mind as you play the game. A good manual also expresses character traits in its illustrations, anthropomorphizing them and the sprites that represent them.

The duck is the only one with any chill

 

-How did you first connect with Chris and what was it like working with him?

I met Chris back in Kindergarten, and we have been friends since. We have very similar tastes as far as games go, and are pretty familiar working together. We never really step on each other's toes or anything. We give each other feedback on our work, and end up agreeing because our preferences are so aligned.

 

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

If anything, I wish I could have been more hands on with the printed materials. I did all of the layout work and design for them, but I would have liked to have been able to pick out the finish for the boxes and actually seen how they looked printed before running with them. Not to say that I am displeased with any of the print work, just would have liked that amount of control.

 

-You told me that you also playtested Rollie during its development, and have tested some of Chris’ other games. What goes through your mind as you playtest, for this or any game? Are there any favorite games that you measure them against?

Yeah, I have playtested many of Chris’s games over the years, and usually stream it when I do, even if no one follows me. Chris usually approaches me when his game is maybe 90% of the way there, and he is polishing some features and finishing up level design. I usually try to weed out any confusing game or interface design decisions, and for a fair difficulty curve. I feel that a game should be able to teach you how to play it by the design of its level, such as world 1-1 of Super Mario Brothers. 

It's a classic for a reason

Difficulty should ramp up by introducing you to a concept, iterating on that concept, and finally testing mastery of said concept. Rollie was a unique challenge though because of its sandbox approach to platforming. You have so many abilities and ways to traverse the level, and the challenge is designing a level in a way that forces you to pick one, or the other. I feel that this was successful, and by the time the difficulty ramps up, the player is prepared for the challenge.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DAportfolio/

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/hobotix

 

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

I am not entirely sure what Chris plans to do after Rollie, but I am happy to help him in any way that I can. As for me, I am kind of wanting to dig into the Unreal engine and do some rapid prototyping when I finally have some time. Free time is hard to find though when one is studying Computer Science though. I would love to develop at least one of my game concepts.

 

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

I was really excited about Micro Mages when that came out. The sprite work is amazing, and it is a fun party game concept for the NES. I have also been playing a bit of Project Blue over the last few months, and have been digging that. I am also looking forward to playing Trophy once that officially releases. So, quite an active homebrew scene.

Trophy? Hmm, rings a bell

 

-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 are interested in making your own game, there is no better time to start than now. There are so many tools and resources out there that make it really easy to get into. You can go old school like Chris and write everything in a very primitive programming language, or you can use a modern tool like NESmaker, with a built-in spriting tool. If retro is not your jam, you can look into Unity or Unreal engine game development. There are so many free tutorial videos out there that it is easy to find an answer to any of the questions you might have. All you need is the motivation to do it. I highly recommend learning to do everything on your own (code, art, system design) if you can, because it’s hard to find people to work with. And besides, it’s nice to understand every aspect of your game. It is also nice to be able to wear multiple hats in a game jam.

 

Conclusion:

Thanks for tuning in to this latest episode of a series that digs deeper into the latest homebrew games worth adding to your library. What are your thoughts on Rollie and its developers? What homebrews are you eagerly looking forward to? Perhaps you’ll see it here soon when…A Homebrew Draws Near! Command?