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VGS Homebrew on the Horizon


Scrobins

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Moderator · Posted

VGS Homebrew on the Horizon:

Whereas the purpose of the VGS Homebrew Almanac is to keep an up-to-date list of cartridge homebrew releases that are currently available or whose production runs have ended, this list will provide an up-to-date list of cartridge homebrew releases within sight to one degree or another.

Part I of this list will include live pre-orders, either through the developer’s website or a crowdfunding page such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Part II of this list will only include homebrew games that previously had pre-orders open, but which are now closed (e.g. a crowdfunding campaign has ended and no further pre-orders are being taken). This section will serve as a sort of limbo for games that will be available soon and will therefore soon be moved to the Homebrew Almanac. Completed roms for games where the developer is planning or considering a physical cart run will also be found here.

Part III of this list will be devoted to homebrew projects that developers have announced are in the works, but which are not yet available for pre-order, though demos may have been released to whet our appetites. The line between which projects have been abandoned and which retain a glimmer of hope is a fuzzy one, so developers please pm me if you wish to be added/removed.

Part IV is dedicated to the memory of homebrew projects which, as far as I can tell, have been abandoned. This may be because the developer has gone dormant on this project or in general, or a developer had a page for this game that has since vanished. May they one day be resurrected.

Links will be to a game’s individual page, development blog, VGS thread, Twitter account, or some combination thereof to provide the community with the best possible access to news. But if developers would like me to link elsewhere, please tell me.

*The usual disclaimer, I am sure that there are mistakes and games that slipped my attention in what follows. Feel free to point them out or inform us all of a change in a game's status. If you are the creator of a game and you would like to have your work included at a set date/time, please feel free to send me a pm

Part I: Homebrew Available for Pre-Order

NES/Famicom Available for Pre-Order:

-240p Test Suite + Gus' Game Collection $60 CIB Link

-Black Jewel Reborn €60 CIB Link

-Christmas Crisis 55 CIB Link

-Courier $60 CIB Link

-Flap Happy $50 CIB Link

-Flea 2 £50 CIB Link

-GemaBoy Zero X 60 CIB Link

-Googie Toons $80 CIB Link

-Jim & Dill: The Legend of Weed N' Stiff $60 CIB Link

-Jim & Dill II: Bobson's Revenge $60 CIB Link

-The Meating $60 CIB Link

-Nemulesis & Leggite Luta Livre $60 CIB Link

-Orange Island £100 CIB Link

-Oratorio $60 CIB Link

-Skeler Boy €50 CIB Link

-Soda Drinker Pro $60 CIB Link

-Soko Banana $60 CIB Link

-Super Cambur 56 CIB Link

-Triple Jump 48 CIB Link

-Uchūsen Ultimate Ploid Avengers 40 CIB Link

-You Are Error (music/video) $49 CIB Link

SNES Available for Pre-Order:

-Black Jewel Reborn €60 CIB Link

Gameboy/Gameboy Color Available for Pre-Order:

-Athletic World £45 CIB Link

-Black Jewel Reborn €60 CIB Link

-Brookwood Pocket Tactics £45 CIB Link

-Cat Catch €50 CIB Link

-Diabetor and the Sugar Monsters! $39 CIB Link

-The Fallen Crown €45 CIB Link

-Flap Happy $50 CIB Link

-GB Corp. 49 CIB Link

-GB Productivity Suite CA$30 CIB Link

-Glory Hunters MX$1,400 CIB Link

-Hermano 55 CIB Link

-Honey or Vinegar $40 CIB Link

-How did I get here? £50 CIB Link

-In the Dark £40 CIB Link

-Inspector Waffles: Early Days 45 CIB Link

-Kendan and the Gem of Erú AUS$90 CIB Link

-Kudzu $65 CIB Link

-Last Crown Warriors 50 CIB Link

-Legion of Evil $50 CIB Link

-Planet Hop £50 CIB Link

-Skeler Boy €50 CIB Link

-The Train Part 2 £4CIB Link

-Wink & The Broken Robot $60 CIB Link

-Witches and Butches MX$1,000 CIB Link

-Year 2031 39 CIB Link

Gameboy Advance Available for Pre-Order:

-Alien: Escape Link

-Collie Defense $55 CIB Link

-Gelatinous 2 Link

-Inky and the Alien Aquarium $60 CIB Link

-Paco 2 Link

Sega Master System Available for Pre-Order:

 

Genesis/Mega Drive Available for Pre-Order:

-Affinity Sorrow $68 CIB Link

-Astebros €60 CIB Link

-Black Jewel $60 CIB Link

-Black Jewel Reborn €60 CIB Link

-DaemonClaw €50 CIB Link

-Irena Genesis Metal Fury €45 CIB Link

-Lunatic Fighters R$270 CIB Link

-Reknum: Fantasy of Dreams €60 CIB Link

-Rocket Panda $50 CIB Link

-Sacred Line II $80 CIB Link

Sega Game Gear Available for Pre-Order:

 

Turbografx-16 Available for Pre-Order:

-Electronic Lifestyle (chiptune by Remute) €35 C Link

 

Part II: Pre-Orders Closed or Completed But Not Yet Released on Cart

NES/Famicom Pre-Order Closed or Will be Available Soon:

-Action 53, Volume 4: Actually 54 Link

-Assault!! On Planet Beelzebub

-Bowels of the Beast

-Copper Jacket Link

-GemaBoy Zero X Link

-Mystic Searches Link

-Nova the Squirrel Link

-Saturn Smash Link

-Slow Mole Link

-What Remains Link

SNES Pre-Order Closed or Will be Available Soon:

-Super MIDI Pak Link

Game Boy Pre-Order Closed or Will be Available Soon:

-Martin Gauer Link

-Neko Can Dream Link

-Night of the Living Dead Link

-Panty Hunty Link

-VelociRush Link

Game Boy Advance Pre-Order Closed or Will be Available Soon:

 

Sega Master System Pre-Order Closed or Will be Available Soon:

Genesis/Mega Drive Pre-Order Closed or Will be Available Soon:

-Phantom Gear $50 CIB Link

 

Part III: Homebrew In-Development

NES/Famicom In-Development:

-8-Bit Music Power Encore (chiptune)

-Adventures in Cavyverse Link

-Afterworld Deluxe Link

-Alien Cat 2 Link

-Alien Isolation Link

-Attack of the Retro Raiders (fka Walter and Billy's CONQuest) Link

-Bad Hare Day Link

-Cityzen Link

-Cobol's Laboratory Link

-Cyber Rogue Link

-Data Link

-Depths Link & Link

-Diversion Link

-Doodle World 2 Link

-Estique (FC) Link

-Even Goblins Fall in Love Link

-The Excitables Link

-Fie (chiptune by Zi) Link

-Fighting HRD (FC) Link

-Former Dawn Link

-Gulpy Link

-Gypsum and the Travelers Link

-Halcyon Link & Link

-The Inversion Project Link

-Jester Link

-Janus Link

-Konomi's Monster Party Bishoujo Mahjong Gaiden Beta Version (FC)

-Knuckle Knight Link

-The Last Tower Link

-Level Zero (chiptune by Zi) Link

-Light from Within Link

-Malasombra Link

-Mischief Castle Link

-Moon Fest (FC)

-Piopow (FC) Link

-"Project Borscht" (a Frankengraphics tale) Link

-"Project Sword" (a Tolbert tale) Link

-Ravi 'n Nani Link

-Retro Artists of the Future, Vol 1. (chiptune compilation)

-Retro Space Championship Link

-Rising Tide Link

-Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Link

-Saru★Kani Panic Link

-Saturday Man Link

-Save the Leopard Cats! (FC)

-The Shapeshifter 1 & 2 Link

-SnailNES Link

-Snakey Link

-Steel Legion Link

-Summer Island Battle Tactics Link

-Sun Wukong vs Robot Link

-Space Soviets Link

-Sunset World Link

-Super Sunny World Link

-Swords & Runes 2

-Touhou Rououmu (FC) Link

-The Trial of Kharzoid Link

-Tryptic Link

-Turtle Party Link

-Turtle Rescue: Storm Watch Link

-Unicorn

-UNO

-The White Room Link

-Wiz Scape Link

-Wordle Link

-(untitled Chinese New Year game) (ITG-Soft) (FC)

-(untitled chiptune album by Electric Dragon) (FC) Link

-(untitled RPG) (in association with Amaweks) Link

-(untitled shmup by nia) Link

SNES In-Development:

-Alien Cat 2 Link

-Biz-Billes Link

-Bloody 'n' Mary Link

-Danmaku Link

-Dottie Flowers Link

-Justice Beaver – The Great Timber Tantrum Link

-Nova the Squirrel 2 Link

-Super Paw-n

-Super Super Crate Box

Gameboy/Gameboy Color In-Development:

-4000AD (chiptune by PROTODOME) Link

-Bottle Boy Link

-Coria and the Sunken City Link

-Dracula - Dark Reign Link

-Fall from Space Link

-Fields of Eutomia Link

-Green Cube Link

-Gun Ship Link

-Kitori Link

-Pet the Dog Link

-Postal Pete Link

-Princess Gardening Link

-Ravi 'n Nani Link

-The Shapeshifter 3 Link

-The Third Shift Link

-Ynxa

-(untitled Tronimal chiptune) Link

Game Boy Advance In-Development:

-Unity (chiptune by Remute) Link

Sega Master System In-Development:

-Afterschool Adventurers Club Link

Genesis/Mega Drive In-Development:

-The Alexandra Project Link & Link

-Alter Ego: Dreamwalker

-Apeel’s Court Link & Link

-Arapuca Link

-Aratu Brothers + Shaolin Carcará Link

-ASAP PLZ Link

-Asteborg: Castaway Link

-Bio Evil Link

-Bite the Bullet: First Course Link

-The Cursed Legacy Link

-Cyber Mission Link

-The Destroyer Link

-Dreams Link

-Earthion Link

-Ellenica: Dusk of the Gods Link

-Gears of Rage Link

-Gravibots

-HorgiHugh Link

-Insane Pain II Link

-Journey to Oblivion Link

-Lethal Wedding Link

-Mega Box Reloaded

-Mega Darkula Link

-Mega Wing Link

-Perlin & Pinpin Link

-Planet B Link

-Shrine Maiden Shizuka Link

-Space Madness Link

-Stack 'n Attract Link

-Thunder Paw Link

-Tourmaline

-Verge World: Icarus Rising Link

-ZPF Link

Part IV: Homebrew Purgatorio

NES/Famicom In-Development:

-Almost Hero 2 Link

-Balls and Booty Link

-The Banketh Link

-Bleu Bleu Link

-Cotton & Candy Link

-Deal or No Deal

-Dimension Shift Link & Link

-Epicade

-Family Vacation

-Gamer Quest (fka Nintendo Quest) Link

-Gatsby

-The Gift of Discernment (aka Isometric Horror Game) Link & Link

-High Noon Knockout

-Hyperdrive Soul

-In Cod We Trust

-Isolation Link

-Isshokuta Link

-Knil Link

-NOFX Cover Cart Link

-Project P Link

-Rival Swarms

-Rumblefest '89 Link

-Skatemasta – Tcheco Link

-Space Beats

-The Sword of Ianna Link

-The Tenth Knight Link

-Transamnia Link

-Vice: Magic City Mayhem Link

-The Wizard: Story Unknown Link

-You Only Live Thrice

-(untitled game by iamerror) Link

-(untitled game by Punch) Link

SNES In-Development:

-Dorven Digger Link

Game Boy In-Development:

-Frog Knight Link

-Mictlan: Un viaje Link

-Winsley's Guardian Link

Game Boy Advance In-Development:

Sega Master System In-Development:

-DARC Link

-Dead Gunner Link

-Lain vs. the Castle of Evil Link

-Lost Raider Link

Genesis/Mega Drive In-Development:

-A(...)M(...)96 $169 CIB Link

-Chant Link

-The Chaos Citadel Link

-Crypt of Dracula Link

-Field of Nightmares

-The Jewel of the Five Suns Link

-Kung Fu UFO Link

-Magot Link

-Paddles of Nuclear Gunnery

-The Shifting Catacombs Link

-The Viking and the Ninja Link & Link

-Wanted Link

-We Got Dungeons Link

 

Part V: Malebolge

 

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Moderator · Posted

EDIT CORNER: I've created distinct categories for in-development games and in-development games that may have been abandoned that I know are out there but which haven't reported updates in so long I decided they merited their own list. Some games have not seen an update in awhile but are treated as in regular development, partly because the brewers working on them are here on VGS and maybe this will poke them enough for an update.

Edited by Scrobins
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Moderator · Posted
34 minutes ago, Fleck586 said:

What's the latest on Saturdayman? I pretty much wrote that one off

I haven't heard anything since they released their demo earlier this year. But It's interesting how they released a "thumbnail" of the game that is most of a cart label, essentially telling people to make demo carts to tide themselves over while they wait.

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Homebrew Team · Posted
8 minutes ago, CMR said:

Ha ha ha, Paprium.

Pretty sure it is at a point where we can start using "Paprium" as an adjective to describe projects that end up like it.  As in, did you hear the Atari VCS pulled a Paprium.  

Edited by Deadeye
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17 hours ago, Scrobins said:

Got it, I’ll move it up to section two since it’s completed. I need to follow up with @SNESNESCUBE64 about a limited cart run.

I haven't forgotten about it, life has been very very busy for me between work and finishing up school, so I haven't had much time to make copies of the game. Some more will be made, I just don't know when. If someone else wants to do it and work with vectrex28, that's up to them, but right now I am incapable of dedicating time to this project.

Edited by SNESNESCUBE64
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I haven't really talked about our project much around but it's coming along so might as well add it to the list I guess.

Dimension Shift started out as a nesmaker project I created in order to learn some Assembly, but has since evolved into something..... larger.

 

It's a platformer mostly influenced by shatterhand in design... well, pictures speak for themselves.

the game WILL get finished and released through some way. How? I have no idea yet.

 

 

 

 

 

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Homebrew Team · Posted

@Mugi Looks great and I have been following your updates on twitter.  I agree it should be released.   If you don't want to take on the self-publishing yourself, there are several people who do publishing.  Including, 6502 Collective (Solegoose + Tim from Retrotainment), InfiniteNES Lives, RetroUSB, and others)

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I have had talks with few people "from the industry" but honestly, the game is not far enough yet to think about cartridge production etc.

We're going to take our time to ensure that the game is finished and functional before releasing it in any medium.

This is afterall the first NES programming project both me and FIX94 (the other developer of the game) are making and quite simply, we just dont wanna say things and then

get stuck in the endless loops of issues and delays 😛

it's done when it's done™ and then we talk cartridges.

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Moderator · Posted
1 hour ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

I haven't forgotten about it, life has been very very busy for me between work and finishing up school, so I haven't had much time to make copies of the game. Some more will be made, I just don't know when. If someone else wants to do it and work with vectrex28, that's up to them, but right now I am incapable of dedicating time to this project.

Absolutely, I did not intend that to rush you! Just wanted to touch base and confirm all the info I had while I built this list.

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Wading in here to mention my own Nesmaker project which is currently in development "Space Raft". An Nes game based on my dumb rock band. I just finished a new working demo, which you can be download directly here, or through my thread in the Nesmaker forums... 

This is my very first attempt at any game dev and am receiving some great help from the nesmaker community when it comes to coding, but the music and assets were all created by me specifically for this project. 

http://nesmakers.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=2867

 

My eventual plan is to simply release the ROM for free on our record labels website and do a limited run of pre order only carts.. 

 

I hope this is an appropriate use of this thread, not trying to advertise necessarily, but would like to be more active in the Nes homebrew community since I am so endlessly inspired by what I see here. 

 

Xoxo Cheers!

Raft3.0.NES

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Moderator · Posted
16 minutes ago, Raftronaut said:

Wading in here to mention my own Nesmaker project which is currently in development "Space Raft". An Nes game based on my dumb rock band. I just finished a new working demo, which you can be download directly here, or through my thread in the Nesmaker forums... 

This is my very first attempt at any game dev and am receiving some great help from the nesmaker community when it comes to coding, but the music and assets were all created by me specifically for this project. 

http://nesmakers.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=2867

 

My eventual plan is to simply release the ROM for free on our record labels website and do a limited run of pre order only carts.. 

 

I hope this is an appropriate use of this thread, not trying to advertise necessarily, but would like to be more active in the Nes homebrew community since I am so endlessly inspired by what I see here. 

 

Xoxo Cheers!

Raft3.0.NES 512.02 kB · 0 downloads

As long as you intend a cart run and have pre-orders at some point, you’re good! After that I’ll move you over to the Almanac. In the meantime, promote away and let us know when you’re taking pre-orders! I’ll add you to the list when I get home.

Edited by Scrobins
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you might want to remove the nesmaker tag from my project though, it's a bit unfair towards nesmaker to let people assume that stuff implemented into our game can be done with it,

and also degrading towards the programming efforts we have put into the project to tag it as "nesmaker" implying no programming has been done to the game.

this rom is for the most parts completely rewritten the engine that comes bundled with nesmaker by now.

this is a honest "true to the art" homebrew game, no more, no less.

 

I could go into more detail over the fact why the whole categorization is just stupid but this is neither the time or the place for that discussion.

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49 minutes ago, Mugi said:

you might want to remove the nesmaker tag from my project though, it's a bit unfair towards nesmaker to let people assume that stuff implemented into our game can be done with it,

and also degrading towards the programming efforts we have put into the project to tag it as "nesmaker" implying no programming has been done to the game.

this rom is for the most parts completely rewritten the engine that comes bundled with nesmaker by now.

this is a honest "true to the art" homebrew game, no more, no less.

 

I could go into more detail over the fact why the whole categorization is just stupid but this is neither the time or the place for that discussion.

Either way it looks awesome!

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If creators are going to be able to remove associations between their work and NESMaker, a separate category denoting that would be helpful (*Made with NESMaker but label removed at the request of the creator). The list is about information, not judgment calls, and having basic information is helpful. Otherwise, there is not much value in the list as information. One still has to look into any and every project to figure out what it is, if facts are being omitted.

Arguing that something is made with NESMaker but not made with NESMaker is about as useful as someone calling a hack anything other than a hack. Pyronaut is amazing, but it's still a hack, whether or not Optomon would care to see it otherwise (and he wouldn't, from what I can tell).

Give people information and let them decide what to do with it, don't obscure it.

 

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3 minutes ago, SoleGoose said:

A distinction that is not helpful to you doesn't make it unhelpful to others.

You’re pretty much the only one here who really really cares.  Also, the notation “Made with NESMaker but label removed at the request of the creator“ would be ridiculous because the label is still there.

I still haven’t seen you effectively rebut this post from Mr. New8BitHeroes, and I doubt I will:

So, as you know, I've been chronicling this community for a long time. You accurately reference my horrible, clumsy beginnings on the NESdev forums, and you probably know the dozens of folks I profiled through the film...I got to see a LOT of workflows from old school NESdevs and ones that were just getting started. So here's where your analysis gets fuzzy for me, and I think derives (on the part of a lot of people) from confirmation bias, already having decided on the matter, rather than logical assessment.

If someone goes to the Nerdy Nights page, downloads the assembler, one of the screen tools suggested, and copies the body of an ASM example into notepad, and then runs that through an assembler, they're pretty much "executing and running a working rom in 10 seconds". Yet that IS legitimately a first step in creating a homebrew? THAT person gets to be part of the exclusive club? Because that's where a LOT of people started. Nerdy Nights, or with Patater's tutorial scripts, or Pin 8's template, or Mikejmoffitt's template, or the "empty NES project" on the VB Forums...all of those are examples of resources that exist that could, as you said, have someone executing a working rom in about a minute or so, but someone who builds a game with that foundation isn't the subject of this need for categorization. They are "real homebrewers", where as someone who does effectively the same in NESmaker needs to qualify that they did pretty much the same thing, just in a more collected and organized environment. I don't understand that logic. But...I don't consider EITHER people at that point actual "homebrewers" or "game developers". That's not what game development is, homebrew or otherwise.

I also don't think that someone who follows something like Nerdy Nights tutorials to the letter, just copies over the code into their own notepad and runs the compile button, is all that much different from someone who loads in a module into NESmaker. Pretty much the same method of development has taken place at that point. They single difference is with NESmaker, it's in a collected, organized environment, where as with Nerdy Nights, you might be building graphics in Shiru's tool, and assembling through a batch file, rather than having a built in dedicated graphics tool and a single button push to run the batch file. I'd argue at that point, NEITHER developer is a homebewer, or game developer. They are learners, at best learning how to reskin. Yet the former is how most homebrewers got their start, and in your mind you're probably creating some distinction between those two things. I'm not sure I understand how it's different at that point. But hopefully you agree that at that point, neither is really creating a game. They are both just tinkering. It's safe to say neither are homebrew NES game developers (which I'm presuming is what we really mean when we say "homebrewers").

So then let's jump forward a bit. A person at that level, on each side of the equation. Person A starts to modify the Nerdy Nights scripts and sees the result. Person B starts to modify the code base of the NESmaker modules and sees the result. The difference being Person A is doing it with stray files opened in notepad, while Person B is doing it with organized files, either in notepad or in the script editor that come inside NESmaker (to my knowledge, most people on both sides are using something like Notepad++). At that point, what are you arguing is the fundamental difference between the two people? I'm just not seeing the process as much different. They're both working in and learning ASM. They're both making modifications and tweaking and testing in order to gauge results and produce a desired effect in a game being created. At that point, I don't see any fundamental difference in anything except, again, literally the environment where things are organized...but since every developer has different organizational structures, and plenty use things like Git or Mercurial (which they did not build) for higher level organization, I'm not sure that is enough to denote some dramatic difference in process. At that point, whatever level "legitimate homebrewer" one of those individual is, the other has effectively done the same thing. Would you disagree?

So it's the next part that must be what we're actually talking about. Things like memory management. Asset creation. Building a physics engine. Etc. That's the thing that we must be arguing separates a NESmaker user from a "from scratch" homebrewer, since a NESmaker has some predefined scripts that handle these sorts of things, where the homebrewer has to create them. But let's really take a look at that. If a "real homebrewer" needs to figure out how to do object collision detection, and effectively copies and pasts the Mario's Right Nut examples from the NA forums as a starting point, tweaking them to fit within the needs of the game, and a NESmaker user pulls in one of the NESmaker object collision routines as a starting point, tweaking it to fit within the needs of the game...again, what is the fundamental difference between those things? If you pull in one of the NESmaker physics scripts and then alter it to fit your game's needs, versus if you follow along with Michael Chiaramonte's youtube video about creating physics, copy it in as he goes, and then alter it to fit your game's needs, what is the fundamental difference between those things? This is where I'm having a difficult time understanding the argument. Having seen so many peoples' workflow, so many tools they've used to do so many tasks, and having created a game from scratch, rebuilding it's engine 5 times over, I'd like to think I'm pretty well versed into what goes into NES development. And I say this, not as someone just trying to defend NESmaker but from the objective metric I'm using right here in this reply, I'm not sure I understand the fundamental difference for those that are just getting into it. In either case, the developer is looking at examples, tweaking them, futzing around to figure out how things work, making changes to see if they can get desired effects, employing a host of tools and resources they themselves did not create...I guess I'm not sure why having those resources together in one spot is fundamentally different that web crawls through google and forums to collect them all fundamentally alters the process.

Lastly, the conversation really needs to pivot away from "tools" versus "from scratch". As you, and Beau, have already conceded, those who ARE invited to the club, and DON'T need to vocally express their game used the crutch of a pre-built engine as is suggested here, use plenty of tools that ease their development process. As expressed in the response above (to which I still haven't heard a logical counter from anyone), almost all of the homebrewers I met used tools to do a significant portion of the heavy lifting. Let's put all the homebrewers that use famitracker and famitone in a room and give them 48 hours to construct a music engine. Who among them could do it? I'm guessing very few. Because music engines, and all that goes into them, are incredibly difficult and complex. Fortunately, there is no need to spend months diving into that complexity, because there are simple GUI tools that exist that can help a NES developer bypass the chaos that would be writing that engine. They have access to a nice GUI interface that looks like a piano and spreadsheet, they create complex instrument envolopes in seconds. They just point and click their way to a song, setting up tempos and lengths and pattern definitions, and then they spit it out with the click of a button. Literally, I could have a functional song in under a minute, copy the FamiTone scripts into my project, and have it playing back in my NES ROM in the next minute, using a GUI interface to spit out a complex run of data that would've taken most homebrewers months to R&D themselves, if they were even capable at all. But THAT is a part of "real homebrewing". Using a GUI interface that looks like a piano to shave months of development time and knowledge of how sound works on the NES and the endless complexities that go into creating a music engine, and utilizing someone else's thousands of lines of code to make it work...that's acceptable. Change music GUI to input GUI, change FamiTracker to NESmaker, and all the sudden "Well hold on, there is a big difference between from scratch development and using tools!". That's a weak and hypocritical argument. The only people who should be able to say those words are the people who use no pre-existing tools in their development...no pre-existing assemblers, no pre-existing sound tools, no pre-existing graphics tools, no tutorial examples, no project templates, no emulators with debugging features, no cart flashing software, no nametable generators...those are the only people who really have any legitimate case when it comes to arguing "from scratch" versus "tool based" development. There was a time when those tools didn't exist, and homebrewers had to make games the longhand way. What happened? Tools were created to simplify the process. Now homebrewers use them. Generally, what it seems to me is that whatever tools were present when a homebrewer began creating are the ones that person is willing to accept as acceptable...most likely because they themselves used them and don't like the idea of having to categorize themselves as someone who needed the crutch of tools to complete their game. That's that confirmation bias I was talking about. "There is a huge difference between from scratch development and someone who uses tools" seems to be a chosen mantra by a lot of people who make regular use of tools, and always have, as part of their workflow, but they're condescendingly lumping themselves in the "from scratch" club, while saying other tool use is prohibited to receive that proverbial badge. To me, that's...well...mind numbing, I guess.

So if we want to have a conversation on whether or not there is a distinction between from scratch development versus reliance on tools for development, it's a topic worthy of discussion. If we're talking about employing some sort of categorical differentiation, then anyone who uses any tools in development to ease their process are part of that group, with NESmaker just being a multi-pronged tool rather than the single scattered tools that other developers are using. If they start to get defensive about it, the question simply is "Did you create everything for your game from scratch?" If the answer is no, then why doesn't the same logic apply?

Lastly, though, we really have to talk about the people ACTUALLY developing fully fleshed out projects. People working in NESmaker who fall into that category are writing an awful lot of their own code, learning how ASM works, learning how the NES architecture works...if a NESmaker user is learning PPU tricks and how to handle the NMI and how to deconstruct a physics engine and writes 30,000 lines of custom code and code modifications to make his game, and a "from scratch" homebrewer, starting with the Nerdy Nights tutorials, writes 30,000 lines of custom code and code modifications to make his game...what is the practical defining thing that is differentiating those two people? One is doing it in an organized work flow, and one is not? One has resources collected in one place and the other has them scattered around the web? Because that's REALLY what we're talking about.”

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