Orab Games

I'll be taking my two little girls tonight. They are super excited!

That is pretty much the basic design I was asking for but with the buttons replaces with screw down terminals so it can be reused without soldering and desoldering. What Memblers posted is awesome! I would really like it to be compatible with Power Pad games though since I wrote Tailgate Party for the Power Pad. The goal is to replace the Power Pad with a piece of plywood with a 12 holes. Each hole is rigged in such a way that when a bag enters, a switch is toggled and tells the NES when a target was hit. Other ideas include a putting game where you aim for targets to score. Games using NERF guns aiming for targets. Custom arcade stick. The possibilities are endless! It would be fun to take these to Expos for people to try out or just release it on the Internet as a rom and the schematics to build your controller for the game. As @neodolphino stated, it would be more for hobbyists than actual game releases on a cart.

Maybe this is a simpler diagram, assuming it is correct. I just Google Image Searched "NES Controller Pinout" and found this.

Oops, looks like there are a couple other pieces. There is the 74HC03 semiconductor that connects to D0 on the controller port and whatever the semi-circles are connected between pin 9 on the shift register chip and the semiconductor. https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/15524/PHILIPS/74HC08.html

Here is the shift register chip that the NES controller uses. I don't know if these can still be purchased of if you have to use an equivalent. Then all you need are the caps, resistors, and diodes that are shown in @Memblers diagram. I'm not very good at reading those diagrams or doing board design, but it seems like it would be pretty simple for a hardware guru. Edit: Forgot to post the link. http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/74HC165-register-circuit.php

You mean like this? https://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=36&products_id=154

Funny you say this. The original title of this post was 'Generic Controller Hobby Board'. But, I changed it after I looked up the PAC boards to see what those were called. I didn't want to sound like an idiot.

Oh wow! It does not surprise me that you already have design! Custom built peripherals is sort of my goal here. I have a power pad board that I wanted to solder wires to and make a "cornhole" board with actual holes for Tailgate Party for a fun way to play the game at expos. If a board was available, build plans could be posted online with a link to the board to purchase. I think it would be very important to design it with screw style terminal blocks for ease of use. I know the light gun uses a different wire and the power pad reads different bits, would it be difficult to implement those as well? Not sure the light gun would be useful but you never know. I would definitely purchase a couple for tinkering. I don't have plans for releasing a controller, but I would enjoy sharing build plans with others if I made anything. Thanks for chiming in on the subject. I learned a bit about trackballs. I had no idea that it was different.

To the hardware folks out there, would it be possible and how much would it cost (approximately) to design and make some controller interface boards with the proper electronics and chips on them to make your own controllers. What I am envisioning is a one-size-fits all board that could be used to design any controller you want, say for instance an arcade stick. The arcade community has many options like this, such at the PAC boards. https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interfaces/ It could be fun to have these to make fun tech demos or build controllers that are not available on the system, such as a trackball. What would REALLY be cool is if two designs could be made, one for a standard NES controller (1 shift register chip) and another for the Power Pad (2 shift register chips). Sure, i could always sacrifice damaged controllers to mess with (and I have a few), but the idea of a board that I could purchase and avoid soldering sounds much more appealing. Any thoughts? Any other interest from other devs in something like this?

It could be done, but there would have to be a programming overhaul on the backside or make a new NESMaker project and jam all three games from scratch into it. I think this would be a cool idea though if the OP and his son have the time to do it.

Have you tried Retroarch with the latest Mesen core? I think that will play UNROM512 (which NESMaker uses) and even GTROM! I know I have tested a GTROM game on my Android phone and that works.

This seems to me like a straw man argument. I've already addressed the rest of your points. I may disagree with your assessments but I understand. No need to keep repeating the same thing over and over. I've already stated that I choose to let homebrews stand on their own merit, no matter how they were made and I'm leaving it at that. I refuse to play along with anyone who tries to argue just for the sake of arguing as there is no point and it is just a waste of time. I'm bowing out of this thread.

Homebrews are still not profitable. Yes, there are outliers, but as a whole, I'm not quitting my day job any time soon to write NES games, with or without NESMaker. No one (maybe a couple?) is making a living wage selling homebrews. At most, its a bit of extra pocket cash for some. Others, its an investment into future games or promotions. I can tell you that by the end of sales of Tailgate Party, I lost money if you include everything that went into it, such as trips to expos to promote the game and taxes. If I didn't make an LE, I would have went even further into the hole. Sure, we can look at Kickstarter numbers like Project Blue and go WOW! $42,000! That's amazing. However, 50% of that cost will most likely be material+shipping. Then there is the cost of advertising and promotions. And at the end of it, everyone involved in the project splits the rest and then taxes are paid. By the end of it, I would be surprised if a single person makes more that $5000 after everything is deducted. And that is after many MONTHS of work. You aren't feeding a family making $5000 a year. I know a few people who have tried to make this a full time job and gave up pretty quickly and returned to the workforce. There are a few examples of some who are making this work, but I really don't know how successful they are as I have never talked to them about it. However, during the peak of homebrews being pushed out, there we some who figured out squeeze the lemon pretty well. Were people getting rich? Hell no! That is why they got out of the game so quickly. The problem was consumers were still spending $60+ to buy this junk. And then, a good homebrew would be released around the same time and suffer. There were some people just getting into looking to buy homebrews and were turned away with the disappointment of the quality of these games. Yes, I do believe early devs do get a pass. Simply because they were the ones who reversed engineered much of the system, wrote tutorials, created hardware, and spent all of their free time making all of this available to the public to make games. And they took years of research just to get to that point! That is much different than cranking out 12 subpar games in a year to cash in on a fad. To me, it is no different then every Tom, Dick, and Harry selling cheap Chinese fidget spinners. Yes, I am WELL aware what it takes to build and fund your own homebrew. I did, I spent the money on materials, I risked money in hopes that I didn't go negative, I didn't ask for the money up front, I wrote the code, I drew the graphics, I designed the box, I designed the manual, I designed the label, I invested in 2 programmers and test some test boards, I did all of the marketing, I programmed every board, I assembled every cart, I drove each game to the post office, etc. The only thing I didn't do was compose the music and write a music engine, but I did have to share sales money with him (dammit Zi!)! I did start trying to write a music engine until I figured out that I was out of my league. I wanted to do it that way at least one time for my own personal reasons. Would I do it that way again? Most likely not! But, I wanted to experience as much as I could the first time. That takes nothing away from those who are using NESMaker today. I fully admit, if that software was available in 2014, you can bet I would have bought it. I am happy to see that NESMaker is bringing more people into the hobby. It is awesome! However, I can still have reserves on the issue of crapware being shoveled out again. But as I mentioned earlier, those concerns are pretty much gone due to projects like Mugi's. That project fascinates me and I loved that he is sharing it. I will be one of the first with money in hand to support Mugi. Also, I fail to see how this entire thread shows that we are "creating different rules and expectations for different people." as you put it. In fact, when I read this thread, I get the opposite feel. Again, we can agree to disagree. I know neither of us will change our stance based on what the other says. All I can say is, my initial reserves or NESMaker were not warranty and I have really enjoyed seeing what some of these guys are doing. To me, it is just another tool in the arsenal and maybe one day, I'll give it a look. As of now, I have little to no interest in it as I sort of have my process figured out.

Earlier released game are a completely different thing. The main difference, they weren't cranking out crapware just to make a quick buck. Many of those devs made little money on their games and what money was made was used that to fund the hobby and given back to the community. Back then, there wasn't the number of resources, technology, and the vast amount of knowledge about the system. In just the 5 years that I have been involved in it, so much more is available than when I started thanks to these pioneers. It is so much easier for a new dev to jump right in and make a quality game on their first attempt. There is a reason that you don't see too many people selling games like Tic-Tac-XO or Sudoku anymore. Back then, many were still sacrificing real NES games and burning new roms. It was also very difficult to test games on real hardware, so games were naturally much simpler as devs learned more. As a result, funding these few less-than-steller earlier games funded and fueled the fantastic games we are seeing today as devs learned more and shared more from their experiences. But, there was a time when we had a few devs\publishers were cranking out multiple games out in a year. Many of these games were $60+ and gave you about 5 minutes of ok gameplay and then the game was over. Some felt very much like tech demos or beta versions. A few were worth putting on a cart, but maybe at half the price. These devs\publishers also never gave anything (or very little) back to the community and there is a reason that none of them are around the hobby today. They made their buck and moved on to the next money grab. It is very understandable that the community worries about this happening again. Homebrews have recovered quite nicely since then and have expanded very well, but there was a short time when many people were burned by this and become very stringent with what they supported. At one time, people were lapping up every single game that came out! Forum threads had dozens of "take my money" posts. LE auctions were going for $400-$500! With the introduction of a tool that made it even easier for anyone to crank out games, people became worried. Heck, in my early days before I sold a game, I once told "It's so easy! Just put a number on the box and profit!" That really burned me with that person and I stopped supporting them. Then there was the result of the flood of too much crap. Sales dipped for all devs\publishers. LEs that had a bunch of time, effort, and money put into them were selling close to RE prices and losing money. That is when the fly-by-night devs flew the coop. I think success of Micro Mages and that demo video really helped right the ship for NES Homebrews. I know many devs have hit the gaming expos really hard these past few years and have done very well at spreading the word. Limited Run Games getting into the NES market was also a nice little boom to the hobby. There has also been a HUGE uptick quality homebrews, which both excites me and kills my pocketbook! I don't know if it is intentional or not, but the rate that new games come out has leveled off to a controllable state. But, games like Dimension Shift gives me hope that NESMaker is being used to make quality games. As Mugi has learned, you have to go beyond the software's limitations to make a super polished game. It is great software to get your feet wet, create a few projects, and enter into the hobby, but ultimately, it still isn't quite there to crank out dozens of unique quality games. It is unfortunate that the days are gone when a new dev could release a smaller unpolished product to get a little startup income to fuel future projects, but that is just the nature of the beast. I think that has more shifted to free-will donation or free rom downloads. Twin Dragons and Nebs N' Debs are great examples of how that can work! Customers love free demos. To wrap up this wall of text, my initial fears of the software have mostly subsided as I see the market respond to the games that are being released over the last 2 years. It really has been an incredibly fun ride and I can't wait to see what the future holds!

Here's a secret, many of us don't know what we are doing, including me!

There will be praise and criticism to each project. It's very difficult not to take any of it personally. Just know, people are going to have opinions and that is ok. As long as you enjoy the process and are happy with the result, that is all that matters.

No mess, we are just being educated by your process! Please don't feel like you have to defend you work. I am really enjoying that thread.

That's a lot of tools!

Awesome to hear! I'm glad that you are already aware of this issue.

SoleGoose is definitely a friend of mine as well. We got into the scene about the same time, so we have a very similar experience to the community. However, we have A LOT of different views on many different topics but in no way do I judge him for that nor do I attack him for it. I respect his opinion and I assume he respects mine as well as he has never given me any indication that he doesn't. I try to give this benefit of the doubt to everyone. If for some reason I don't or I let my emotions get the best of me, I try to apologize quickly and sincerely. Like many others, SoleGoose does a lot of good things for the community. He is very passionate about this hobby and community. In the end, I think developers all have the same goals in this hobby, regardless of the tools we use or don't use. Make games, play games, discuss games, make friends, and have fun! I enjoy watching others succeed and I enjoy being able to support when I can or how I can.

Immortal flat out doesn't work on my 36 inch sony trinitron and some of my flat screen tvs.

I have no experience outside of NESASM3. I think the "limitations" are mostly related to older versions. If there are any, I either haven't run into them or the affect is so complicated that I have no desire to attempt it anyways. As far as I know, no other users of NESASM3 have had issues completing any of there games due to limitations. @KHAN Games has created nearly a dozen games with it! There are some legitimate complaints for each assembler out there. It came down to that the Nerdy Nights tutorials were very simple to follow and that is what I used to learn.

That is because of color $0D. It can cause issues with some tvs. I'm assuming that NESMaker must have a fade routine that decrements by $10. If you are using the colors $1D, $2D, or $3D and fade out to black, once the system displays $0D, it can break the game. I would assume that the designers decided to just leave column color $xD out to avoid that issue. The recommended work around is to use a similar color. Here is more information about that issue: https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Color_$0D_games

Thanks for posting this! I feel all projects deserve their own thread for discussion and if the creator doesn't start it, someone else will eventually. :) I enjoy the pixel art! The art alone looks very polished. The title screen is one of my favorite screenshots. Well done! I really like how you broke down what has been done so far. It's fascinates me how you were able to get away from NESMaker's limitations and do your own thing. The NES limitations are frustrating enough, but to also be limited by software can be doubly frustrating. Well done!

Congrats! The campaign was well done. Now, we wait. It's always the hardest part.