FrankenGraphics

I should really check in here more often.

it's an issue i'm aware of definitely going to look into, animation side. similarly, there are quite a few missing animations a bit everywhere.

As for NESST, i cannot praise it highly enough. It doesn't roll out a red carpet or welcome mat (reading the readme a couple of times between the first couple of sessions really hepls), but it is very efficient to be able to seamlessly work on a layout and on the tileset interchangably and let one process inform the other and vise versa. I used to draw tilesets first, then apply them. Once i learned how to use NESST, it became evident that i don't know what a good tileset will be until i'm able to try it out. So now, i start on layouts and tiles simultanously, or sometimes i even plot out basic monocolour tiles for layout to give me some values to reference when making the tiles. It feels great. The key bindings and mouse button actions are quicker than your average pixel editor to work with. It's very smooth once you get the hang of it.

In some ways, uncompressed levels could be the simplest thing that could possibly work. Assuming you base collision properties off tile ID:s, collision becomes very direct. For instance, it is safe to assume that a blank tile at position $00 in the tile space is always a noncollision, so you can skip out testing this majority case with a bne and continue with the rest. then, if you've sorted your tiles according to their collision properties, you can check for ranges of tile ID:s. Different attributes can even have overlapping ranges, if you use a method like so: .macro getInRange lo, hi ;expects value in A ;returns carry if in range ;a is not preserved ; 6 cycles, 5 bytes ; other assumptions: ; lo must be higher than 0. ; hi must be higher than lo. ; hi must be lower than #$ff clc adc #$ff - hi adc #hi - lo + 1 .endmacro of course, the biggest problem with uncompressed levels are the sheer size - just one full screen = 1kB. A typical homebrew cartridge might hold 512kB since that costs roughly the same as any smaller size, so there is space. But it's not endless.

Not a lot done on this project since last post. A little music improvements, a little bit more scenery, a minimalist HUD.

Just posting to say i've scheduled mondays as HDT (Halcyon Development Time) basically ~8hrs each week until it is finished. Expect to see assets shared more frequently, esp. on twitter.

we've had a dozen issues or so with people not finding their download key. sometimes it's in spam, but if not, or there is some other reason it got lost, you can DM me your kickstarter handle and email i can look up your key link manually. And yeah it's on itch

They could licence this to a quality provider in the west, such as broke studio, 1st press, megacat or INL. Maybe they're not aware, or maybe they don't want to at this point in time.

Thanks, everybody! In case anyone would like to purchase the digital version outside of KS, here's the itch popup shop: https://toggleswitch.itch.io/projectblue/purchase?popup=1 or alternately, you can review the itch page here: https://toggleswitch.itch.io/projectblue/

Just chiming in to say that the final-final versions of the game have been committed. And i'm planning to have all of the digital extras finally done this week. Will try to add the final details to the boxes this weekend. The digital release is imminent. The physical on its way!

i'd say the professional ones are the ones skimping on polish nearly every single commercial entry into the nes library is a rushed job. it's in the space of post-market homebrews we sometimes have the luxury to spend as much time as we want. that is of course moderated by team sizes being smaller. on a related note, i'm resuming work on new enemy animations any day now. project blue is almost out, so that opens up a lot of time for me.

fwiw i think it's a pretty smart move from the standpoint that most of the 6502 codebase they have is directly portable with little or no modification, and the 65816 more forgiving. I imagine a lot of the windows gui tool can be reused, too. The snes is a more suitable target than the nes,t if you want to make a game with little to no prior knowledge, insofar someone makes the overarching technical decisions for you.

Just another Borscht song i managed to finish in time for the bonus album that will go with the digital download for project blue - along with some more project borscht songs, halcyon songs, and freestanding songs. https://frankengraphics.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/frankengraphics-project-borscht-jaded-courtiers-in-the-gallery.mp3

A quick nighttime forest study from last night. Might as well end up in this game too.

oh yeah! that's on my mind. and then some tutorials/infographics)sorry i haven't been in touch forever. still interested? i'd consider that the most significant small project. the others are things like making tools for myself and finishing a tutorial with infographics.

Thanks! Haha, well, i don't think this will be KS ready in quite a while. The roadmap for the next couple of years of my spare time is something like this: -Finish getting Project Blue out then (likely this year): -Get Halcyon (with gauauu) kickstarter ready. this is most urgent. -make a ltd edition music cartridge. -finishing up some other loose ends on mini projects. then (probably next year.) -Get a Project Blue sequel... sidequel? kickstarter ready then (another year?): -After all that, this might be ready for KS.. if that's even the best platform around by then haha

Thanks, everybody. This was just supposed to be an exercise with the goal of having something like it in this and maybe other games too, eventually.. but i'm pretty happy with how it turned out, so it might go into this game more or less as is. 3-colour cycling + interleaved screenflipping between two similar nametables to be able to create a 6-frame background animation cycle. 4-screen mode means it can still scroll on one axis for this scene. NT banking would make it possible to scroll in all 4 even while a waterfall is present.. but i'm leaning towards a mapper that doesn't have that.

Looks cute! I like the HUD

Thanks, guys! Finished this tonight!

I didn't notice the similarity of the pose at first, but that only makes it better haha

There will be extras! Fot getting a CIB, the most convenient method is probably to DM me your name, email and country and i'll put you on the preorder list, which will be handled as soon as all of the backer pledges have been fulfilled. I'll get back to you with payment and shipping details then.

I mean, it's evident that they've put many hours of enthusiastic work into both the game and the campaign, and i wish them best of luck. My initial response came a bit harsh. It just makes me a bit wary on a strictly personal level, in the role of a KS backer, when i see remains of tutorial assets and approaches left in something that's called finished. I've spent 6 months with NM 4.1 and while it's no longer the latest version, i know there are display bugs that hopefully been taken care of by the creators, but without a recent demo it's hard to feel reassured. With flea, another KS entry made with NM, there is an (old) demo. Though old, It gives a better idea of what i'm backing. And despite several of the packed-in HUD and display bugs being present, i think the game is fun enough to support. And hopefully the creator will squash them but in this case, I just like having facts up front. Lots of words, but that probably explains how i feel a bit better.

We didn't manage to get it together in february after all. It's been intense, but we're so, so close now. QA is hard to quantify but i think it's been worth it. The last illustrations have been scanned and are being colorized. I'm working on the last few digital extras. Donny is posting another update on the current status of things as soon as he's able to.

Thanks! It's been low-key in the works all the time, but it's kind of harder/less interesting to show off music and design notes...

It's not horror without monsters. Here's an ugly face