MachineCode

My brother had the first set of turtles with the soft heads. Apparently I destroyed those ones so my family was very happy when they switched to hard plastic heads.

I’ll take it. I literally had this discussion with a friend 2 days ago when he claimed PS2 to be the best console ever made (strongly disagree) and that GameCube was kiddy crap.

DD2 here. 1 loses points for being single player and 3 is just hard in a very cheap way. I love hard and challenging games but this game had me calling bullshit way more than most. DD1 on Genesis was pretty sweet though.

I’m of the opinion that reusing an engine that you or your team has personally made is fine if used well. If you made it, I don’t see how that could be seen as lame or cheating or whatever if you put in the work and made a good game. Hell, using a 3rd party engine is fine if the game is made well. The end result matters most to me. I will say though that with regards to current gaming, I do feel a bit of magic and uniqueness was lost when we got to a point where most games were built upon one of like 3 different engines vs when development houses at least generally made their own for each handful of games they released. Many people like to praise the CD Projekt Red for making their own engine for the Witcher games vs using unreal or unity like everyone else. And while I’m sure they would have made an excellent game using a 3rd party, it would make sense that their building a tailor made engine that contains everything they needed and nothing they didn’t would lead to better performance and a better realization of their original vision. I feel that unless someone made a crappy engine, then yes, making one’s own engine and building a game from the bottom up is definitely worthy of praise and accolades. But on the opposite end, I don’t feel that simply using a 3rd party engine should make someone or their game the target of derision.

I chose genesis due to having a decent amount of games for it. Some of which I beat on a pretty regular basis.

But there are lots of dead. Just not you

Thank you for all that great info. Damn near exactly the reason I created this thread. The divide part seems spot as to where I got information on which assembler to use years ago. The part about portability really makes ca65 and attractive choice. As far as asm6 vs NESASM, what do you find easier about to use about asm6? Another question for everyone: Does anyone know what assembler the commercial NES developers used during the system’s lifecycle? I would assume they just wrote their own custom assemblers or used modified versions of other 6502 assemblers of the day but I have no proof of that.

How would one go about filming this with regards to legitimacy. If I just straight up video capture it then there’s no guarantee I did it back to back. Would I have to also film myself playing it and swapping cartridges?

Oh absolutely. These are just extras. I’m definitely trying the standard no death runs first. I feel like a actually have a really good shot at that one so these are just the next step for fun. No death dual game run by itself is super badass and worthy of praise.

I’m liking these weapons challenges. I propose the following challenges: Rules: - Games must be played in succession. - No Deaths. - Non weapon power ups, including “R”, are allowed except in the no power ups challenge. - Specified weapon must be obtained at the first possible opportunity. No weapons aside from stock gun are allowed up to the aforementioned point. - No Cheats or Tool Assists. - No Save States. Challenges: - No Spread Fire. (Everything else is fair game) - Machine Gun Only. - Flamethrower Only. - Lasers Only. - Stock Gun Only. - No Power Ups. I’ve listed them in order of what I feel is easiest to hardest. If you can pull off the last one, you are the Supreme Master of Nintendo. Captain N has to give you his jacket and Johnny Arcade has to let you kick him in the nads.

I've not done it but have No Hit both plenty of times. I actually never thought to do them back to back. I looped Super C until I maxed out the score once. Contra I'm a little more hit or miss so I'd have to practice.

Yes, I actually did know that. Git R' Done to be exact. Thus the coy "I'll show myself out." But you know, text and its lack of vocal tone and all that.

No, it is a scarlet letter if ONLY it is forced and nothing else. Label it all or don't label any. But just as the SPARS code wasn't a scarlet letter on albums, but merely a way to inform the consumer of the technological changes in the album making process, this doesn't have to be either. I do agree though that if we just single out NESMaker games and don't require the same behavior of others then it is just being discriminatory.

Fine, let’s try this again. Back in the day, CDs and albums used to come with a 3 letter designation to point out whether Analog or Digital technology was used in the Tracking, Mixing, and Mastering stages of the process. If you were all analog, you got AAA. All digital, DDD. Analog recording, digital mix, digital master, ADD. This was not by artist choice. For the people that paid attention, some found they liked the warmer sound of analog while others preferred the cleaner sounds of digital. Most people either didn’t care or didn’t notice, as long as the album and recording was good. Some were biased against digital, others biased against analog seeing it as passé. There were good and bad examples of both types of albums. Bottom line, this is only a scarlet letter if treated as such. Some people will find a way to stigmatize and be prejudiced towards literally anything. I literally used to have some parents bar me from hanging out with their kids because I dared to ride a skateboard! Those types should not dictate our behavior.

While I do see that side of it, it is still their loss as well as they miss out on something good. I also feel there is a difference between categories and a smear campaign. For example: We have the BET channel. Black Entertainment Television. A channel that’s made to feature content by black creators, artists, and performers. Some people see this as a positive draw and helpful. Some check it out and don’t quite care for the content they provide indifferent to who made it. And then others avoid it completely due to their own bias against those that made it. But those last types don’t get to ruin it for everyone else. We shouldn’t lose out on the positive aspects of categorizing due to some people’s irrational prejudices. If people make great games using NESMaker, then the designation becomes a positive one. I also feel that disclosing what was used to make a game just helps lend recognition to the tools and methods used to create games as well as helping everyone become more informed about the process and work that goes into it.

Every day

No need to apologize my friend. We're all here to take part in and learn about a hobby that centers around software development of some sort. If I got offended every time someone didn't get exactly what I do, I'd have no friends and no job either since management can be quite non technical.

@Mugi I wouldn't worry too much about this stuff. Dimension Shift looks like an objectively awesome game so whatever tools you used and however you used them doesn't add to or take away from the job well done. If people wanna get bent out of shape about that and skip over it because you dared use NESMaker as part of the process, that's their loss.

I think you might be confusing web developers with web designers, or at the very least not making the distinction between front end and back end web developers. Also, the reason developers tend to look down upon Wix and Wordpress or any WYSIWIG created sites is because we've all had the misfortune of having to maintain or add to the absolute shit code these things put out due to trying to be one size fits all. No human developer in their right mind would wrap a simple line of text in 5 layers of span tags with 3 different classes, but my coworkers and I sure had a good laugh, and then cry, upon being handed multiple WP sites that did just that and worse. I would say this matters way more in something like web development where there is a large professional industry built around it and having to undo the damage done by people who while well intentioned, really didn't belong doing this kind of work, wastes a lot of time and money and potentially causes many headaches down the road. For something like homebrew NES games where it is literally just people trying to realize their passion and creativity as a hobby, unless it's just curiosity due to a love of the process of NES development or trying to get props on your skills as a developer from other developers, I don't see why anyone should care as long as the game is good and runs well. That's why I'm in the label it all regardless of the tools used camp. I just like the process and want as much info as I can get behind what makes a game possible. Good, bad, or otherwise.

No, in fact I’d be impressed that they were able to get working HTML files out of a word processor that doesn’t deal in raw text data but rather a weird xml type structure underneath.

Is it Pet Smart or Pets Mart... I'll show myself out.

+1 on the Hakko FX888D. Used it on everything from consoles and carts to vintage tube amps. Of course on the latter if I have to solder down to the chassis, then I breakout the big fat old school Ungar. But seriously, for what you are looking to do, the Hakko is great. Make sure to use good quality solder as well such as this stuff Kester 63/37 .031 . I find the 63/37 mix easier to work with as it seems to set faster compared to 60/40, leaving less time for parts to shift around and make cold joints while the solder is still in that in between plasticine type phase. I also prefer the .031 diameter to the thicker strand stuff as I find it easier to get just the right amount of solder to make a nice joint and not get all blobby on it.

I want to get back into learning NES development but am curious about which assembler to use. Tutorials like Nerdy Nights are centered around NESASM3 while others I see use CA65. Then I've read people saying that NESASM3 was limited and that I should use ASM6 but found far fewer resources centered around it. I know that in the end, a solid understanding of 6502 ASM and the NES's unique aspects (memory map, parsing the controller input byte, etc.) are most important, but I'm curious to know what the members of the homebrew community here prefer and why.

I liken it to the difference between using a program like Ableton Live to make original compositions vs slapping together the stock loops that come with the software and calling it your own. Like any tool, it really depends on how you use it.

Same. The Genesis just brought the bass like no other in a way that the SNES just couldn’t match. I used to have it hooked up with a subwoofer and the bass just KILLED. Like the bass drop in the intro to Marble Zone in Sonic 1 just shook the room. And it wasn’t even a big system. Having the sound chip be very similar to those in found in the Yamaha DX synth family definitely helped. A big part of why more techno and dance style tracks really worked so well on it was due to it being a cut down version of the synths that were commonly used in late 80s techno and dance music. I love seeing that people have been making midi controllable synths out of it these days. I also love the dirty crunch that it lends to samples. Especially when pitched down. Had a very SP-1200 vibe to it.