The NES Homebrew Scene
tedium.co
The NES Homebrew Scene
1–10 of 138 posts
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#2Of course it isn't just driven by nostalgia. It also requires a constant supply of coffee, for one thing.
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#3The appeal of retro console/computer dev is essentially an exercise in constrained programming. Systems of these era had extremely constrained specifications, and making the most of them is an art in itself.
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#4The best games age well. People still play pac man. People still play Mario. That said, the aesthetic is absolutely nostalgic.
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#5Somewhat related:
I'm always thoroughly impressed with how complicated and knowledgeable the people who work on these topics are.
I don't even use the product, but I love reading the Dolphin blog [0] because they write about fairly complicated topics in a way that's pretty approachable, and it always makes me appreciate how much I don't know about these topics.
While I feel like it would be difficult-but-not-impossible to be a contributor to say, the linux kernel (this is probably me grossly oversimplifying the process), I think I could spend the next year diving into graphics programming and basic hardware topics and still not contribute in any meaningful way to a project like Dolphin.
Articles like this and the Dolphin blog definitely make me realize how much I don't know.
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#6[deleted]
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#7I literally just wrote my first ROM that displays a green box on a black background working on my retropie machine last night.
The NES homebrew scene is pretty cool and the tools and languages have come a long way. One interesting avenue that might be work exploring is to use code generation and CSPs to generate and shrink code.
It's a lot of fun. It's why I like the PICO8. Constraints are interesting.
I just wish I still had my old BASIC code for games I made on my Amiga back in the day...
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#8The appeal of retro console/computer dev is essentially an exercise in constrained programming. Systems of these era had extremely constrained specifications, and making the most of them is an art in itself.
Sometimes I wish we had more constraints because I fear we've all forgotten how to write fast and lean code in favor of semi-fast but very bloated code.
I remember back when I first used Windows 95, opening programs was very snappy and I was impressed. I imagined Windows of the future being even snappier, but somehow the opposite has happened. Now every application takes a long time to boot up, check for updates, etc just because they use orders of magnitude more resources. I long for apps with instantaneous startup times, no loading screens, and small footprints
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#9The appeal of retro console/computer dev is essentially an exercise in constrained programming. Systems of these era had extremely constrained specifications, and making the most of them is an art in itself.
It's really amazing how people keep finding ways to make old hardware do new tricks. Overdrive 2 is my favorite example - it's a Sega Megadrive demo that was released 30 years after the Megadrive launched, but still managed to pull off multiple effects that had never been seen on the system before. It abuses the hardware in such unique ways that no emulator can run it properly.
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=69648 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWVmPtr9O0g
Re: The NES Homebrew Scene
#10It's also a matter of seeing what you can achieve on aging hardware. Can you do better than a team of professionals could in the 80s? Could you make something that pushes the console to its limits? Those types of questions are very inviting for both homebrew and ROM hack developers alike. Or perhaps before them, for those in the demoscene.