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In a recent post I discussed the viability of developing new games for old platforms as a vehicle to liberate the gaming from the repetitive titles that currently plague the industry.

In order to get started on such a campaign, developers would need to be armed with the proper tools to do start writing a new generation of titles efficiently and at minimum cost.

1) Development Environment

The NES games would likely be programmed in 6502 assembly, and there should be no reason why a modern computer couldn’t be used to test the games via an emulator. For this task, I would propose developing a plugin for the popular Eclipse development environment which would include all the required tools in one convenient place.

The plugin would include tools to do syntax highlighting and checking of the assembly code, an Emulator tied to the compile/run command that would launch windowed inside of eclipse, and also most likely rudimentary sound and image editors for composing the media aspects of the game. Powerful modern software development tools already compatible with eclipse would be of great assistance here such as source control, static analysis and performance profiling. Another valuable feature found in some plugins would be code assist, to provide code snippets for common tasks such as probing the controller buttons. An Eclipse plugin with these features would be a godsend to any potential NES developer, especially because these tools would ideally be open source and free – providing for community improvements and widespread usage (Not to mention inherently cross platform, supporting Windows, Linux and OS X!). 

2) Development Cartridge

After testing in the development environment, a game would need to be tested on native hardware as well. For this task I propose the construction of a development cartridge that includes the basic functionality of a NES cartridge but uses cheap modern microcontrollers and flash ram in order to have reprogrammable ROM and Mapper components. The cartridge would feature a speedy USB link for dumping new software to the cartridge and also possibly for in-circuit debugging, both of course in conjunction with the Eclipse plugin. Having a cartridge like this would also be handy in transporting games in progress to demo for others, being playable in any Nintendo system in the world. One major technical hurdle would be in defeating the 10NES authentication system present in all licensed Nintendo cartridges.

As these development carts would initially be fairly limited in production, a quick solution could be to harvest 10NES chips from existing NES cartridges – an ideal candidate for this being the dime a dozen Super Mario / Duck Hunt cartridge which came with almost every NES every made (wikipedia says that about 40 million of them exist). Better methods for handling this will be the topic of a future post!

3) Test controllers

In order to test on a PC as authentically as possible, real NES hardware must be interfaced with the computer. Around the internet, tons of people have taken the lazy route in doing this via a parallel port conversion. However, this is 2008 and a more ideal solution is to create a NES to USB adapter that would probably require the the connectors off the front of a NES system, a microcontroller for usb encoding and a female usb jack to connect to the computer using a standard usb cable. This solution would be ideal because the microcontroller could be powered over USB, and almost every modern machine has usb ports, whereas classic printer/parallel ports are beginning to be phased out. In particular, this would allow for portable development on laptops.

4) Production Cartridge

In order to distribute finished games in manners other than rom files, assuming the Nintendo and other heavyweights have not seen the light and allowed for digital distribution – is to produce homebrew cartridges. The first thought to come to mind would be to use a cheap modern microcontroller with decent storage capacity to reproduce the cartridge’s internal functionality. These could be programmed using traditional techniques, most likely with some eclipse automation again. The cartridge board itself would be designed via a publicly distributed eagle pcb schematic file so that 3rd party vendors such as freepcbs.com could mass produce them with professional results at minimal cost. The cartridge shells themselves would be created via homebrew vacuum forming techniques, and lack the obnoxious security bits holding them together featured by every original cartridge on the planet. Additionally, in game saves would be accomplished via modern flash ram, as opposed to the CR2032 batteries found in games like Dragon Warrior and Legend of Zelda, that die and then need to be replaced periodically with tedious soldering. Again, the authentication system would create a problem and this initial solution would include a socket on the pcb to drop in a 10NES chip harvested from another cartridge.

With these four bullet points taken care of, the major technical hurdles in launching a new wave of 8-bit games would be complete and all that would remain would be traditional simple ones such as packaging and marketing. Stores that specialize in classic gaming that are starting to popup would probably happily carry these new games on consignment until significant momentum could be gained for traditional distribution.

I intend to begin work on this plan shortly, and welcome any questions, comments or suggestions you may have!

Mega Man 9 was recently announced, and if you haven’t got a chance to check it out yet – it’s extremely noteworthy that it is being developed in the same lo-resolution style as its 8-bit NES predecessors, and that it will be the closest thing to a new NES game in about 15 years. While it is unfortunate that Mega Man 9 is not going to be released on the traditional cartridge form to avid retro-gamers like myself, its upcoming distribution via WiiWare and XBox Live as well as widespread anticipation for its release seems to ask the question, is this format actually dead?

From working part time at a used video game store in Chicago, I would say the answer is most definitely ”no”. Despite carrying about every console in existence, including ones from the latest generation – by and far the most popular system we carry is the classic 8-bit NES. This seems to argue that despite all the advances in gaming technology, there are still a ton of people out there yearning to play some simple platformers on a controller with less buttons than you can count with one hand. Content seems to trump presentation for a large fraction of the gaming public. Another common comment I’ve gotten from customers, and one I happen to agree with is that a lot of people like video games, but lack the time in their day for the total world immersion demanded by blockbuster titles like GTA 4, Metal Gear Solid 4 or the latest Zelda or Final Fantasy game. Many people are just looking for something they can play casually for 15 to 30 minutes a day and then walk away from. Classics like Super Mario Bros., Dr. Mario, Tetris, and Castlevania all fall into this category – games don’t need to be deep, complicated or flashy – they just need to be fun.

With digital distribution channels available in the modern age that allow developers to completely skip the costly step of boxed, shrink wrapped software such as Wii Virtual Console, XBox Live, Playstation Network and Steam and the apparent viability of lo-fi games like Mega Man 9, it appears that there are alternatives to the current defacto multimillion dollar development route. The cost for to develop an 8-bit game is orders of magnitude lower than what it takes to put out a next-gen title due to the limitations of the platform, and that an entire polished game can be put together by a few people in very little time. If Nintendo were to allow 3rd parties to resurrect its NES platform (and possibly other platforms) by publishing new games for it via the virtual console, they would liberate the gaming world from the entrenched paradigms of fps and mmorpgs by allowing developers to attempt innovation and the introduction of fresh ideas, without risking millions of dollars on a game that flops. The development budget for Grand Theft Auto 4 ran upwards of $100 million dollars. Yes you read that right, $100 million. The budget for a AAA NES style game could be about $100k, which would be more than enough to employ two people, a lead programmer and a dedicated artist for a year. The development time would be much less as well, and that money would be enough probably to get a few games out the door in a year’s time by those two people. This amount of money is a drop in the bucket compared to current development budgets and would bring diversity back into an industry that once excelled on it. In addition to this, development hardware costs would be negligible due to the fact that any modern computer is vastly superior to the 6502 CPU in a Nintendo, and that high quality software system emulators to test with are common and free.

Let’s hope that Mega Man 9 opens the doors for more similar anachronistic games, ones that have their emphasis on fun as opposed to photorealistic graphics. If Nintendo has already met and acknowledged this need halfway, by giving access to classic games via the virtual console – why would they have any reason to stop there by denying developers the ability to publish new games for these time honored platforms? With any luck, Mega Man 9 might be the wake up call the gaming industry desperately needs to break from its current state of stagnation and dependance on hardware as a crutch for boring and lackluster games.

Jeff Atwood of the popular Coding Horror blog, has a new site in closed Beta right now called StackOverflow. It’s awesome and is addictive as hell. The site has a digg style interface for programmers to interact and ask each other questions, and hopefully this will be the nail in the coffin for that godforsaken hell hole known as Experts Exchange, and their ROT13 nonsense. I got fast tracked on the waiting list (apparently already in the thousands?) by transcribing a section of the project’s weekly podcast, and this will definitely be a site that I hit up 10 or more times a day.

 In my brief experience with StackOverflow so far, I’ve noticed a handful of innovative and interesting features that I think make this site stand out regardless of its content matter. I really like the fact that the site uses openID, because unless sites start using it – it’s not going to gain critical mass, and I don’t feel it was that inconvenient to signup for one. This site actually made me finally go take the 15 seconds to acquire one from verisign, and I’m glad that they finally made me get around to doing this.  The interaction model also seems much more solid than a regular forum, in its methods for the community to self-police and up/down mod posts via a reputation based system. What this boils down to, is that if you ask good questions, or provide good answers – other users will notice and boost your reputation, which increases your standing in the community and allows you to have more influence on the site. For example, until I hit 100 reputation, I lack the authority to down-mod anything which will be an effective measure against griefers and spammers.Looking at how StackOverflow is handling their beta, I will admit right now I intend to steal their process for managing signups and feedback because it is that solid, and imitation is the highest form of compliment. Signups for the beta are handled via a Google Spreadsheet form, which is quick and painless to set up – requiring maybe 15 minutes tops to get running, and that’s assuming you didn’t already have a Google account. Second, the developers are leveraging a new service called uservoice.com, which allows them to have a Dell Ideastorm feedback system at no cost, and no effort. This is huge. A public beta is useless if you can’t get effective feedback from your users, and I guarantee that my new venture pip.io will be using this webservice.

If you haven’t gotten your name on the waiting list yet, do it now. Even at closed beta, the community is vibrant and lively. At 8 AM CST I was able to ask a question regarding good workarounds for the fact that Java has no unsigned byte primitive and got 3 answers within 10 minutes. This is awesome, don’t wait, this site is going to become the defacto place to get programming answers online.