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NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

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Icelink256
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NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

My apologies for disappearing. I've been very sick, and my 11 year-old Cat Pendragon, passed away a few weeks ago :cry:
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So to distract myself, I've been working on a thing.
Does something like this qualify as a valid project thread? :O

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This one's just a mock-up of another, Zelda 1 inspired idea.
EDIT: Oh yeah, this project is NROM. 8KB CHR, 32KB PRG
Last edited by Icelink256 9 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

Oops! I just realized that I hadn't uploaded any of the mock-ups for this. My bad.

Mock-ups:
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Progress: I have my map data being fed to the PPU, and displayed on screen, with the player sprite.
The player may walk around, and screen-flipping has been implemented. There are only five overworld screens, to test the transitions.

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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Bwarch »

Oh hey this thread has no replies, that's interesting.

So what exactly are you doing here? Are you shooting for a straight up full Zelda clone game or is this just mucking about and testing things?

The art is pree swell I gotta say, everything's really close to LTTP but of course that is the intent so hey. (I say LTTP despite you saying Zelda 1 clone because everything has a depth to it that they didn't shoot for with the first Zelda)

It's really good. Honestly with the success of Battlekid I would almost say you should try for a fairly original idea and shoot for a paid release. There's definitely an audience out there for homebrew games created even today. This is just a mockup, but I'm curious how it would fare to have you go at full speed on a full thing.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Rixithechao »

My condolences for your loss. This looks like a wonderful tribute, and while most stuff about homebrew will probably go over my head I'll be looking forward to seeing how this project develops. It'd be pretty cool to see this as a full-on physical NES game. I know I'd buy it!
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Leet »

As a fan of Zelda games without the Zelda (well, and with the Zelda, but you know) this looks like it'll be really cool upon completion.
Well it is a decent hack but sometime its just too repetitif there no level that actually pop in your face and your like oh yeah that level they all ressemble themselves and just monster along the way.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

Bwarch wrote:So what exactly are you doing here? Are you shooting for a straight up full Zelda clone game or is this just mucking about and testing things?
The idea is indeed to create a full-on Zelda clone. Though this will play much more like the Gameboy titles.
Bwarch wrote:It's really good. Honestly with the success of Battlekid I would almost say you should try for a fairly original idea and shoot for a paid release. There's definitely an audience out there for homebrew games created even today. This is just a mockup, but I'm curious how it would fare to have you go at full speed on a full thing.
I actually do intend on having this put on a cartridge, upon completion. Now, whether I go for paid release, or just say "screw it", and release the ROM is another question. I may do both, as several other home-brew developers have done.

Also, my 8KB CHR is now full!
There are 15 items, 11 enemies, and 3 bosses.

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Here are the assembled sprites:
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--and some of the Name-Tables, showing off new tiles:
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I wasted 14(!) tiles from the 8x16 sprites requiring 2 tiles each. So I'm debating on whether or not to go 8x8 instead, so I can throw a few more enemies into this thing, at the cost of having more enemies on screen at one time. I'm not sure yet.

The Zelda-like story screen will have the items scroll after the story. Most of the plot was pulled out of my ass, on the fly. Heh.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by KobaBeach »

Icelink256 wrote:Algol
SUDDENLY PHANTASY STAR??!??!?!?!??!? or possibly programming language

(looks good º3º)
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Jesuiscontent »

Programming illiterate here, is it a zelda hack or is that made from scratch?? Looks super cool in any case
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

KobaBeach wrote:
Icelink256 wrote:Algol
SUDDENLY PHANTASY STAR??!??!?!?!??!? or possibly programming language

(looks good º3º)
Thanks! ...Heh, Phantasy Star. I haven't played that game in years!

Actually, Algol means "Demon Star" from the Arabic "ra's al-ghūl".
It's a red star in the night sky, that was said to be an omen of bad luck.
Jesuiscontent wrote:Programming illiterate here, is it a zelda hack or is that made from scratch?? Looks super cool in any case
Homebrew development means from scratch, onto a console. It's quite a fun project so far, getting back into ASM. Because screw hacking, I'm long done with that mess!

Also, Demo ROMs will be posted here, eventually!
Can't get in trouble for original content! o3o
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by sonicspin »

Icelink256 wrote: Actually, Algol means "Demon Star" from the Arabic "ra's al-ghūl".
It's a red star in the night sky, that was said to be an omen of bad luck.
that red star would be venus most probably
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by swirlybomb »

Looks really nice, yo! Look forward to seeing more.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

Hmm... I worked on the layout for an item menu, today.
Damn! You gotta respect the programmers who managed sprite-object based menus back in the day.

This was painful, keeping 8 sprites per scan-line! (Horizontal alignment, for you non-coders.)
59 8x8 sprites here, just shy of the limit of 64. :shock:

I kind of like how this turned out.
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Which reminds me, I switched my sprite mode to 8x8. Less enemies on screen at once, but allows for precision spriting, and a new, fourth (maybe a fifth, as well) boss! :O

There are 14 8x8 sprite tiles, left. No BG tiles, left.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by devil†zukin »

this is all beautiful i dont believe its for nes that ---- is hard

ive always wanted to try super gameboy homebrew that ---- has some real cool graphical properties
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

RenaBeach wrote:this is all beautiful i dont believe its for nes that ---- is hard
Difficult to tell the system? Good. I've done my job! ;)
Even better--

This game has 32KB PRG (Program Rom), and 8KB CHR (Character Rom), making it the same size as Super Mario Bros. on the NES.

While the original legend of Zelda has 128KB of PRG! O_O
Not very efficient, I think.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Rixithechao »

Icelink256 wrote:
RenaBeach wrote:this is all beautiful i dont believe its for nes that ---- is hard
Difficult to tell the system? Good. I've done my job! ;)
Even better--

This game has 32KB PRG (Program Rom), and 8KB CHR (Character Rom), making it the same size as Super Mario Bros. on the NES.

While the original legend of Zelda has 128KB of PRG! O_O
Not very efficient, I think.
Ooh, it must be really tempting to expand that space!

Actually, that got me curious so I went and did some research. According to a quick search on the NES Cart DB it seems the majority of original NES games were made with 2 mbit cartridges, so if you end up using donor cartridges you're good for 256kb of PRG! :D
Delightful Adventure Enhanced is out now!

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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

Rockythechao wrote:Ooh, it must be really tempting to expand that space!
Eh... Not really. I've devised a compression routine for the map data, that allows me to store around
8-10 screens of map data per 1KB. This game will only have five dungeons, and a world about half the size of Zelda 1. (Though I am mapping an "underworld" cave network, as well!)

I'll do expansion mapper stuff later, probably for this game:
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Rockythechao wrote:It seems the majority of original NES games were made with 2 mbit cartridges, so if you end up using donor cartridges you're good for 256kb of PRG! :D
As for this, I've already been talking with people about potentially having this game put on carts once it's done. (Most likely a collab cart )They'll be brand new cartridges, if that's the case. No need for gutting old games.
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Re: NES Homebrew - Cat Quest

Post by Icelink256 »

I am not much of an artist, but I drew this, as a potential box-art thing, to celebrate getting my meta-tile data done. It was painful, but will make maps easier to produce.
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