nesdev.com

I won't worry until I see a bug.
Like pacman (dots), there should be exactly as many notes on screen as you need to collect.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

Here's some more concept drawings. Maybe Title Screen.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

The latter looks more suited as manual art. Look good.

I've been trying to make the game appeal more to girls. I added the ability to customize the color of the guitar girl. Also changed the mapper to CNROM, because I'm using up all the tiles just for the title and option screen.



By the way, one of the Ms in Jammin is sprites, because of kerning problems, and not enough BG tiles left. Actually, there are lots of sprites in both pictures.



The game engine is 99% done, but with temp graphics and only test rooms. And no enemy AI yet.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

Don't forget to leave room on the title screen for "PRESS START BUTTON" and a copyright notice (if you aren't displaying one on the previous screen).

Is that a rule?

There will be a 3rd (unseen) screen with copyright and such. Between the Title and Options screens.

I suppose I could 'Press Start', with sprites.

Maybe a sprite zero hit near the bottom to switch tilesets, could put the copyright. I wouldn't prefer it.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

It is nowadays for games published on modern consoles. TRC, Lot Check, or whatever the console maker calls it usually specifies a wording for the prompt on the title screen. The "Luigi Bros." hack adds it, for instance. See also a reddit thread about "Press Start".

Several real NES games (TMNT, Die Hard, Megaman 2, etc) do a quick copyright screen before the title screen. I think I will do that.

Press Start, I thing blinking with sprites will work, probably in that blank area to the upper right.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

That girl in the title screen looks really nice!
Hope you can share a demo or video soon.

I estimate it will take me 20 minutes per level, to draw the level, compress the data, compile, test the room.

Times 24 levels planned = 8 hours of work to do.

No shortcuts in life.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

That's... insanely fast!

You're right, it's turning out to be more like 30-35 minutes per level.

12+ hours to go.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

By the end of any given project, I get really sick of doing level design.

Keep up the good work.

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My games: http://www.bitethechili.com

Hmm, it looks like my levels require about 225-250 bytes a piece. Times 25 = 6000* bytes for level data. 0x1770. I didn't realize it, but, once I put the music in, and the DMC sample(s), I'm not going to have that much space for levels. (possibly).

I may have to shove the level data in one of my CHR-ROM banks. (CNROM).

OK, so that's ...set the PPU address, do 1 dummy read, then normal reads.

If I THEN set another PPU address, do I need to do another dummy read?

*it's actually 6243 bytes of level data. 0x1863.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

The act of reading from $2007 always
* returns the current latch
* schedules reading another byte into the latch

So the simple way of handling things always ends up loading an irrelevant byte after each contiguous block fetched, but kleverness in scheduling could avoid these redundant reads.