darkhog wrote:
And if it is, are there any SDKs built around it, I mean complete toolkit with sfx/graphics/map editing. For music I'd obviously use Famitracker, but something for sounds is needed as well.
I've actually tried to get into NES dev for a long time, but it's really hard (not complaining, only stating the fact - it's the difficulty that makes me come for more every so often). I've tried assembler (I think it was the one bundled with NESICIDE), I've tried C, now I want to try NES HLA, but I don't know if it is complete enough to use - Provinciano obviously has other things to do thanks to the success of his non-nes games so I probably shouldn't expect any updates and would need to use it "as is" (unless there is a fork that is being updated, which I doubt).
It seems to me the greatest difficulty with NES development is simply that it is time consuming, which I suppose can be a significant obstacle depending on one's tolerance for how long things take. It's quite difficult to efficiently write software for it. I think only a few very talented engineers here at nesdev are able to move at anything resembling the pace of somebody writing a game for a modern platform. Hint: I am NOT one of them, LOL. If I'm lucky, an entire day goes by and I get something to move on the screen. Haha. It's not *quite* that bad, but many times...it's almost that bad. But it isn't bad because I enjoy every second of it, patiently plodding on to the next tiny detail.
It's not too bad to write a handful of one's own macros for doing repetitive operations. For example, if you are making a game which has a world that extends beyond the screen boundaries you will certainly be using a lot of 16 bit variables and operations. A set of macros for performing 16 bit operations can save you a lot of typing. Oddly I did not bother with such macros for my first couple of games; why I really don't know. I guess I just liked typing a lot. Haha! But now I'm finding them very useful.
I think to enjoy nes dev you either have to have an insane amount of talent, an insane amount of help, or an insane amount of patience. I would like to believe cultivating patience is within anyone's grasp but, I suspect I am kidding myself given the world I am surrounded by.
