NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Discuss technical or other issues relating to programming the Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, or compatible systems. See the NESdev wiki for more information.

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Bananmos
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by Bananmos »

Bananmos: is that already working?
Yes, it is working for these 3 ROMs:
1) The Troll Burner ROM (uses vertical mirroring, although there's no actual scrolling in the game)
2) The 4-screen test ROM rainwarrior linked to (the 4th screen does display corrupt CHR, but I *think* that's how it's supposed to look. Would be great if someone with a real infinitelives 4-screen mapper30 cartridge could confirm this)
3) The Mapper30-singlescreen test ROM glutock posted (but you need to set the vertical mirroring bit, otherwise it'll assume it's 4-screen mirroring

But I can't guarantee there won't be some bugs left. More test ROMs would be useful if anyone is keen on writing some. (I'm not ATM, should really be packing for my vacation... :) )
How do I compile the v code?
You don't need to compile the code yourself to run it, as there is an .rbf bitfile included. If you've got an Everdrive N8 with a micro-usb port you can load it with the usb-tool Krikzz provides.

If you don't have the usb port, to put the .rbf on the SDcard and make the OS load it, you apparently need to follow these steps (which I haven't tried myself).

But if you do want to mess around with the verilog yourself, here's how:
* Get an Altera Quartus release that supports the Cyclone II. I got this really old version.
(to download it you need to create an account, and I had great trouble getting through their buggy form. Chrome incognito mode solved it for me)
Get the fpga-mapper-sample.zip file from Krikzz's webpage
* Then just paste the .v files from my .zip into the project and synthesize, and you should be good to go.
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nesrocks
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by nesrocks »

edit: nevermind, I did it all again and now it worked, not sure why. Nice work! Any reason you're not certain other mapper 30 game will work? When this gets fully confirmed it's a big plus for the NESmaker project.

//
Okay, I have everdrive n8 by krikzz, using on real NES frontloader (not clone).
Using this ROM: http://troll.thenew8bitheroes.com/ (it works in fceux, is mapper 30)
Just rename the file to 030.RBF (to stay in standards in the folder), the game loads!
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Bananmos
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by Bananmos »

Nice work! Any reason you're not certain other mapper 30 game will work?
Nah, mostly just the regular caution about claiming something 'works' without reservations, when you've only done limited testing on it. :)

But two things that stand out are:
1) I haven't put in any logic for bus conflicts. But I don't think the Everdrive supports bus conflicts anyway when glancing through the code - the logic for prg_oe is outside the mapper-specific verilog code, and seems to always output high when the prg r/w is low. So bus conflicts will never be there, which should be fine if the NES code was written defensively - always assume you might have them, but don't rely on them being present. But I can't guarantee no mapper30 code has been naughtily written to relly on them...
2) No support for flash ROM writes yet, as mentioned previously. And not much point in fixing that unless the OS supports it too.
Erockbrox
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by Erockbrox »

How hard would it be to port a game made with NESmaker to the Super Nintendo SNES?

Also I'm curious, is the reason why it's called NESmaker is because NES Maker wouldn't work due to some sort of trademark on the word NES from Nintendo?

Also if I make a game with NESmaker and put it on a cartridge, can I put the words "For play on Nintendo" on the label? I've always wondered about this because can't I make an NES game and say on the label "Not for play on Playstation or Xbox" and then put the Playstation logo and Xbox logo on my game cartridge just for eye candy?
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Also if I make a game with NESmaker and put it on a cartridge, can I put the words "For play on Nintendo" on the label? I've always wondered about this because can't I make an NES game and say on the label "Not for play on Playstation or Xbox" and then put the Playstation logo and Xbox logo on my game cartridge just for eye candy?
You mean like so? :wink:

(seriously though, you want to avoid using or mentioning registered trademarks. I guess "for play on the NES" is ok).
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lidnariq
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by lidnariq »

As far as I can tell, the only exceptions permitting trademark use is when the trademark is either abandoned or genericized. Otherwise you basically just mayn't use one.

Kinda makes sense, when you consider what they're supposed to denote.
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by tepples »

U.S. courts recognize nominative fair use of a trademark when describing your product as compatible with someone else's product, provided you do nothing to falsely imply that a business relationship exists. This defense means a trademark owner cannot assert the mark as an ersatz patent to prohibit sale of complementary goods, along the same lines as the functionality doctrine.

International Trademark Association's fact sheet on fair use of trademarks implies that the same is true of the European Union:
Use of the GILLETTE trademark by a third party, to indicate that its blades are compatible with Gillette’s handles, will not infringe Gillette’s rights, irrespective of the blades’ being an essential part of the whole product (razors) and not a mere spare part or accessory, provided the use is necessary to indicate the intended purpose of the product and is made in accordance with honest practices in industrial and commercial matters. (EU)
As usual, run your business model past your lawyer. Once the consultation proceeds to trademarks and labeling, ask your lawyer if something like this on the box and label would be sufficient:
For use with Nintendo Entertainment
System. Not endorsed by Nintendo.
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rainwarrior
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by rainwarrior »

NES does happen to be an active trademark.
Search here for serial number 85808681.

I don't know how much fair use you could claim when it's part of the title of your product, and unambiguously refers to the object of their own trademark. Like, there are several companies using the wordmark NES but only Nintendo is using it for a video game system.

Personally I decided to just to roll the dice by using NES in a website URL and a twitter account. If push came to shove I could move, though.

Also we're having this discussion at NesDev.com so...
slobu
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by slobu »

gauauu wrote:
FrankenGraphics wrote:
I don't know what happened in the 2600 homebrew scene, but ostracizing someones' creative output just because it was made with a process-cutting tool doesn't sound very friendly - or productive.
In 2600 land, Batari Basic made it really easy for people to make games. Like NES Maker, a talented and dedicated developer can make something awesome with it, or somebody can just release some quick and dirty garbage. It's a little bit different from NES Maker (Because it still requires programming), but it does handle all the hard work for you, so that making an Atari game becomes a breeze.

But the 2600 homebrew scene is still thriving, despite the existence of some quick and dirty garbage games. The biggest differences, as far as I can tell, are:

1. With more games, very few people buy EVERYTHING that gets released (which means that sales of any given game would be a bit less)
2. Games get noticed based on quality of the game instead of just by existing.

If you make a good game (either in plain assembly or using Batari Basic), people will notice it, play it, and buy it. If you make trash (in either assembly or basic), people might not.

The other interesting thing with the 2600 scene is that there's really a single publisher, AtariAge, that's well respected. Al (the guy that runs it) does a pretty good job of curating things so that it's not filled with garbage. That's nice for developers and buyers. As a developer, if AA picks up your game, it's good advertising for you. As a buyer, you know if you buy from AA, you won't get total trash.

Another big difference in the Atari homebrew world is that more developers give away their roms for free (even if they also sell a cart). I don't know how that impacts things sales-wise. (my suspicion is that it doesn't decrease sales as much as you might think, but I have no idea)
AtariAge is the top of the food chain when it comes to cart production. The other major competitor has a name never spoken by AtariAge members :) I've used some skilled individuals to make my carts when I didn't feel like bothering Albert.

Everybody cares about physical, limited releases. Digital sales don't work and seem to deter further cart buyers.

It's a strange situation where some people will only buy new games if they are exact copies of old games. And, yet.. somehow my quirky new titles also get some sales. So, there are signs that a single developer can succeed even if not copping off of old IP. I hope the same is true on the NES side.

I just ponied up for the $100 kickstarter option. So, yeah. I hope we come up with a section for NES Maker newbie questions. :)
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MistSonata
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by MistSonata »

If you don't have the usb port, to put the .rbf on the SDcard and make the OS load it, you apparently need to follow these steps (which I haven't tried myself).
So, I didn't have the foresight to buy my Everdrive with the USB port, and I can't seem to get the method that was linked to here to work.

Here's some screenshots. I edited MAPROUT.BIN with a hex editor, renamed the .rbf file to 030.RBF and put it in the MAPS folder, but troll burner still won't run. I reformatted the SD card, made sure I had the newest OS version, checked the rom info in the menu to make sure it says it's supported, still nothing. It says "loading..." and then goes black. No sound, nothing.

Can anyone see if there's something I've neglected to do here?
Bananmos
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by Bananmos »

Hmm, I only tried it with USB port and I'm on vacation in Bali at the moment so can't try out the process I linked to.

But looks like nesrocks did it successfully. Maybe you could try PM:ing him and see if he can give you the output file he got working? (or even better, share it here)
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nesrocks
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by nesrocks »

I didn't edit MAPROUT.BIN, I just redownloaded the zip and renamed edfc-fpga.rbf to 030.RBF and put it in the mappers folder. Granted, the first time I tried this it didn't work for some reason. I redownloaded everything (both the troll burner demo and the zip file) and tried again and it worked. I can't share my files for maybe a month because my everdrive is now at the other house. : /
Last edited by nesrocks on Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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MistSonata
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by MistSonata »

Okay, I think I figured out the problem ( or at least where the problem is ). Nesrocks got it working on their front loader, and I was using my AVS, so I thought I'd pull out my old toaster NES and try it there and... it worked. Animating background tiles and all.

So I guess the question is, why doesn't it work on my AVS? I'm going to test it again on my toploader once I get it set up, just to be sure.
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infiniteneslives
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by infiniteneslives »

MistSonata wrote:So I guess the question is, why doesn't it work on my AVS?
Could be any number of factors including timing, loading, drive strenght, or just plain bugs in the implementation esp when it comes to running aftermarket hardware/cartridges/mappers. You have to realize *ANY* clone console is still going to have possibility for compatibility issues. Good news is the FPGA in the AVS can be updated with patches to correct problems that create these incompatibilities. Recently there were reported issues with mapper30 on the AVS with black box challenge carts. I discussed this with bunnyboy and he put out a firmware update that corrected the issue. You might want to try v1.30b2 that's on the AVS page now.
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MistSonata
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Re: NESMaker Kickstarter - Make NES games without coding

Post by MistSonata »

infiniteneslives wrote:Could be any number of factors including timing, loading, drive strenght, or just plain bugs in the implementation esp when it comes to running aftermarket hardware/cartridges/mappers. You have to realize *ANY* clone console is still going to have possibility for compatibility issues. Good news is the FPGA in the AVS can be updated with patches to correct problems that create these incompatibilities. Recently there were reported issues with mapper30 on the AVS with black box challenge carts. I discussed this with bunnyboy and he put out a firmware update that corrected the issue. You might want to try v1.30b2 that's on the AVS page now.
Sadly, updating the firmware didn't do anything that I can tell.
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