Questions from someone thinking about developing a NES Game
Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 7:51 am
I'd like to get some of your "expert" opinions before I decide if developing a NES Game is actually worth it. First a little bit about me. I'm 24 and quite a talented gamer. Beaten god knows how many titles and used to compete on the internet back in my "gaming prime". I'm also the most intelligent person I know, although I have encountered a few people (especially in college) who were on a level of their own. I have a bachelor's in both computer science and mathematics, and had previous Computer Graphics experience by developing simple "games" in OpenGL / C++. (OpenGL is PS3 code for those of you who do not know).
So here I am debating whether or not I should actually try to learn 6502 assembly and put something together. I'm an extremely quick learner with the ability to teach myself anything. My only flaw is that I'm sort of a "perfectionist", so I would never put out a buggy game, or release a beta version of a game just to appease the masses.
A few serious questions now:
1. Would it be easier to try and just modify an existing game first? For example, making my own Mario levels, etc.
2. Which genre is the most complex to program, and which is the easiest? I'm assuming platformers would be kind of tricky with collision detection and boss programming. I'm assuming RPGs would just require a lot of in-depth development to make a worth while story and quest. Then puzzle games leap out at me as "easy", such as Tetris or Pac-Man. Very simple rules and loops should make those work.
3. How hard is the music / graphics aspect? I have no doubt in my abilities to code, but if the graphics are just as hard then I might not want to get into this.
Thanks for any tips you guys can provide. Right now I'm leaning towards not doing this (don't want to "waste" years of my life), but I always wanted to be a game designer. Perhaps just modding an existing game would be best for me.
So here I am debating whether or not I should actually try to learn 6502 assembly and put something together. I'm an extremely quick learner with the ability to teach myself anything. My only flaw is that I'm sort of a "perfectionist", so I would never put out a buggy game, or release a beta version of a game just to appease the masses.
A few serious questions now:
1. Would it be easier to try and just modify an existing game first? For example, making my own Mario levels, etc.
2. Which genre is the most complex to program, and which is the easiest? I'm assuming platformers would be kind of tricky with collision detection and boss programming. I'm assuming RPGs would just require a lot of in-depth development to make a worth while story and quest. Then puzzle games leap out at me as "easy", such as Tetris or Pac-Man. Very simple rules and loops should make those work.
3. How hard is the music / graphics aspect? I have no doubt in my abilities to code, but if the graphics are just as hard then I might not want to get into this.
Thanks for any tips you guys can provide. Right now I'm leaning towards not doing this (don't want to "waste" years of my life), but I always wanted to be a game designer. Perhaps just modding an existing game would be best for me.