2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

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infiniteneslives
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by infiniteneslives »

blargg wrote:Even if there's no cart RAM, small programs can be developed.
A good substitute would be designating one 4KB sector of flash rom for storage. Future app compos could be developed/tested on this years carts with the 4KB limit in mind. We could always wait until we had all multicart entries to determine if we could/desired to leave room for this. It's possible we may end up with a few sectors to spare.
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blargg
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by blargg »

infiniteneslives wrote:A good substitute would be designating one 4KB sector of flash rom for storage. Future app compos could be developed/tested on this years carts with the 4KB limit in mind. We could always wait until we had all multicart entries to determine if we could/desired to leave room for this. It's possible we may end up with a few sectors to spare.
I like it! Just a bootloader is a nice feature, and extra flash is all the more nicer. I've worked on a nice "romless" format, packaged as a normal NES ROM and usable on normal emulators/normal flash carts, that can be uploaded to something like this. I'll be providing a tool that takes this file format and generates a binary file to be sent to the NES over serial to upload and run the program. This way you develop it fairly normally, and let the tool handle getting it all into RAM/flash. In specific, the format lets you specify initial CHR RAM and nametable contents, allowing some reduction of the limited code space, though you wouldn't want to use this if you did have some flash available and wanted it to run without a PC to upload it.
zzo38 wrote:However, some functions might be useful to have in such a BIOS simply for the serial boot feature
I've generally tried to keep things not depending on the ROM of the cartridge with the bootloader, to avoid unncessary dependence on it, but it could be useful if the cart had no RAM, leaving you with just 2K of internal RAM. One thing that would be very useful is to have forwarding of NMI and IRQ to somewhere from $200-$7ff in RAM ($7fa-$7ff is preferred), so that "romless" programs can have interrupt handlers.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by Bregalad »

Well I don't know what to say. I'd like to enter the contest but I don't know what to do, considering the pile of abandoned projects and "maybe" projects.
Of course since multiple entries are allowed I could go for all of the options but the time is limited. So I'd like to know what people would like to see the most ^^

Also I don't care about winning, so anything that doesn't go to cathegory 1/2 would go to cathegory 3 instead, I'd be very happy to see one of my games completed and released on a multicart, and I'd rather see that than getting any amount of cash or hardware !!

Basically I have the following projects going on :

1) A small single player action RPG consisting of 6 levels (it's in fact more "action" than "RPG", don't worry tokumaru ;) ), on which development started on 2005. The game engine is complete and several levels are complete, but I never went on further. I already releasded screenshots and some infos but I never released anything else (such as a demo ROM nor a video) so pehaps it could still quality in category 1/2 ? Not that I care anyways.

2) A relatively simple puzzle game with relatively simple rules that promises to be very fun in 2 players mode. I started development on this one in 2011. I only developed a very small part of it and never released any single info about it (exept maybe clues) so this would definitely quality for 1/2. The game itself might not be as epic as the 1st one, but definitely it'd be fun.

3) Any of the other games I always wanted to do but never really started. More specifically I have a 2 players beat'em up game in mind where most characters are ready as well as some level ideas, but I haven't started any kind of design on this one. If I do this one it'll be a real entry in the contest, as I haven't started anything prior to now. However I was aiming at something that probably can't be done in 2 months so I'd only release like a single level demo of the game or something in the like.

Unfortunately I won't have any free time before January 31st, and by then I'll have plenty of it, but that still gives me only 2 months instead of 3 :( So just tell me which game you guys would rather make it to the multicart.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by infiniteneslives »

IMO They both sound like great candidates for the multicart assuming they're complete. Although it sounds like the RPG might not actually have an 'ending' right now? If you're able to ensure there was one and have it more complete I'd suggest focusing on that one. If the second one doesn't take as much effort to complete and you could fit it into category 2 then perhaps it's best to focus on that one first depending on how much time you have. Better to submit one complete entry vice two/no partials.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by Bregalad »

The problem is that I'm not sure what fits in category 1 and 2.

Even the puzzle game isn't going to fit in 8k (unless I seriously strip down the planning of the project, but what's the point), so it won't fit category 2. It would fit category 1 if I am allowed to submit something that I already started to do several years ago (2011), if I'm not then it'll fit category 3.

Same goes for the action-RPG : It would fit category 1 if I am allowed to submit something that I started in 2005 and already published informations and screenshots about. If I'm not then it's category 3.

So finally the rules are not clear about those points : How much of the project was allowed to be already done before january 1st 2014 for category 1. The action-RPG has a complete game engine, a complete level and several planned levels and enemies. The puzzle game has just the basics graphics and some early programming.

The later is currently much less complete, however it would be a smaller project overall.

I can't plan if I'll be able to finish any of those 2 by April 1st, but I can at least try and getting external pressure is a good way to see those progress.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by infiniteneslives »

Technically my understanding of the rules is that submitting anything that wasn't officially released prior to the compo is okay.
Entries cannot be submitted if they have already been released prior to the contest. The exception would be if there are significant changes making the original release something completely different.
I wouldn't qualify screenshots as officially released. We're trying to encourage submissions, but had to draw the line somewhere. Doesn't sound like you released any of those titles officially, so you're good. To play it safe I would encourage you to spruce up and add some detail/content to them. If you did that you'd certainly be okay to submit them into category 1.

Category 2 is kind of an experiment, sounds like they wouldn't fit there, so if you ensure the mapper is compatible with category 1 then it sounds like that's where they belong.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by Bregalad »

The problem is that I don't how fair is it to enter the competition with something that was started more than 8 years ago. Of course I didn't work continuously on it, but that's still a huge advantage against someone who just started his entry recently.

With the puzzle game it'd be more fair since I'm not very far in the development. But I still started it more than 2 years ago technically.

Well it's not me to decide. Either way I'll try to come up with one of these, and I'll let someone else decide if they enter category 1 or 3. Just tell me if you'd rather see the action RPG or puzzle game on the multicast, I'll handle the rest.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by NESHomebrew »

If the competition is what gives you the extra push to finish it, then I would say that the compo has successfully done it's job.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by pops »

Is there a mapper supported by Mapper 28 that has 16kb bank switching at 0x8000 and single-screen mirroring?
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by tepples »

pops wrote:Is there a mapper supported by Mapper 28 that has 16kb bank switching at 0x8000 and single-screen mirroring?
Yes. You can mix and match bank switching features, in this case AOROM-style 1-screen mirroring with UNROM-style fixed $C000 PRG banks. The setup code looks like this:

Code: Select all

A53_CHR_BANK = $00
A53_PRG_BANK = $01
A53_MODE = $80
A53_OUTER_BANK = $81

A53_PRG_32K = $00
A53_PRG_FIXED_80 = $08
A53_PRG_FIXED_C0 = $0C
A53_MIRR_1 = $00
A53_MIRR_V = $02
A53_MIRR_H = $03
A53_GAME_32K = $00
A53_GAME_64K = $10

  lda #A53_OUTER_BANK
  sta $5000
  lda #$01
  sta $8000
  lda #A53_MODE
  sta $5000
  lda #A53_GAME_64K|A53_PRG_FIXED_C0|A53_MIRR_1
  sta $8000
  lda #A53_PRG_BANK
  sta $5000
Fixed banks in the A53 mapper actually work by temporarily forcing the bank mode to 32K NROM. So it's possible to set up a 64K UNROM-style banking mode (fixed $C000, switchable $8000) with either 1 or 3 being the outer bank. Normally for compatibility with UNROM link scripts, you want it to be 3, so you have to write a value with bit 0 turned on to the outer bank. Normally the menu will do this for you, but when you use mapper 28 directly to mix and match bank modes, you have to do this yourself.

After the code above executes, to switch PRG and nametable banks, write to $8000 with the nametable page in bit 4 and the PRG bank in bits 1-0. (Or perhaps 3-0 if your entry is oversize and in the freestyle category.)
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by pops »

tepples wrote:
pops wrote:Is there a mapper supported by Mapper 28 that has 16kb bank switching at 0x8000 and single-screen mirroring?
Yes. You can mix and match bank switching features, in this case AOROM-style 1-screen mirroring with UNROM-style fixed $C000 PRG banks.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write out the settings. I'm looking forward to moving my MMC3 code to Mapper 28. One more question: do most emulators support mapper 28, or are there specific emulators that I should be testing with?
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by infiniteneslives »

If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by tepples »

All you absolutely need are the hardware and one debugging emulator, and I have PowerPak and FCEUX 2.2.0 for Windows.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by pops »

I was able to get the bank switching routine working. Thanks Tepples.
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Re: 2014 NESDev Compo - Guidelines/Rules

Post by pops »

I thought I'd ask - Is there any way we could get 8 bytes of save data? This would be very useful for high scores - or, for an rpg or metroid style game, for remembering items gathered or state flags set.

Possibly just 8 bytes? I wouldn't say no to 16 though!
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