nesdev.com

I think the menu screen itself just needs a little sprucing up, but is generally fine. A little animation with some sprites and maybe some sounds and I think it doesn't need much change at all.

I hadn't considered the white border that'd display outside of the nametable area. That would be especially noticeable for anyone playing on a console hooked up to an HDTV (a lesson I should have learned while working on Cowlitz, as we have a similar screen that suffers from it).

Honestly, the original black and white title screen would probably be better for that reason, and to provide interest through contrast with the box art, a result of Mike's earlier observation that title screens rarely coincide with packaging.

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www.mteegfx.com

The horizontal blank isn't quite so blank on the NTSC NES. (I hear it's black on PAL though?)

If you favour the aesthetic of always-black hblank, you could still use black as colour 0 if you dropped just one colour from the action53 text/outlines, though. You could even make that text black instead of that dark teal to do it?

I should definitely add hblank to my vocabulary. Up until last year, I only had a CRT, on which it wasn't visible, so I wasn't even aware of it.

Anyway, removing a color from the logo border allowed me to do this:



It would use the palette:

And here's the image @240px high and w/o credits (not sure if the importing method requires full height or not) :


Thoughts?

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www.mteegfx.com

I find this version harder on the eye than the original. The transition from pitch black to pure white gives too much contrast to the composition, in my illiterate opinion.

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http://www.mojontwins.com

I'm agreeing with na_th_an. I don't know if it will look good or not, but since you have gray in there, you could add a thin drop shadow with one line black, one line gray, or just one or two lines of gray (or some other configuration) just under the 'card' to suggest a material dimension to help guide the eye.

If the gray is too warm for a drop shadow, you could perhaps use the jade one.

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http://www.frankengraphics.com - personal NES blog

And what about a version of the original design adapted to the new palette, so the background colour is black?

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http://www.mojontwins.com

The border being white isn't that big a deal. Concentration Room had the same problem, and nobody complained.

It's been a while since the last build; here are the changes that I can remember:

• Assembly-time option to disable title messages (version and copyright notice)
• New title screen
• Updated Waddles and Karate Kick
• Fixes for egg-on-face bugs introduced previously

@na_th_an
Yeah, I tried some with black instead of white and didn't find it appealing. I'm fine with the title screen in the current build as long as it's agreed upon that the abrupt ending of the diagonal pattern at the edge of the hblank isn't a problem.

@tepples
I think Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Sbock isn't using the current build. There's a palette change in version 9b, the latest posted in the game's dev thread, that isn't reflected in it.

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www.mteegfx.com

I didn't make myself clear. With "background colour" I meant the HW background colour, i.e. palette index "0", so picture borders (certainly apparent in PAL consoles) are black. Didn't mean the picture background, which I look as it is.

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http://www.mojontwins.com

I think it looks fine as is. (As does all your other artwork for this project, great job!)

I like the white background more than the black one, even with the borders.

One quick way to lessen the "problem" could be something like this:

(Although this one in turn might look bad with black borders...)

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Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi

What's the easiest way to determine whether it's actually using Rock9b?

It's a palette change, noticeable on the anti-aliasing of the countdown digits.
Build 13b is correct (screenshot #76). Screenshot #75 came from build 13.
I just happened to notice it while grabbing screenshots for the box.

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www.mteegfx.com

I didn't document what I changed from 9 to 9b, but it appears to be just the color on the 3,2,1 sprites.

Rock9 game palette...
2010000F2019110F203323022027180F
001000020019110F0027180F0019160F

Rock9b game palette...
2010000F2019110F203323022027180F
003323020019110F0027180F0019160F

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

When does this actually come out?