After sleeping on it. I can only get 2 sub-frames using palette swaps.
tepples wrote:
True, but pixels on the NES are also half the size in each direction of pixels on the PICO-8
Nah, wasn't going for a 1:1 remake. I was looking for an interesting, but doable project. No need to add extra constraints.

slembcke wrote:
The video memory isn't directly mapped into the CPU's memory space.
Right. I just meant that copying data into VRAM isn't rocket science. Just pushing bytes one at a time across a bus.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
Another problem with porting the game not related to the rotation of the boat and sail is the seamless, smooth all-directional scrolling.
Yeah. I was kinda thinking about that. I don't really mind border glitches myself. After reading up on how the attribute table worked, I immediately thought of the color glitches on the left edge in Kirby's Adventure. Maybe it's dumb nostalgia, but I kind of like them more now. :p

Also considering turning it into single direction scrolling with a very long map instead. I don't want to make *exactly* the same game.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
CNROM is ~7-9 usd cheaper than MMC3 if you want to make cartridges.
Interesting to know. Not sure I'd ever want to make cartridges, but there is a store a few blocks from my house that sells homebrew games.

FrankenGraphics wrote:
Though, you'd still need a solution for the HUD
Yeah... Dunno. Might just skip it. Alternatively, put it in a fixed world location like a physical scoreboard near the finish line.
Is the sprite 0 trick hard? You get an interrupt where you change the scroll position, and do some buffering trickery to keep the HUD away from the onscreen tiles?
Bregalad wrote:
and the rest is obtained by flipping existing frames
Bwa! I totally missed that there is a sprite flip flag on my first skim through the wiki. This might be a game changer really. Along with palette swapped sub-frames, I should be able to pack
a lot of sprites into a single sprite page. I kind of like the idea of sticking with the basic ROM type without bank switching as a limitation.
This is *way* more help than I was expecting to get. I kinda feel bad that I can't take everybody's advice all at once. Haha.