State of the snes homebrew scene

[Jaton222]

Or my ignorance of some aspects of it, as I'm not really experienced doing general SNES programming. Really, the source is nothing special and not really clear either. It's mainly an exercise in managing the HDMA lists, so it's almost like doing OpenGL graphics.

Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see the source if nothing else.

[d4s]

As for the SNES homebrew scene, I'd say it's mostly dead.
Not completely dead, though - and here's why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2wFwIrces

This is a simple beat em up for eight human players I've been developing in august. Hope I can release it soon, it's mostly ready.

[Snark]

As for the SNES homebrew scene, I'd say it's mostly dead.
Not completely dead, though - and here's why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2wFwIrces

This is a simple beat em up for eight human players I've been developing in august. Hope I can release it soon, it's mostly ready.

Wow, never seen an Snes homebrew on this level...It reminds me a little bit of "Drill Milky Punch" (doujin Jp game for windows), without the thousand on screen sprites of course.

[grinvader]

I rock

You do.

[PHoNyMiKe]

again, you can dev for the snes, even if for the sheer "oh I love the snes and want it to have my children" factor, but you mine as well be halfway cool and dev for a system that isn't over a decade old like the GBA or DS, because again, they do the same shit. you can program them in C or C++, and are far more well documented, plus there's actually other people doing it like gbadev.org. you can actually see your code running on hardware easier, and even show other people (if you have friends that is). Snes hacking is one thing. if showing a group of drunk people your face on snes nba jam running on your chromed out wii isn't cool, then making your own weak ass snes demo after weeks of programming definately isn't. you mine as well make a win32 demo because the only thing you'll accomplish is gonna run pathetically on a win32 system anyways.

and actually, as I said "16 bit graphics" isn't even it, because the graphics style (8x8 sprites and limited colors and such) is actually 15 bits, five bits each for red, green, and blue. though capable of 32,000 colors as a bitmapped image, it's rarely used as the limitation of the storage media.

let the snes die, and play the games on a PSP like it's meant to be.

[I.S.T.]

What's wrong with wanting to develop for the console you grew up playing?

[Gil_Hamilton]

again, you can dev for the snes, even if for the sheer "oh I love the snes and want it to have my children" factor, but you mine as well be halfway cool and dev for a system that isn't over a decade old like the GBA or DS, because again, they do the same shit. you can program them in C or C++, and are far more well documented, plus there's actually other people doing it like gbadev.org. you can actually see your code running on hardware easier, and even show other people (if you have friends that is).

Which is all silly, since you can dev on a PC even easier.

And then on the other end there's the Atari homebrewers, where the entire point is working around the extreme system constraints.

SNES is in-between. It's not low-end enough to be really really interesting to code for, and not high-end enough to be really easy to code for. Nor is it portable, which is the only real reason for GBA homebrew other than "LOL IT'Z ON A GBA."

let the snes die, and play the games on a PSP like it's meant to be.

I think I just threw up a little.

[d4s]

huge-ass rant

I think I can see what you're trying to say, even though it sounds slightly confusing.

To put it simply, here's the reason why I'm doing this: It is fun.
I don't care about being cool, making development easier, developing on a recent console or anything like that. Hell, I don't even play videogames on recent consoles anymore.
The SNES is my favorite console and coding stuff for it is my way to relive good memories.

If other people out there can appreciate it, that's a plus.

[blackmyst]

again, you can dev for the snes, even if for the sheer "oh I love the snes and want it to have my children" factor, but you mine as well be halfway cool and dev for a system that isn't over a decade old like the GBA or DS, because again, they do the same shit. you can program them in C or C++, and are far more well documented, plus there's actually other people doing it like gbadev.org. you can actually see your code running on hardware easier, and even show other people (if you have friends that is). Snes hacking is one thing. if showing a group of drunk people your face on snes nba jam running on your chromed out wii isn't cool, then making your own weak ass snes demo after weeks of programming definately isn't. you mine as well make a win32 demo because the only thing you'll accomplish is gonna run pathetically on a win32 system anyways.

and actually, as I said "16 bit graphics" isn't even it, because the graphics style (8x8 sprites and limited colors and such) is actually 15 bits, five bits each for red, green, and blue. though capable of 32,000 colors as a bitmapped image, it's rarely used as the limitation of the storage media.

let the snes die, and play the games on a PSP like it's meant to be.

lol 8/10

[ZH/Franky]

As for the SNES homebrew scene, I'd say it's mostly dead.
Not completely dead, though - and here's why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2wFwIrces

This is a simple beat em up for eight human players I've been developing in august. Hope I can release it soon, it's mostly ready.

Wow, this is awesome, especially for a homebrew game. When will yuo be releasing it?

Also, does it use any coprocessors like the superfx? That game looks way too complex for a snes game (the graphics and sound, etc, I mean).

[whicker]

again, you can dev for the snes, even if for the sheer "oh I love the snes and want it to have my children" factor, but you mine as well be halfway cool and dev for a system that isn't over a decade old like the GBA or DS, because again, they do the same shit. you can program them in C or C++, and are far more well documented, plus there's actually other people doing it like gbadev.org. you can actually see your code running on hardware easier, and even show other people (if you have friends that is). Snes hacking is one thing. if showing a group of drunk people your face on snes nba jam running on your chromed out wii isn't cool, then making your own weak ass snes demo after weeks of programming definately isn't. you mine as well make a win32 demo because the only thing you'll accomplish is gonna run pathetically on a win32 system anyways.

and actually, as I said "16 bit graphics" isn't even it, because the graphics style (8x8 sprites and limited colors and such) is actually 15 bits, five bits each for red, green, and blue. though capable of 32,000 colors as a bitmapped image, it's rarely used as the limitation of the storage media.

let the snes die, and play the games on a PSP like it's meant to be.

lol 8/10

I admire d4s's work. I especially like it when people delve deep into the code and report back how things worked. For the longest time, I could not understand how the AI waypoint table for Super Mario Kart worked. Also, I can remember someone making a flash-based Star Fox unit viewer.

That being said, if a relatively new programmer is starting out, they'd be better off programming for the PSP. Incidentally, the Phoenix Game Engine, scripted with LUA, finally came out. Still a bit crashy, but like phonymike may or may not have sarcastically said, the benefits of being able to use standard memory cards, USB file transfer, and an easy to modify scripting language makes it possible to get successfully started. Otherwise, yes, there is a full-featured C++ compiler with libraries. A device capable of wireless Ethernet is exciting!

What I'm saying is, it's very difficult for a lot of people to even understand the concept of an interrupt jump table, to even get their program to start running. The video display is easy enough to get started, but then it's tile based! Throw in a temperamental accumulator based cpu that executes instructions differently based on its current mode (8-bit or 16-bit registers). Throw in the fact that you wait for the video blanking interval to even draw something. Round it off with a sound cpu that needs a program as well to produce even a simple beep. Not that a teenage kid couldn't understand this stuff, but 3/4 of it doesn't even apply now with current systems (more to do with actually having a BIOS and OS).

Hell, it's a big world out there. and I assert that very few programmers are "wasting their time" with the system they feel comfortable with.

[creaothceann]

Also, does it use any coprocessors like the superfx? That game looks way too complex for a snes game (the graphics and sound, etc, I mean).

The graphics are pre-rendered. How is that "complex"?

The sound engine is nice though.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Also, does it use any coprocessors like the superfx? That game looks way too complex for a snes game (the graphics and sound, etc, I mean).

The graphics are pre-rendered. How is that "complex"?

The sound engine is nice though.

Franky believes Donkey Kong Country was an incredible feat of coding.

[byuu]

The biggest allure for SNES development is the fact that it's emulated relatively well almost everywhere. It's relatively easy to avoid the few major pitfalls, and end up with a game that works perfectly well both on real hardware and in most or all emulators.

The inherent portability is a nice plus, too. You write a SNES game, and it can run on the real SNES, or on any system with a decent SNES emulator -- Windows, Linux, Mac, PSP, Dreamcast, Xbox, PS3, ... maybe even NDS. You just can't get that kind of portability and consistency with a more modern system. Hell, are there even any decent PSP emulators for a PC, let alone something like the iPhone?

The biggest detractor in my opinion is the ridiculously complex sound system. Tile-based graphics really aren't that hard, and assembler-based programming isn't too much worse than C. It's just as easy to write, but a lot harder to go back and read the code three months later.

[I.S.T.]

Pretty much no PSP emulators exist. I believe the only ones that are out there can only run some tech demos...

[d4s]

Also, does it use any coprocessors like the superfx? That game looks way too complex for a snes game (the graphics and sound, etc, I mean).

The graphics are pre-rendered. How is that "complex"?

The sound engine is nice though.

Don't you know, I'm using this revolutionary new technology called ACM!!
How can that possibly not be considered complex???

On a more serious note, the graphics are of course all just pre-rendered.
Still, it took a bit of trickery to make the most of the limited blanking time and transfer as much data to vram as possible per frame.

As for portability, that's a cool thing to have for sure, but I don't think it`s relevant for this tiny game here.
First of all, I don't know of any emulator besides BSNES that has support for eight players on one SNES.
Second, the audio streaming was written to run on real hardware with as little cpu overhead as possible, and it does run perfectly fine on PAL 2/1/3, NTSC 1/1/1 and NTSC 2/1/3 systems without the need for individual tweaking, but of course needs dead-accurate timing to work on emulators.
BSNES does the job fine, but all other emulators tested fail here.

[Johan_H]

Don't you know, I'm using this revolutionary new technology called ACM!!

Haha, I remember reading about that in Nintendo magasines all those years ago! :D
So what was it really? A fancy name for a method of creating pre-rendered graphics is the idea I got.

EDIT: The Internet tells me it stands for Advanced Computer Modeling. I don't think I've heard that abbreviation since back then.

[ZH/Franky]

Speaking of 8-player mode on the snes, what about 16 players:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmtiLpop ... re=related
(with 4 multi-taps that is)

the guy who did this snes mod is awesome.

[odditude]

Speaking of 8-player mode on the snes, what about 16 players:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmtiLpop ... re=related
(with 4 multi-taps that is)

the guy who did this snes mod is awesome.

you can't daisy-chain multitaps.

[ZH/Franky]

Speaking of 8-player mode on the snes, what about 16 players:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmtiLpop ... re=related
(with 4 multi-taps that is)

the guy who did this snes mod is awesome.

you can't daisy-chain multitaps.

Well, jsut thought I'd ask anyway.
(I wouldn't have known the answer to my question because I've never actually used a multitap).

[Deathlike2]

Speaking of 8-player mode on the snes, what about 16 players:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmtiLpop ... re=related
(with 4 multi-taps that is)

the guy who did this snes mod is awesome.

you can't daisy-chain multitaps.

Well, jsut thought I'd ask anyway.
(I wouldn't have known the answer to my question because I've never actually used a multitap).

Clearly you have been deprived of classics such as NBA Jam or Secret of Mana with multitap.

[d4s]

AFAIK, the maximum number of joypads you can connect to the SNES with officially licensed peripherals is eight, with one Multitap in each port. (Although Nintendo didn`t allow for that in retail games according to the developers manual)
Then there`s the Tribal Tap, which has 5 ports and you could theoretically create a 10-player game with that.
However, the way to access the 5th port is not understood yet and it may very well be possible that you can`t access it at all.

Apart from that, 8 is a convenient number because this way, every player can have his or her own 16-color sprite palette.
With 10 or more players, you`d have to start sharing palettes.

[grinvader]

Franky believes Donkey Kong Country was an incredible feat of coding.

It was an incredible feat... of using H/DMA properly. :p

However, the way to access the 5th port is not understood yet and it may very well be possible that you can`t access it at all.

From the few mental prods neviksti had at it, it's just spitting all the pads' status sequentially...

Oh and you guys who got into it: it was phonymike. You might want to not waste your time. ^^

[ZH/Franky]

Franky believes Donkey Kong Country was an incredible feat of coding.

Dear god no. It was just like any other 2D game; they just used sprites, effects, backgrounds, etc in a way to give the illusion that it is 3D (or be it, "2.5D"; that's what people call 3D side-scrollers). I must say though; graphically (and sound-wise), it is the most beautiful 2D game I've seen on the SNES (apart from Yoshi's Island).

On the SNES, the most incredible feat of coding I can think of is Starfox and Doom.

[Deathlike2]

On the SNES, the most incredible feat of coding I can think of is Starfox and Doom.

For Doom, it's a shitty port. You could do better on a PC than what you saw on the console, seriously.