NES/SNES Remake Contest 2010

[Wampus]

How is everyone doing? What are you planning and how is it going?

I haven't had a chance to work on mine for a few days but last I stopped I was 1/6 through completing the graphics and I've got map scrolling with sprite-to-tile collision detection working for the first section.

[phaelax]

I'll try to jump in on this contest. My biggest challenge will be just learning the language.  I'll either do something simple like Super Mario or try zelda. But since I have to make the graphics myself, probably just mario as there's fewer to draw.

[Ian Price]

I'm still debating on the game to remake!

[matchy]

I've started development.

[Wampus]

:'(
me    deadline

I'll try to jump in on this contest. My biggest challenge will be just learning the language.  I'll either do something simple like Super Mario or try zelda. But since I have to make the graphics myself, probably just mario as there's fewer to draw.

The original Mario Bros might be worth a try. Super Mario or Zelda might be a bit steep if you're completely new to GLBasic

[Hatonastick]

My imaginary remake is doing wonderfully well.  I get a lot of it done in my head as I sit down to play my latest MMO. 

[Ian Price]

The more NES games I see, the more I want to do! It's not even that I'm scouring emulators for game ideas - I read a mag and find them, I read forums and find them etc. etc. !

Getting my iPod working with GLBasic has eaten up a lot of my free time, but that seems to be sorted now, so hopefully I can get something in a playable form. Not sure I'll have time to create all new media for it (whatever it is) but the timescale may be a tad too tight.

[Hatonastick]

Oooh.  Does this mean we can expect an iDevice game from you in the not too distant future?

[Ian Price]

Oooh.  Does this mean we can expect an iDevice game from you in the not too distant future?

Yes indeedy. And more than one too. And some other apps.

[phaelax]

The original Mario Bros might be worth a try. Super Mario or Zelda might be a bit steep if you're completely new to GLBasic

New to GLBasic but not to programming. I might do some prototyping with another language first, just to get an idea of a basic framework.

[Wampus]

New to GLBasic but not to programming. I might do some prototyping with another language first, just to get an idea of a basic framework.

Ah, in that case good luck and have lots of fun!

[phaelax]

So how's everyone's progress so far?

I decided to go with zelda on nes.  I don't have any enemies walking around yet, but I can at least run around the overworld and walk into the caves/stores.  Hopefully, there's nothing against using a previously made tilemap editor for building the huge overworld map, which took me at least 4 hours of solid mapping.  Can't promise I'll get all 9 dungeons complete but I'm hoping to at least have the first dungeon playable.

Few years ago I tried to remake Blood Money but had to scrap the project because I just couldn't find the media from the game. All I managed to find was the title music and a few tiles from the first level.

[Sokurah]

I was just looking through all my NES screenshots earlier tonight and I found a really good candidate for a remake.

The gameplay is good and it's a game I've only seen one remake of before. It also doesn't have too many graphics so I should be able to do it in the time that's left, so it's a good choice for me.

...let's hope I can figure out how to do all the same things that I normally do in BlitzMax (except getting sidetracked...I'm really good at that in any language). 

[matchy]

My undisclosed SNES game is slowing but surely being constructed. I have the basic play area up with player movement. Now I need to focus on simple CPU AI and game flow.

[Scott_AW]

I've been working on a NES styled game, but it won't be for the contest because it's not a remake, unrelated, but I do have some tips to share from my development.

The overworld is similar to Zelda in view, although the combat will be like Dragon Warrior.

The world is composed of 64 maps which I used an external editor to construct.  Maps are created from 8x8 tiles that were made using the NES palette and the color limits, so maps have under 16 colors.

For storage purposes, and because I seem to be having issues with BMP showing the correct color, I converted them to PNG files so they're 1/10th the size.

Maps are 248x240 (NES native res).

To make things easy, I combined all the maps in full res into one image, using a grid set to 8x8 and layers in Photoshop(you can use GIMP too) I colored in 8x8 section in white as the flag for a solid area.  After the collision areas have been colored I extract the area of the map and then reduce that collision map image 1/8th the size so each 8x8 cell is one pixel.

I also convert the map and collision images to 8bit colors to save on size.

In GLBasic I have a two arrays to handle map data.  One handles the direction exit destination maps, the other handles the data in the collision map image.  Since I been having some issues with sprite2mem, I simply read the image with getpixel to set the collision flags.

Current map ID gets stored in a 'lastmap' variable and the new map and collision data are loaded when you hit one of the direction exits, using the old image and new to create the panning like in Zelda.

Another benefit of putting all your finished, full-sized maps into one image is that you can see if everything lines up correctly, which I've found a few of my own that did not.

Hope this helps.