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Have you ever tried out a "rom hack"? People often alter ROMs code to make entirely new worlds/levels. Pair them with something like an ever drive and you get

Have you ever tried out a "rom hack"? People often alter ROMs code to make entirely new worlds/levels. Pair them with something like an ever drive and you get to play them on the real hardware.

gavanwoolery 9y ago
I once tried to create a legitimate ROM for the Gameboy Advance but it was obviously pretty involved. For those interested, plenty of resources such as: http://www.loirak.com/gameboy/gbatutor.php http://www.loirak.com/gameboy/gbatutor.php
- eropple 9y ago
  Yeah - GBA homebrew is hard. Mostly because it's a modern processor (it's an ARM7TDMI) with some really nutty RAM and graphical limitations. But any 8-bit or most 16-bit systems (except the Genesis, which is something of a kludge) are pretty straightforward. I do streaming charity events on occasion and an idea I've had is collaboratively writing an NES game over the course of a weekend, on-camera.
  - hrydgard 9y ago
    What? GBA is clearly easier than NES. Just set up a single tile layer in mode 0, and you got what's practically a NES with more colors, sprites and a much more powerful CPU that you can program in C++ if you like.
    - eropple 9y ago
      Sure, if you sit in mode 0 it's pretty simple. But if you're writing code for the GBA, you're probably gonna want to do stuff with the GBA's feature set, yeah? The bitmap modes, affine sprites and layers, sound, etc. get a little bit complicated. It's all stuff you can learn, don't get me wrong, and it's not like it's not so weird that knowledge you'd acquire from using other systems isn't applicable--but I find that there's a lot more that I had to have in my head when playing around with it than the NES (or systems I lean towards more, like the C64). It's a great platform to mess around with, but it is more complex. But if you're not going to use that complexity, for homebrew--I dunno, I'd just go grab a NES emulator. GNU C++ had gremlins for the GBA last time I was writing homebrew for it, so I can't speak to that. I kinda enjoy writing assembly when messing around with this stuff, though, so, eh. For anything else, I love me some (Modern!) C++, but it kind of feels like I should be writing assembly for that stuff, it's more fun to me. Do me a favor and chew on something for a sec, though: what does your "What?" do except add a hostile and combative edge to the conversation? Maybe don't do that. Thanks.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      > GBA is clearly easier than NES. The NES is a much simpler system. Granted, it's a simpler system that you're programming in a less-convenient language, but I think that which one is "easier" depends on what you're used to.
  - planteen 9y ago
    Most 8-bit systems perform poorly with C compilers so you are looking at writing in ASM. Additionally, there are all kinds of messy things like "mappers" on NES and GB to handle bank switching of the severely limited address space. GBA lets you use C without bank switching. I'd say it is far easier than the older generations.
    - eropple 9y ago
      If you want to write C, that's an absolutely fair cop. I would much rather write assembly for this stuff--as I mentioned in a sibling, it sorta feels right?--so that wasn't something I was thinking about. Rather, the profusion of features that are kinda tricky (mentioned in that sibling) along with the ARM/Thumb mess.
KGIII 9y ago
People are making new games for the old systems. It's quite an active community. They make and sell cartridges that have brand new games on them. I dug out a link, but it's just the tip of the iceberg: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15584416/new-games-retro-consoles-nes-snes-sega-genesis-famicom https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15584416/new-games-retro-c...
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  Just a word of caution for anyone looking to buy rom hack cartridges, many rom hacks were never intended to be put on cartridges and the original rom hack developers do not support nor benefit from doing so. It's also possible the rom hack on the cartridge isn't the final version.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I am not sure I understand, so I will defer to you. My understanding was that independent game authors were writing games and making cartridges for these games which they then sold. If I am understanding you correctly, somewhere in this chain is copyright infringement? Are people buying a cartridge, extracting the content, and loading it into new cartridges? Is the market large enough to support that much effort and expense? Or are people finding roms, perhaps intended for use with emulators, and loading those onto physical cartridges and selling them without renumeration or permission? If so, is the market large enough for that to go unnoticed? My understanding was a successful new game might sell a few thousand cartridges and great success was in the 10,000 units sold area. Being so small a market, and requiring the investment to even make the cartridges, it'd seem easier to spot this (from the IP owner's perspective) and seek preventative legal responses. Sort of related: I know this requires some specialized equipment to make new cartridges, but do you know if they sell blank cartridges that can just be loaded with games? I am aware that some cartridges had custom chips on them and didn't confirm to any standard, like Zelda cartridges that contained memory and a chip for saving game states. I am guessing, hopefully, that you know more about this stuff than I do.
    - khedoros1 9y ago

Have you ever tried out a "rom hack"? People often alter ROMs code to make entirely new worlds/levels. Pair them with something like an ever drive and you get to play them on the real hardware.

gavanwoolery 9y ago

I once tried to create a legitimate ROM for the Gameboy Advance but it was obviously pretty involved. For those interested, plenty of resources such as: http://www.loirak.com/gameboy/gbatutor.php http://www.loirak.com/gameboy/gbatutor.php

eropple 9y ago
Yeah - GBA homebrew is hard. Mostly because it's a modern processor (it's an ARM7TDMI) with some really nutty RAM and graphical limitations. But any 8-bit or most 16-bit systems (except the Genesis, which is something of a kludge) are pretty straightforward. I do streaming charity events on occasion and an idea I've had is collaboratively writing an NES game over the course of a weekend, on-camera.
- hrydgard 9y ago
  What? GBA is clearly easier than NES. Just set up a single tile layer in mode 0, and you got what's practically a NES with more colors, sprites and a much more powerful CPU that you can program in C++ if you like.
  - eropple 9y ago
    Sure, if you sit in mode 0 it's pretty simple. But if you're writing code for the GBA, you're probably gonna want to do stuff with the GBA's feature set, yeah? The bitmap modes, affine sprites and layers, sound, etc. get a little bit complicated. It's all stuff you can learn, don't get me wrong, and it's not like it's not so weird that knowledge you'd acquire from using other systems isn't applicable--but I find that there's a lot more that I had to have in my head when playing around with it than the NES (or systems I lean towards more, like the C64). It's a great platform to mess around with, but it is more complex. But if you're not going to use that complexity, for homebrew--I dunno, I'd just go grab a NES emulator. GNU C++ had gremlins for the GBA last time I was writing homebrew for it, so I can't speak to that. I kinda enjoy writing assembly when messing around with this stuff, though, so, eh. For anything else, I love me some (Modern!) C++, but it kind of feels like I should be writing assembly for that stuff, it's more fun to me. Do me a favor and chew on something for a sec, though: what does your "What?" do except add a hostile and combative edge to the conversation? Maybe don't do that. Thanks.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    > GBA is clearly easier than NES. The NES is a much simpler system. Granted, it's a simpler system that you're programming in a less-convenient language, but I think that which one is "easier" depends on what you're used to.
- planteen 9y ago
  Most 8-bit systems perform poorly with C compilers so you are looking at writing in ASM. Additionally, there are all kinds of messy things like "mappers" on NES and GB to handle bank switching of the severely limited address space. GBA lets you use C without bank switching. I'd say it is far easier than the older generations.
  - eropple 9y ago
    If you want to write C, that's an absolutely fair cop. I would much rather write assembly for this stuff--as I mentioned in a sibling, it sorta feels right?--so that wasn't something I was thinking about. Rather, the profusion of features that are kinda tricky (mentioned in that sibling) along with the ARM/Thumb mess.

KGIII 9y ago

People are making new games for the old systems. It's quite an active community. They make and sell cartridges that have brand new games on them. I dug out a link, but it's just the tip of the iceberg: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15584416/new-games-retro-consoles-nes-snes-sega-genesis-famicom https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15584416/new-games-retro-c...

BearGoesChirp 9y ago
Just a word of caution for anyone looking to buy rom hack cartridges, many rom hacks were never intended to be put on cartridges and the original rom hack developers do not support nor benefit from doing so. It's also possible the rom hack on the cartridge isn't the final version.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I am not sure I understand, so I will defer to you. My understanding was that independent game authors were writing games and making cartridges for these games which they then sold. If I am understanding you correctly, somewhere in this chain is copyright infringement? Are people buying a cartridge, extracting the content, and loading it into new cartridges? Is the market large enough to support that much effort and expense? Or are people finding roms, perhaps intended for use with emulators, and loading those onto physical cartridges and selling them without renumeration or permission? If so, is the market large enough for that to go unnoticed? My understanding was a successful new game might sell a few thousand cartridges and great success was in the 10,000 units sold area. Being so small a market, and requiring the investment to even make the cartridges, it'd seem easier to spot this (from the IP owner's perspective) and seek preventative legal responses. Sort of related: I know this requires some specialized equipment to make new cartridges, but do you know if they sell blank cartridges that can just be loaded with games? I am aware that some cartridges had custom chips on them and didn't confirm to any standard, like Zelda cartridges that contained memory and a chip for saving game states. I am guessing, hopefully, that you know more about this stuff than I do.
  - khedoros1 9y ago