Still need to wrap up the gameplay loop and then polish, fingers crossed!

We have given ourselves the limitation - "Early NES cartridge" and just during the last 24 hours I have learnt soooo much!

I'll never look at a NES-game the same again and I'm in awe of the developers from the time (also, they did a lot of the spritework with pen and paper!!)

I'm not a developer, I just draw stuff, so both my temammates @javve and @nevyn can explain this stuff more correctly - but as far as I have understood:

It turns out that during it's life-cycle the NES console didn't change hardware as consoles tend not to do.

So to get more miles out of it over time the game devs at nintendo hacked the crap out of it later in it's lifetime. And they did this through the hardware-chips in the cartridges.

A cartridge from later in the console lifecycle does a suprising amount of the computational work by having it's own extra computer-chips "secretly" switching between different datasets without the console knowing.

Did you ever save your game in a NES game? Well that was the cartridge working - the console doesn't really have that capability (this is why save-states often where solved through level-codes) instead a memory bank with a small battery is used within the cartridge.

A great exemple is to look at Super Mario Brothers and SMB3 - they are both created on the exact same console but SMB3 is doing so much more. And it does it through all the fancy hardware in it's cartridge!

Google the difference between CHR-ROM and CHR-RAM if you want to learn more.

For our LD entry we wanted to make a NES game with the same limitations as the earliest of games - so no bank switching, no fancy extra sounds, no saving etc.

This meant that I was introduced to some new workflows when it came to graphics.

Simplified, all tiles and sprites shown on screen are defined by coordinates telling the game what 8x8 pixels from the CHR bank (basically the games single spritemap) to show.

So for backgrounds the devs don't need the game tiles arranged in a big image file - they need an array of numbers to show what tiles goes where.

Enter stage left: TilED

When I had finalized the BG tiles in the CHRbank, I was able to export it into Tiled and make the map. Then, instead of exporting a image, I exported it as TMX and from it Nevyn could extract the grid coordinates.

Here are the tiles in TilED V.S. in the emulator:

TilED:

Emulated ROM:

To get some extra colours, the game actually changes all tiles between two different 3-colour palettes between rendering the far background and the ground!

Note also the animated sprites on one of our titular Fire Walls!

In time of writing, we don't have a playable ROM yet, but keep your eyes on our gamepage to try it!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/firewall

Sometimes, when your butt cheeks are about to get roasted from LD jam solo and JP incoming mid course exam, you might think of the rope in more meaningful ways. anyways, GG no re

so, our basic framework is up - late, but we're doing it

I really want to go for Compo this time, but am not ready to give up on some features for the sake of it, and as is the tradition, I had a late Saturday start. We'll see...

Today I focused primarily on art

Definitely won't be able to get to everything I wanted. Will have to see how much energy I have tomorrow. I am strongly considering just entering the Jam instead of the Compo.

Again, I exported the current project as-is to document the progress: https://www.loubagel.com/blog/ludum-dare-54-day-2/

Here was yesterday's, if you want to compare: https://www.loubagel.com/blog/ludum-dare-54-day-1/

Your performace didn't live up to the expectations!

Pick wisely! (You can only steal a limited number of items)

I'm done for this time. :) Did a lot more lax compo this time, didn't even try to pack any more levels into the game. I'm quite pleased with the result, even though it's a short game.

Not going to finish this jam, but at least I learned some fun stuff about using SDL with Emscripten (:

Hello fellow citizens!

there appeared a visitor of the magical, woolly kind.

we should see and find out which occupation he'll find.

In this bustling city, overloaded with sheep

vertical stables are highly in need

our city is busy with collecting ideas

come back, follow the call for smart volunteers.

And the game is feature complete, all the polish is there. A potential release candidate!

I've done a rough concept of the game map, but most of the locations will probably change once I start testing it.

Managed to get the map built, finish the tutorial area (for the first time) and get most of the textures done. Just need to touch some of them up to make it less plain and more interesting to look at. Down to recording my audio, finishing the ending and trying to implement the mechanic to adjust the events in the level. Might end up dropping the event adjustments if I start running short on time.

As I mentioned previously, my goal this time around is to create the right mood/feeling.

Here's a look at what it is like so far:

This image was brightened. I may have made the game too dark.

I'm looking very forward to trying out some the games displayed so far.

Happy jamming!

Who said limited space meant finite number of spaces?!

Long live pseudo-randomness!

This is from the Free Roam mode, in which you do nothing but roam freely forever.

Done (but not all shown above)? Styles, foes in the maze, collectible fruit, level processing!, 2 tunes created in minutes via MIDI composition software + sound fonts!

In the works?: the actual game where you navigate the maze along some hints in it + foes trying to get to you and eat your watermelon pieces ;( . Stitching it all together in hopefully several complete levels (testing and refining takes quite some time).

Previous post: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/$371504/day-1-progress-notes

Do you guys like these characters?