Help on creating a homebrew Genesis game...

justanormaldeveloper · Post by **justanormaldeveloper** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:16 am

Hello guys. This is my first post here. OK, so I know how to make the header for my game, but I am afraid to program the rest of my game, because I have a feeling that it won't work in an emulator. That, and where would I get all of the sprites needed for the game? I know other people suggest to crib from example code, but I want to start from scratch. Besides programming the game's header, what other parts are needed. Maybe I can turn this into a collaborative project, so I do not have to do all the hard work? Sorry if I am making you mad for posting this much, and for asking for help, I just figured, if homebrew games are developed, they are developed by only one person. I will certainly be looking forward to any suggestions/contributions you give me while coding this

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:22 am

Hi,

Simple question, why start from scratch ?
I don't necessary want to "promote" SGDK but it facilitates *a lot* the development for Sega Megadrive. You can code in C and get descent performance and still allow assembly if you really need it. Also by using SGDK methods you have guarantees to get your code working on real hardware (as SGDK methods has been heavily tested on real hardware).

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 12:30 pm

SGDK is totally awesome and you should use it.

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 1:05 pm

Haha thanks djcc for the support ! Your projects are very nice examples about what we can do with SGDK indeed =)

BroOfTheSun · Post by **BroOfTheSun** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 2:48 pm

As someone who is also building a game, I also support SGDK. I've been using it for several months now, and it has sped up development of the game. There's a lot of great work that is already done. Why not leverage that to make building your game easier?

M-374 LX · Post by **M-374 LX** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:59 pm

After the header, a Genesis game needs an initialization code like this.

If you want to see something on the screen, you need to set the VDP registers, also shown in the link.

Nitro · Post by **Nitro** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:10 pm

Learning M68K ASM in some point may be even easier than C. If your game will not work on emulator (but works fine on hardware) -- there is some problem in emulator.

MintyTheCat · Post by **MintyTheCat** » Sat Feb 14, 2015 3:39 pm

Nitro wrote:Learning M68K ASM in some point may be even easier than C. If your game will not work on emulator (but works fine on hardware) -- there is some problem in emulator.

Yes, no one can expect miracles on the Megadrive writing in C and C++ is out of the question.

I would learn the basics with C then switch to 68K Assembly for Megadrive work.

BigEvilCorporation · Post by **BigEvilCorporation** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 10:56 am

I tried learning the whole thing from scratch and documented my learning process, there might be something of use here: http://www.bigevilcorporation.co.uk

Take a look at the first few articles, they describe how to make a header, assembling your first program, and setting up the VDP.

Jony · Post by **Jony** » Fri May 15, 2015 6:03 pm

SGDK is amazing but it desperately needs some unified tutorial source, someone needs to make an E-Book on Mega Drive development using SGDK... i'd do it if i was good enough x) but yeah until that happens i don't think the community will expand as much as it could even with the success of Pier Solar

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Fri May 15, 2015 10:11 pm

I do agree, that is still something i plan to do... at least update the outdated tutorials to replace with new rescomp structures.
I do *not* plan to make many tutorials but at least enough to cover the main topics.

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Sat May 16, 2015 3:05 am

There are no tutorials per se, but there are some projects that might be interesting to you.

Source code for Pingouin Bleu (a shmup), Pingouin Rose (simple platformer), Violence Pingouin (action platformer) and Goplanes (8way scrolling shooter) is available in the demo section.

You should be able to pick up a lot from them.

slobu · Post by **slobu** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 4:48 pm

I still think an SGDK suite would be a wonderful, empowering thing for beginners. Basically, one setup program for a pre-configured IDE with examples and a few public domain assets.

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:19 am

I do agree but that is definitely much more work than giving SGDK package then instructions to setup your development environment with the IDE... Just think we have to give a package for each operating system :-/
But I agree that a all in one solution would make life much easier for a lot of developer interested in giving a try