Watches dev

July 29th, 2021
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I’m currently taking a break from retro dev

I recently discovered how to dev for Android Watches and it remembers me a lot about retro dev requirements : low memory, optimization requirements etc…

I published my first game after a few days of work, let’s see if I had some success with it (yeah, I mean money!)

Misc | Posted by KanedaFr

3 days

July 12th, 2021
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It took me 3 days to reverse engineering Shadow Shoot.

Awesome how good code make reverse engineering easier.

I now understand why they asked me to make ugly code on Android sensitive app ‘for security’

Arhackde | Posted by KanedaFr

Sega is the best

July 8th, 2021
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I get back to something I call Yoga4Dev : reverse engineering.

After TwinBee, I started to work on a new J2ME RE project : ShadowShoot by Sega.

And let me say I really like Sega dev team : code is clean!

Nothing compared to TwinBee by SinaMobile.

Of course, clean code means it’s easier to reverse but it also help a lot to learn ‘how to do’

Arhackde | Posted by KanedaFr

What Am I doing again ?!!

June 30th, 2021
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Because I was looking for the pixel clock value of the PV1000, for some reasons, I’m now currently tracing the schematics of the PV1000.

As always, I can’t accept a value coming from nowhere, I had to understand where it comes from.
I think I’m a little nut πŸ˜‰

PV-1000 | Posted by KanedaFr

Meet the PiBuiSen

June 29th, 2021
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The Casio PV-1000 is a very strange machine.

It looks like a blue Megadrive so I immediately fall in love for it.
After that, I tried to learn more about it and, well, what a shame : on sell for a few weeks only (too expensive, nothing compared to competitor, …), it’s another saint graal for some rich “gamers”.
Another system I like I won’t ever buy πŸ˜‰

So what is inside ?
A good ol’ brown PCB made of wires and TTL chips -> the inside isn’t what the outside let me think πŸ˜‰


3 NEC Chips : a Z80A clone, a VDP/APU all in one nobody knows about and a RAM

Good news, 2 emulators support it : MAME and ePV1000 by Takeda…with their source available online
Bad news, 13 games only were released, which doesn’t give us a lot of chance to explore the full capacities of the beast (ie they probably didn’t push it to the limits at start)

Ok, let’s make a emulator for it, I need to understand what is this !!

PV-1000 | Posted by KanedaFr

Megadrive isn’t the only one

June 29th, 2021
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Like I already shared, Megadrive is no longer my main focus.
For several reasons (browse Twitter, Spritesmind or this WordPress), I take a rest.

I found several systems lacking of love from developers I’d like to work on.
Here are the few, by my priority order

  • Wonderswan
  • NeoGeo Pocket
  • SuperVision
  • PCEngine
  • PV-1000

More exists, it was already difficult to select only these ones (sorry P/ECE and Loopy !)

So don’t be surprised to read more posts on them from now !

NeoGeo Pocket, PCEngine, PV-1000, WonderSwan | Posted by KanedaFr

J2ME is the best

June 29th, 2021
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…when you start to develop on a retro system !

Why, because it’s really easy to get all the assets and, with a little much effort, the code (see https://github.com/Konloch/bytecode-viewer for example).
So what ? The assets are often pixel art and midi, which made them the perfect choice to be used on a retro system !

For some months now, I focused my hack on J2ME and my first game is now fully reverse engineered.
More games will follow and I hope I’ll be able to port them on more than Android only !

Arhackde | Posted by KanedaFr

My third life

June 29th, 2021
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Very few people know it but I have 3 lifes:

  • Personal and professional life, the real one
  • Retro developer life, the one you’re here for
  • Retro developer financer life, my ugly but needed hidden life

This 3rd life started in 2010 I think. I had to finance retro things (systems and stuff, hosting) and, well, legitimate to my family why I’m spending so much time on some useless things. This last point is the most important one because, I was about to stop everything because of this.

So, how to do you make money without losing your soul nor without killing your other lifes ?

I tried several things:

1/ Sell my ROMS

Things are I’m not a swiss army man and so, the only one-man game I was able to finish was Space Hawks .
On SMS/GG, there is no way to release it (lack of new cartridge and case) and it was only available freely on SMSPower.
On Megadrive, I had so much negative feedbacks about the “8 bit style” than it was a no-go. The only way to make a release valid was to make a “Enhanced” version, with better GFX and better SFX : code is ready but I’m unable to great the missing assets πŸ™

One thing I didn’t try was to sell my carts on ebay but I’m a little embarrassed with this : it means I accept that people pay too much for a game.
But what if I say clearly on the description what’s to pay Spritesmind and my research ? I still don’t know…
Should I try with Space Hawks ? πŸ˜‰

=> FAILURE

2/ Sell my tools

My tools are freely for so long, it would be a crime to ask to be paid for now.
Perhaps creating new tools but I’m not sure which one and, remember, I don’t want to lose my soul : my first initial goal was to SHARE information and tools to help people to develop on retro system.
It won’t work if they had to pay for, or you’ll need a click to release kit, which I dislike.

=> FAILURE

3/ Sell Spritesmind

N.O. W.A.Y !
=> FAILURE

4/ Get paid for what I do

I get contacted by several people who wanted me to develop a game or a tool for them.
I was against the ideas years ago but now, my little money devil is here to remember me I need money πŸ˜‰

So I accepted 2 projects
– I never finished the first one and get only half of the paiement (which is already great)
– I had to finish the second and this time, I’ll finish it

So the idea was great at first : to be paid to develop game, assets produced by others.
GREAT!! well…not that much…

Why ?
Because you add to be focused on your project and you signed a contract : you need to deliver every X weeks.
Difficult for me, since this comes AFTER personal and retro.

I was unable to finish the first one because my client can’t wait years, which I could easily understand.
For the second one, the contract is friendly and we do so much things outside of the initial request that’s is a lot cooler…but I doesn’t me I can’t finish it and it’s what I had to focus on right now

=> mitigate results

5/ Surf on the retro wave

I’m no longer a mobile developer at work but I was one previously.
So to develop for Android isn’t really hard.

You could think I’ll talk about developing games on Android and so on…
Forget it! The market is saturated, you’ll need money to every TRY to be visible on Google play and result are Zero or Hero.
I could say so because I tried πŸ˜‰
And Space Hawks is already installed on perhaps 50 devices others the world : not really a success !

Another idea comes to me when I tried to update a WonderSwan emulator to fix bugs and add debugger features (yes, like on KMod years ago)

When I play with a new system, I now create 2 versions of my developper emulator
– an Android version, without developer feature
– a desktop version, with developer features

I currently have 2 emulators on Google Play, and it’s allow me to pay Spritesmind hosting and 3 or 4 packets a year from Japan.

It”s not much, mainly because I’m now interested in not so common systems so forget about Nintendo and Sega systems πŸ˜‰

=> Money in my pocket

6/ Grey area

As you may know, I also like to RE games to understand how they work.
I’m a little too much on this because, well, I need to understand EVERY byte used on the game.
So, when it’s finished, I “almost” have the source code and full assets of the game…and it becomes possible to port it.

My initial idea was to port these games to retro systems, when risk of receiving a DMCA is near 0 (if you don’t touch a Nintendo of course).
It’s what I did with Space Hawks….with the results we know πŸ™

So what will happen if I do it with a AAA game and if I release it on Android first ?
There is a LOT of games made in China available on Google Play which are port of retro games, which don’t make it really clear if it’s an official port or not.

So let’s try πŸ˜‰

=> (coming soon, my first fan / unofficial port is available on Google Play for 2 days)

7/ Others

I have many others ideas that I will try later …or not, so perhaps I’ll update this post later
– develop on Coleco or C64 when developer get paid to release games
– develop on NES where people still pay a lot for 2 pixels on screen (Nintendo is the Apple for retro stuff…and Sega is the best so :devil_face: ) -> thanks to people like Broke Studio it’s no longer true, because players are now waiting for high quality games
– develop on SNES where people are praying for new games for their systems : back to my problem-> how to develop a full game people will like
– sell my unneeded stuff on ebay (coming soon)
– sell hardware mods (it will be boost me to work on my VGA stuff at last)
– buy 2 items on Japan and resell 1 on eBay
– Patreon : what could I make valuable so people would pay even 1$ each month to me ?!
– fake KickStarted to get easy money…err, no thanks

Misc | Posted by KanedaFr

DevLog

June 29th, 2021
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I realized I’m currently active on 2 medium.

Twitter : retro news, wonderswan dev status, electronic, everyday life

Discord : wonderswan dev

And yes, no spritesmind forum, my life was too chaotic and my motivation lost 4 years ago.

But even with that, I have nowhere to really trace what I’m doing on development side.

Sharing a rom isn’t the same than sharing how you make this rom, most importantly the many failures you faced.

So I’ll try to give back to this WordPress its main goal : my dev log

No comment allowed : you want to read, go ahead. You want to laugh at me, get piss someone else. You have a question because you’re interested by what I do, Twitter is the way or find my email lost somewhere on spritesmind.

Let’s go!

Misc | Posted by KanedaFr

DIY Dev Kit – it’s alive!

April 22nd, 2018
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Buildroot is, like almost everything on Linux world, hard to understand for anyΒ  *nix newbie.

Hopefully some very useful slides exist on bootlin (ex Free electrons)

So, I now have a very basic distro with ssh enabled.

I’m about to finish ucon64 package so I ‘ll get my own dev kit ready this week.

Everdrive support will follow but propably later, after the test and tweak period.

Megadrive | Posted by KanedaFr