My journey learning Sega Genesis/Mega Drive programing

[aguSoulReaver]

Hi everybody! I want to show you my progress in my personal project. My idea is to release a new game in a near future.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fmHhHUeSu0

[Big Update]
Now I'm working in a demo for a new game. Here is some updates:

The new avatar:


An sneak peek of the integration process
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5EznyC ... rUx2WfuH2Q

[Hik]

I'm curious about the assets editor and level editor, did you make them yourself?
The progress looks good

[aguSoulReaver]

Yes, the assets and map editor are made by myself. I didn't show in the video but in the same editor I can create paletts and fonts as well.

[Hik]

That's neat. Maybe you could post them in the tools section..

At some point when working on my demo I hit the limitations of the mega drive/genesis and had difficulty getting any further.
I like how in your demo you could have all those cats follow the player, but then you can't have that much more sprites,
since the cats are using up a lot of sprites, right? I noticed while looking up officially released games that sprites are often used for features of the maps themselves, like signs and bridges and maybe doors and stuff. I think mastering assembly would help to do effects and things without hitting the limits as much but I wasn't that good with assembly so I stopped working with it.

Another part which I found pretty difficult was to make the sound/music sound good. Also, I'm still wondering how one would make sounds happen while the music is playing.

All that said, I'm wondering if you have original arts or original game idea since I noticed in the video description you say all of the graphics are just assets from other games.

[aguSoulReaver]

Currently the asset editor is in development. The map editor has only a few functionalities. It needs more work.
I don't know if my editor could be useful to others as is. It produces assembly files only and the data produced is specific for my game engine. I should implement a more flexible file exporter if I'm going to release it some day.

I think that the charm of making games for retro consoles is working inside the limitations of the hardware. You're right about assembly, it's the best option to push that Blast Processing . On the beginning I was afraid of assembly but now I love it. I can optimize my code more easily because I know exactly what the processor is doing.

In my demo I hit the limit of how many characters can check collision with the map at the same time. This is an extreme case because in the final game I'm going to create NPCs when you're near to them and I'm going to destroy them when they are far away.
There are 11 cats running constantly and each of them use 2 sprites max. The avatar use 9 sprites max, so my demo only uses 31 sprites total. I've another 49 sprites to use for effects or objects in the map.
I haven't coded anything related to audio yet so I can't help you with that.

Right now I'm putting together a team to make the game. A friend is going to make the art, but we are working in this project in our spare time. I'll make an announcement when we have the new assets.

[SegaTim]

Very cool job! But it is better to make the game on a Windows PC and release it through Steam. It will play more people. You will get more reviews and money (if a commercial project).

[Sik]

And you could make even more money by releasing on Switch instead.

People who make homebrew aren't doing it expecting to make lots of money, and those who are doing it for money are perfectly well aware of the implications of a tiny niche market. And I can't even see anything in this thread suggesting the main goal is to make money…

[BigEvilCorporation]

Very cool job! But it is better to make the game on a Windows PC and release it through Steam. It will play more people. You will get more reviews and money (if a commercial project).

...this is a Mega Drive games development forum? It's what we do.

Steam is a dead platform unless you're able to pump $$$ into advertising, or "go viral". Our game is flatlining on Steam (despite a heavy PR campaign), Mega Drive is still selling like hot cakes and paying the bills.

[SegaTim]

Your game received funding through Kickstarter - this is because access to projects from other countries, such as Argentina, is closed there. This is discrimination in favor of the UK, USA, and others. No need to be a hypocrite. At Indiegogo, even interesting projects are unsuccessful - as an example of "Kung-Fu Ufo". The rich do not understand the hungry.

Have you ordered physical media from Mega Cat Studios?

[BigEvilCorporation]

Your game received funding through Kickstarter - this is because access to projects from other countries, such as Argentina, is closed there. This is discrimination in favor of the UK, USA, and others. No need to be a hypocrite. At Indiegogo, even interesting projects are unsuccessful - as an example of "Kung-Fu Ufo". The rich do not understand the hungry.

Have you ordered physical media from Mega Cat Studios?

I... what?

[aguSoulReaver]

I know this is a niche market, but I would like to make a living developing retro games, I would be dream come true. Tanglewood and XenoCrisis shown that there is market for high quality games. My 2 biggest obstacles are funding and publishing.

Cartridges manufacturing here in Argentina is impossible and even if I buy it from China the Custom taxes that I must pay will increase the cost of the game to the consumer. Currently I'm looking information about same publishers to choose the better one for me.

About funding it's true I can't use Kickstarter but I don't think it's because discrimination. Probably it's a legal and/or taxes issue. I believe that an IndieGoGo campaign can success, I only need to show a working demo in every retro game group or forum I can before I start the campaign.

[Sik]

Probably worth noting that a big factor in Kung Fu UFO's campaign failure was that, um, to put it bluntly that demo was extremely flawed (both in terms of bugs and game design). People don't want to risk ending up again with another situation like what happened with Coffee Crisis. And yeah, publishing is the #1 issue, albeit I'm not even sure it's limited to Argentina (even if it compounds it). I have the feeling that eventually we'll have to start working with each other to come up with a manufacturing pipeline everybody can piggyback on.

To immediately tell people to go away and focus on something else tho is just pathetic (sorry), especially since the country issue isn't unique to Mega Drive (do you think it's any easier to get money from other platforms given all the requirements they demand and how some of them outright only support paying through PayPal?)

[Cristiano Sword]

Probably worth noting that a big factor in Kung Fu UFO's campaign failure was that, um, to put it bluntly that demo was extremely flawed (both in terms of bugs and game design). People don't want to risk ending up again with another situation like what happened with Coffee Crisis. And yeah, publishing is the #1 issue, albeit I'm not even sure it's limited to Argentina (even if it compounds it). I have the feeling that eventually we'll have to start working with each other to come up with a manufacturing pipeline everybody can piggyback on.

To immediately tell people to go away and focus on something else tho is just pathetic (sorry), especially since the country issue isn't unique to Mega Drive (do you think it's any easier to get money from other platforms given all the requirements they demand and how some of them outright only support paying through PayPal?)

I believe everyone here is because they love homebrew for Genesis / Mega Drive.
The pleasure of seeing something of yours running on the console is indescribable.
Of course everyone would like to make money on mega-drive games.
But let's agree is a niche market very small, with very risky return.
I do not think it's difficult just in Argentina, here in Brazil it's not easy either, just so you have a single import tax of any product is 60%, and that's on top of freight yet!
I work with web development and advergames, and the market is much bigger, and it requires a lot less effort as well.
I agree with Sik that we work together to have a cartridge-making pipeline.

[Hik]

...this is a Mega Drive games development forum? It's what we do.

Mega Drive is still selling like hot cakes and paying the bills.

Yeah, good job on that by the way. There's only so many consoles which can play them, it would help if there were more.

Cartridges manufacturing here in Argentina is impossible and even if I buy it from China the Custom taxes that I must pay will increase the cost of the game to the consumer.

Its possible to 3d print the covers and plastic parts in cartridges, I know because I've done it before
(on a not so precise lower end 3d printer) I've also printed paper/sticker lables and things on regular printer.
Ofcourse injection molding is better, I've seen some diy injection molds before which worked out fine.
There are public fabrication labs and hackerspaces which provide the tools if you need any you can't afford.
For the actual hardware, there's many different ways for making PCB's, my point is that its not as difficult as it used to be.

I have the feeling that eventually we'll have to start working with each other to come up with a manufacturing pipeline everybody can piggyback on.

I agree with Sik that we work together to have a cartridge-making pipeline.

I wonder what this pipeline would be like

[dub]

Yes, the assets and map editor are made by myself. I didn't show in the video but in the same editor I can create paletts and fonts as well.

Awesome tools.
In your video, you have the option "show tiles". Can you tell me which algorithm you use to keep a small number of tiles ?