cube field for NES - NESdev BBS

cube field for NES
by castrwilliam on 2010-01-18 (#55336)

I'm a newbie NES programmer and I'm thinking of porting a flash game, "Cube field" to NES. It's not really graphically intensive, I'll give a link to it here.

http://cube.floccul.us/

Do you think it's possible to do 3-D scrolling on the NES? Could you just scale the sprites like Super Mario Kart or 3-D World Runner? Thanks.

Also, has anybody else had trouble with NESICIDE? It often crashes and ruins the project file, so I save 3 copies... but it's getting old.

by Dwedit on 2010-01-18 (#55338)

You wouldn't be able to get more than 64 sprites on the screen, but otherwise, it looks okay. As long as you don't expect very smooth scaling.

Re: cube field for NES
by cpow on 2010-01-18 (#55341)

castrwilliam wrote:
Also, has anybody else had trouble with NESICIDE? It often crashes and ruins the project file, so I save 3 copies... but it's getting old.

Are you using the version available on gitorious.org or the version available on www.nesicide.com [downloads]? The latter is almost a year and a half old...I haven't kept up that domain.

What type of crashes? I'm currently busy porting NESICIDE into Qt [with essial, but he seems to have gone AWOL] but could take a look if I had some hint as to what you were doing that was causing crashes.

If you try the version available on gitorious.org [NESICIDE, not NESICIDE2<--this is the Qt porting] it allows you to link to an external assembler such as ASM6 or...but I never tried it...NESASM. I'd be interested if that makes things better. Plus, the version on gitorious.org is up-to-date from when the Qt porting activity started which was late last year.

Re: cube field for NES
by tepples on 2010-01-18 (#55342)

castrwilliam wrote:
I'm a newbie NES programmer and I'm thinking of porting a flash game, "Cube field" to NES. It's not really graphically intensive, I'll give a link to it here.

http://cube.floccul.us/

I remember playing this on an iPod Touch belonging to NovaYoshi's little brother. I also remember playing it on an NES back when it was called Balloon Trip.

Quote:
Do you think it's possible to do 3-D scrolling on the NES? Could you just scale the sprites like Super Mario Kart or 3-D World Runner?

SMK doesn't scale the sprites; it has sprites already scaled in the ROM just like Rad Racer. And doing this with the NES's 25% sprite overdraw will just be a flicker-fest.

by Anders_A on 2010-01-19 (#55347)

It could be possible to do a playable remake of that game using either sprites or some 3d drawing method.

But since you describe yourself as a newbie nes programmer I would recommend going with something easier for your first nes project.

3d on the nes haven't been done that many times, so you'd pretty much be on your own.

by castrwilliam on 2010-01-19 (#55407)

I've been using the NESICIDE from the nesicide.com site. That must have been it.

And what do you guys suggest for the first project? A platformer or something like that? Once I made one of those in some long dead java app called Stagecast. But other than that I have no experience with platformer coding.

EDIT - I just tried downloading the Nesicide 1 from gitorious.org. I could not find binaries and it won't work (43 errors) in VS 2008.

by cpow on 2010-01-19 (#55412)

castrwilliam wrote:
EDIT - I just tried downloading the Nesicide 1 from gitorious.org. I could not find binaries and it won't work (43 errors) in VS 2008.

NESICIDE 1 was started six years ago when I had VS 6. I have only just recently got VS 2008 for work. I have not tried compiling it there...off I go. If I can fix the 43 errors I will commit the fix.

EDIT: It appears I have VS2008 express which doesn't include MFC...maybe I'll push for 2008 standard which does, or so I read.

by CartCollector on 2010-01-20 (#55461)

Quote:
I also remember playing it on an NES back when it was called Balloon Trip.

I don't remember the part in Balloon Trip where you maneuvered a triangle through a field of cubes. Is that a secret mode?

Quote:
And what do you guys suggest for the first project? A platformer or something like that? Once I made one of those in some long dead java app called Stagecast. But other than that I have no experience with platformer coding.

Make a puzzle game. It's what everyone else does.

by tokumaru on 2010-01-20 (#55462)

CartCollector wrote:
Make a puzzle game. It's what everyone else does.

Yeah, be completely unoriginal...

by tepples on 2010-01-20 (#55463)

CartCollector wrote:
Quote:
I also remember playing it on an NES back when it was called Balloon Trip.

I don't remember the part in Balloon Trip where you maneuvered a triangle through a field of cubes. Is that a secret mode?

ROM hack your copy of Balloon Fight to replace the player sprite with a triangle the spark sprite with a cube and you'll understand. My point is that the game type exists in an NES launch title, albeit presented with different graphics. Furthermore: "I remember playing Balloon Fight's main mode in the arcade back when it was called Joust."