uses 8x8 sprites, for example, whereas Super Mario Bros. NES visuals are built on sprites that are always eight pixels wide, but can be eight or 16 pixels tall, with the latter effectively resulting in a bigger game screen. The best homebrews straddle the cutting edge of NES tech and redefine what's possible with 8-bit sprites, sounds and scrolling.Īside from techniques such as dithering, which uses precisely peppered pixels to mimic shading and textures not technically possible within the limited NES colour palette, NES homebrewers have also advanced sprite composition. "Because it has some pretty strict limitations that you have to follow, people are being really creative on what they can do to make things look as good as they can," Hanley says. Its dated format poses a challenge that demands ingenuity, routinely resulting in ingenious games. And aside from nigh-unrivaled nostalgia, the NES does have other things going for it as a homebrew platform.
"I think the NES is sort of right on the cusp of one person actually being able to develop all aspects of a game in a reasonable amount of time."īecause the NES is just simple enough, Hanley is able to make games with minimal outsourcing while spending an average of six to eight months on each project. "Once you start getting more modern than the NES, stuff like the Super Nintendo, it becomes way, way more complicated for a single person to tackle everything," Hanley says. Building save systems is much easier, for one, and advances in flash memory allow Hanley and other creators to add in modern features such as achievements.īut then, why the NES? Why go out of your way with bells and whistles when you could just developer for a more powerful retro system? Surely even jumping to the SNES would greatly expand what you can do. The NES hasn't changed, but board and memory technology has improved immensely in the past 30 years, enabling NES homebrewers to wring a little more out of games without relying on ROMs or emulators.
The Incident's collection, in particular, was a stunner. Hanley goes out of his way to produce manuals, soundtracks and other extras for all his games. So in 2016, he retooled Frogger for a four-in-one game pack, not only fixing bugs but also adding custom sound effects, a new sinking animation for the game's iconic turtles, and a more sophisticated score counter. A former competitive Frogger player himself, Hanley became unsatisfied with his original port of Frogger as he grew more NES-savvy. The achievements he added to Scramble, for example, incorporate classic challenges such as hitting score milestones and completing the game without dying. Hanley's sprucing doesn't affect gameplay. "So I try to be faithful for the most part, but I try to throw in little twists or additions where I can." "When you start changing things like speeds, or points of the game in general, I think it takes away from it a little bit," he says. Hanley strives to deliver authentic experiences with all his games, so he stays close to his source material.
"More of a challenge, but also just because I love them and I want more people to play them." "I thought it would be fun to bring other games that I grew up playing on other systems over to my favorite system," Hanley says. Earlier this year, he released his port of Scramble, another staple of '80s arcades. He spent much of 2015 on The Incident, an original block-pushing puzzler. His first game was Ultimate Frogger Champion, a port of the original arcade Frogger. His catalogue is an eclectic mix of remakes and originals. Since 2009, Hanley has made nine "homebrew" NES games, cartridges and all. Today, the most prolific and respected NES developers are people such as Kevin Hanley, from Crestview, Florida.
Unofficially, though, dedicated fans are keeping Nintendo's retro console very much alive. Officially, the NES died in 1995, some nine years after its launch.
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