
How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes [video] - scott_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWQ0591PAxM
======
Scaevolus
Retro City Rampage for NES did something similar (32KB program ROM, 256KB
graphics ROM), but the author also developed a High Level Assembler so you he
could write structured code more directly:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvx4xXhZMrU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvx4xXhZMrU)

~~~
unwind
Well this video is about fitting _all_ of the vertically-scrolling 4-player
run-and-jump action into 40 KB, with some very neat tricks to shave and save
everywhere. Really interesting if you're into low-level stuff. The NES looks
kind of fun to develop for ...

~~~
bopbop
It is actually - I've done quite a bit over the past two or three years and
6502 assembly is really nice to program - it's hard to explain, but the fact
it only has three registers combined with a relative ton of storage space for
variables means you're constantly doing this three-card Monte shuffle that is
very satisfying.

It's also all eight bit, obviously, so you're also dealing with nice, human
manageable numbers of 0 to 255.

------
bopbop
Haven't watched this but follow the nes dev scene closely, and I'm looking
forward to this.

Some other good new releases(all three of these are freely downloadable):

Project blue:
[http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=16785](http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=16785)

Star Evil and FF:
[http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=16993](http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=16993)

For anyone interested in doing some new programming, I recommend starting with
nesdougs tutorials, which'll get you started with a dev environment in c:

[https://nesdoug.com/](https://nesdoug.com/)

And checking out forums.nesdev.com in general.

~~~
bopbop
Oh and should probably mention there's another nes kickstarter on now, nebs n
debs, which is looking good:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dullahan-
software/nebs-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dullahan-
software/nebs-n-debs-a-new-nes-platform-game?ref=user_menu)

------
Dowwie
In addition to this talk, I recommend watching a documentary, Beep, about how
musician-programmers managed to compose meaningful sounds and music in memory
constrained systems.

[http://www.gamessound.com/](http://www.gamessound.com/)

------
makapuf
quick summary : (video still interesting)

\- optimize sprites as 8x8 tiles, use symmetry

\- reuse sprites / tiles with different palettes

\- define levels as metatiles of 32x32 made of 4x4 tiles

\- set levels as symmetric, use high bit of metatile indices to define
rotation of each metatile line.

\- delta-encode hard mode wrt standard mode

------
mattseattle
It's an interesting project, and I enjoyed watching the video, Thanks for
sharing.

------
Hydraulix989
How big are they normally?

~~~
firdak
Offical NES games were between 24KB (e.g. Excitebike) and 768KB (Kirby's
Adventure) in size. The Japanese Famicom even had a 16KB game (Galaxian).

~~~
0xcde4c3db
Famicom also had a 1024KB game (Metal Slader Glory).

