The NES game library is full of technical wonders!

One of my favorite effects has to be the spotlights 🔦 in "Rescue: The Embassy Mission."

What’s even cooler is how SIMPLE it is to achieve if you know the tricks!

Let me break it down for you! 🧵 #nesdev #screenshotsaturday Observe how the spotlight moves smoothly while the light naturally fades into deep shadows, just as it would in a real-world setting.

This method is so efficient that you can easily have multiple spotlights on screen during gameplay, without experiencing any slowdown.

Ever wonder how these cutscenes in Ninja Gaiden work? How do they do a letter box while having moving objects in side the letter box?

I'll tell you! And it actually relies on a LIMIT of the NES! 🧵 It might not be obvious why this is interesting, but ask yourself: how does this shot have Ryu clipped at the top of the frame? Why doesn't he pop out?

Here's how I do some really basic perf testing on my NES game, Super Sunny World 🌞

I can enable a "Frame Line" which draws a line of "white" at the end of the Game Loop. If that line goes past the bottom of the screen, that would result in a lag frame! #nesdev This works because while FRAME 1 is drawing, line by line from the top of the screen downward, FRAME 2 is being calculated. So the longer FRAME 2 takes to update, the lower on screen the line will be.

In response to my video showing Zapper gameplay in my upcoming NES game, Super Sunny World 🌞, I had a few people ask how the Zapper actually works.

I'll explain it at a high level! 🧵

Keep in mind, this is all very new to me, so I'm a beginner too! #nesdev #triggerwarning First I think it's easiest to think of the Zapper in 2 parts:

a) The Trigger
b) The Gun Barrel (light sensor)

Implementing scrolling on the NES is difficult. Because of that, I've been thinking about what different platformer games have done, and which battles I want to fight with my #nesdev game.

I'll document all the different *types* of scrolling I can think of in this thread. ::Full 8-Way Scrolling (Blaster Master)::

Levels extend in all directions with a maze-like layout, not favoring any one direction in particular. Levels are much larger than can fit in nametable, and employ level streaming.

Did you know: 🤔

The infamous "sprite flicker" you see on the NES, is not actually a built-in hardware feature.

This flicker needed to be hand-coded into every game!

But why!? 🧵👇 The flicker is an attempt to avoid a limitation of the NES:

The NES can only display 8 sprites per horizontal line of the screen.

Source: nesrocks.com/blog/nes-graph…

Here's a fun problem to solve when making NES games, that you might not even realize is a problem! #nesdev

Sprites on the NES are actually drawn in "screen space" and wrap around at the edges. But obviously in many games, this makes no sense! Here's how to solve it 🧵 The sprites are drawn in a range of 0-255 on the x-axis (0-239 on the y-axis), and have no concept of a "camera", or the level. It is up to the dev to draw them in a location on screen that makes sense, relative to the game's camera.

Here's a quick look at the TOP 5 games from this year's #nesdevcompo!

All games are free to play, and there are many more great games beyond these 5! 🧵👇 5th Place 🏆 @miau6502
miau6502.itch.io/crowborg

From the one of the developers behind Micro Mages, Böbl, Space Gulls and more!

A really original take on rogue-like where you can only move using a grappling hook. Clever enemy designs make this one stand out for me.

Got the day off work, and kids are in school! Time to go ham on this project, and turn *this* (side scroller) into *this* (top down rpg-like world map). #nesdev Bringin' in the lil' guy!

My top 5 NES homebrew at the moment!

#5 "NEScape!" (2019) by @atonofglaciers #4 "Spacegulls" (2021) by @morphcat

This debate between @davidscottjaffe and @hard8_times has been on my brain since I listened to it and I wanted to capture some thoughts on Game Streaming and what I heard. 🧵

Disclaimer: I work on Gears at Microsoft, but I'm not involved w/Cloud Gaming or GamePass.

https://twitter.com/davidscottjaffe/status/1410548560341344256

1. There is a huge difference between what *I/YOU* want, and what "most people" want. Compartmentalize your personal preferences and think about what the vast majority of people value.