random questions here...

Por sabiwa

Supporter (4)

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31-10-2008, 16:41

Hello there!

How difficult (or time consuming) would it be nowadays to program a brand new msx game that would rank with those amazing Konami classics like Nemesis, salamander, maze of galious etc.? I happened to read some Snatcher interview and realize how few people there were behind those great titles.

I'm asking this because of a pure interest. I'm no programmer myself, but as an working artist I tend to romantise the good ol' days when you could create games by yourself with a little or no help at all. I think there's a lot of common between "the bedroom" game programmer from the 80's and traditional artist (painter, writer etc.)

Nowadays the whole game corporation is so huge organism (like film industry) that cannot be an output for a creative mind who wants to do all by her/himself. So I find it really refreshing and inspirating that you are keeping the old methods alive here. It'd be interesting to hear what are the reasons (beside nostalgia itself) that keeps you programming graphics, music etc. with msx.

Thanks for your time..

-J

Big smile

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Por JohnHassink

Ambassador (5655)

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31-10-2008, 16:54

Don't have time to type much.
Look here for starters:

http://msxdev.msxblue.com/

;)

Por wolf_

Ambassador_ (10088)

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31-10-2008, 17:23

Well, I may have a nice example here: Montana John and the Templar's Treasure

The basics of this game were made with 2 persons, being Edwin for gamecode, maps and some devtools, and me for gfx, music, maps, story, label and some more devtools. In addition, chao5 also made 1 map. A few external people did some hardware checks and gameplay checks. But for most part, it was a 2-person venture.

We started this game in december 2007. After a month about 70% of the game was done. Prior to this game we already had:
- a buggy psgscc-player which we eventually had to fix
- a gfx engine
- a 99% usable map editor

After we missed MSXdev'07 we took a bit o' rest and demoed a more complete version on the Nijmegen'08 fair. A little later we released the full game, with -compared to the Nijmegen'08 demo- an extra level and some more details.

Adding all evenings and weekend/holidays in which we made this game together (with 3 evenings being 1 normal working day) I think we made this game in about 1.5 month. So, if we were doing this as a fulltime job, it'd probably cost us 1..2 months, and that's for a MegaROM Goonies-meets-Usas for MSX1/MSX2 with PSG/PSGSCC music.

Actually, the first month (december 2007) I kept a daily diary of what we were doing.


30 nov - <earlier game canceled>
1 dec - psg/scc fixes, thinking about new concept
2 dec - sfx player/converter, thinking about new concept
3 dec - Montana John concept
4 dec - level 1 gfx, music concept, tile organizing, player sprite in photoshop
5 dec - tune 1, tune 2, enemy sprites in photoshop, player bugfixes, highfrequency booster for samples (scc sounds)
6 dec - titlescreen, sprites organized, level 1 map start, start level 2 gfx
7 dec - karate kicks sprites, level 2 gfx
8 dec - tune 1 & tune 2 for psg, gameplay discussion
9 dec - karate kicks sprites to sprite format, gameplay discussion
10 dec - player sprite update
11 dec - player sprite update
12 dec - music experimenting, level 3 gfx start
13 dec - level somewhat playable
14 dec - teleports, rock
15 dec - more rock
16 dec - waterdrops
17 dec - waterfall concept, level 2 mapping
18 dec - waterfall
19 dec - panel, music additions
20 dec - a moving ghost, bouncing ^_^, tune 5, player bugs spotted
21 dec - tune 5 loop bug fixed, exp/hp implemented, ghost kick
22 dec - spider enemy
23 dec - level1 done, skeleton, additional gfx, elevators/transporters
24 dec - level 4 gfx
25 dec - enemies
26 dec - ROM label, manual
27 dec - intro tune, diary tune, elevator
28 dec - player dead sprites / shock sprites
29 dec - intro demo, tune fixes, --lotsa deadline stress--, 'the pit' level
30 dec - intro+bugs, treasure room gfx, treasure room music, sfx, major music bug caused deadline missed, maps
31 dec - music debugger

For the rest of the development time I didn't keep a diary.

I can't speak for others, but in our case I think the programming defines the pace of the development. I usually can keep up with the artwork. One thing we agree on which is not really 'our thing' is puzzle/map-making. However, I think the MJTT maps are quite funny after all.. :P

Por sabiwa

Supporter (4)

Imagen del sabiwa

31-10-2008, 18:53

That game looks absolutely gorgeous and sounds tooSmile Your music captures nicely the influences of 8-bit era. Still the tune is fresh and original. And only a few months in making...phew.

Btw, do you happen to have any information about Konami back then 1986-1987? I'm especially interested of Salamander and Nemesis 2 as they were realeased successively (Oddly Nemesis 2 never did to me that much, but I felt madly in love with Salamander...). Does the credits go to the same people and how many people were there in msx team?

Sorry, if these questions are answered many times before, I'm just finding my childhood memories againTongue

Por JohnHassink

Ambassador (5655)

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31-10-2008, 19:49

You may like to have a look at this:

http://www.msx.org/forumtopic8769.html

Everyone! Spam the projects you're working on here. We gotta costumer! :)

*damn* Why didn't I think of that first.

[edit] 1000th post! Yay!

Por Arkhan

Champion (259)

Imagen del Arkhan

10-11-2008, 03:14

Well I do not program for the MSX... since I still cant afford the dang thing, but!

I have been working on a game for the PC Engine, which at one point, games were developed using MSX computers with the Develo software kit...

I have the DOS version of this same software, and have been working on :

www.freewebs.com/turboarkhan/ since late September of this year and already have the graphics all done, and a buncha maps, and a near done game that will then just need polishing....

It is no masterpiece, but it is my first full fledged game :) On hardware I've been teaching myself as I go.