HOME | DD
Carnivius — Dragon game NES
Published: 2011-09-17 14:20:14 +0000 UTC; Views: 13047; Favourites: 149; Downloads: 238
Redirect to original
Description
My little Dragon game has now been reworked to fit NES standards much more accurately. Meaning the graphics are now made using the NES' weird attributes and palette system (backgrounds have a maximum of 4 palettes of 4 colors, sprites have 4 palettes of three colors per transparency) plus avoiding any occurence of 8 8x8 sprite areas on the same row. A lot of optimization was needed to get things working that way but now it's done I'm really happy with how it looks.Idea behind this is that once I'm done with the PC prototype anyone who wants to produce a real NES version can have access to the resources and the game should look and play very close (but have the added benefit of being a rom that can run on any system that has a NES emulator, so pretty much anything).
Scan-line version as usual can be found at [link]
Related content
Comments: 51
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
WOW. I was looking for original NES art, and when I saw the thumbnail for this I was upset, because that is NOT within the capabilities of the NES.
But then when I took a closer look, I found that it was. WOW. You do NOT break the limits for color palettes, and I'd bet this could easily fit within the tile restrictions too. Good work!
The only "error" I see is the background tree right beneath the bridge uses two palettes in a 16x16 block, but that was actually possible with certain chips, it was just really expensive to produce. And of course, that's way more sprites than one could fit on the screen, but I figure it's more of a "demo" or "sample" image, so that's fine.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks for the nice comments. This is actually really ancient now and I ditched it cos I was a bit unhappy with the general murkiness of it.
I later redid the dragons and went for a bit more clean and cartoon like style. And this one is actually from a playable engine made in Gamemaker Studio 2 to get a feel for how it all works. You might still prefer the older one but eh that's cool.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
This game is cute, follows well the NES limitation.
BTW, love the NES palette.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks. Would be nice to make a full game of it but I haven't the time these days.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thanks. Not that good though. Sunsoft were masters of the NES.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I think it would be if I could actually make it a real game.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
this is very sexy! I dont suppose you know about getting started on making a NES game do you? I'm considering it if only to educate myself, so far all I know is its in assembly XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I don't know a single thing about making an actual NES game but I did design these graphics with real NES limitations so that a real NES programmer could have a go if they wanted. I have the sprite sheets for various sprites on there too (such as the dragons walking, jumping, idle and firing).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I saw in the other comment the sheet where you organised your pallets, it is very impressive what you've managed to do abiding by the NES standards.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks, yeah I find such 'limitations' encourage experimentation and thought to get the most out of them and creating some neat stuff you'd probably never even think of doing without those restrictions in place. It's what I find interesting about old computer graphics.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I try limitations from time to time but I've never actual looked up limitations of old consoles before. I typically limit 4 shades to a colour and 4 colours to a sprite (so a max of 16 colours). But I suppose that's quite a wide limit. I may look up some console history, it'd be interesting to attempt the same sprite through gameboy (2-bit graphics 8-bit cpu), nes (8-bit) and snes (16-bit).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I just did another interesting palette limit the other day. A guy's commissioned me to do the graphics for a Bejeweled clone for the old 16 bit Atari ST. Maximum 16 colors on screen total and yet I managed to get all 7 gems looking decent, well shaded, with depth and shine so I'm pretty pleased with it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Love it!
I compose music for games, let me know, if you are interested
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks. This 'project' is on hold but I'll keep the offer in mind if it ever gets going again. I kinda miss it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I was but I haven't had much free time.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I would love to help you make it into a nes rom but I'm a real novice at NES assembly. Maybe when I have more experience I'll check back with you.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
thanks. I'll keep that in mind though I'm extremely busy these days with work and other activities. Haven't had a chance to do much more on this yet
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
What did you use to set your self strait on the NES palette specifications and such? On that note, that is an awesome palette, really nice and vibrant... thats probably that stands out the most in your work for me, I dig your colors... I intend to make a NES game or 2 in the next 2 years or so, and have read a lot, but I am always interested in more. Another system Id like to release on is virtual boy... not so amazing if you don't love red, but fortunately I do.
xD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The NES restrictions are quite annoying at first but you get used to them. Maybe it's easier to show how I went about it with this [link]
You see how the palettes are set up? The NES uses small palettes made up of four colors for background tiles, and three colors for sprites (since the fourth color is transparency). Palettes 0-3 are for background tiles only including the font and status panel stuff. Palettes 4-7 are only for the sprites. Tiles can be animated which is why I have the coins on the top right only appear on black areas so that they can animate and have plenty of them on screen (as no more than eight 8x8 sprite blocks can exist on a row on the NES without problems. The flickering in some games such as the Mega Man series is actually a feature, not a glitch, that deals with showing all those on the same row else some would never appear at all) and since tiles don't have a transparent color I just stick those wherever is a solid black 16x16 area. Sprites can switch the palettes round to change their colors (so the green dragon turns to the blue pallete when he becomes ice dragon, and the pink dragon turns red when she gets her fire power). That's also the case for when Mario in Super Mario Bros turns invincible and cycles very quickly through all of the sprite palettes to give that sort of 'energised' invincible look.
Sorry if this makes no sense. I'm terrible explaining things.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Looks awesome!
Getting the retro-nostalgia fuzzies just looking at it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Will we be able to play this? It looks really sweet
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hope so. It's playable at moment.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
The beauty and the headaches of actually sticking to them.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I wish that times of 2D games back. Very good work.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you. Was a pain in the butt trying to get used to actual NES restrictions but I've got the hang of it now and can get on with setting the actual game up to match and do other level sets.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The hardest part must be checking if some colors aren't occurrence (You can always add black outline to sprites and items, but it look like player and monsters are on different layer than level), as far as I remember commodore also have that kind of restriction.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This looks so stylish! and it looks fun to play too.
I love it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks, I hope you'll enjoy playing it when it's done.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Cool! Please let us know when you have news about this.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Really an excellent job. The NES had so much potential but the pixel artists of the day weren't very good... Some of the pixel art in the 80s was pretty good (mario 3) but others.... welll.... yeah....
faved!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks. To be fair the NES limitations are very weird and headache-inducing. It takes some practice and experimentation to get quality results out of it. Once an artist got the hang of it though we got great looking games like Batman (and it's sequel), Shatterhand, Little Samson and so on.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Woah! this would be so cool to play on the NES!, nice job man
👍: 0 ⏩: 1