So, Symphony of the Night on SNES ...

[Kirk_Johnston]

 

Now I wonder how close the SNES could get with a full version....

 

Note: Read the video description for details.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Ugh don't turn into one of those people, those who pop links and don't discuss.

I don't see the relevance of this, you're just re-assembling still images and other oddball stuff.

 

Could the SNES do it?  Likely yes, it would just come down to optimization, proper working with the memory limits, as I don't think the color would be much of an issue or effects, nor would the audio if properly sampled and compressed nicely into instruments the SPC700 can handle.  The question is would anyone bother like they are on Genesis right now because on there you can just brute force it a bit more seeing the progress there.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

Sonic on the SNES?!  What is this world coming to?

[+Gemintronic]

Not actually SNES..  Game Maker 8 on PC

 

Quote

Look, it's all running in GameMaker 8.1 in this clip, but everything you see is to SNES spec and within its capabilities. And, just to be clear, the shump stuff has already been coded for SNES by some talented people and tested as such, so I have no doubt this is all entirely legit in terms of representing what SNES can do. The images are literally just 8bbp 256-colour images, which the SNES does as standard in Mode 3. And I also contacted some SNES programmers to see if they can quickly code-up the Symphony of the Night examples, just so people are left in no doubt that the SNES could do exactly what you see here. Let's see if they get back to me on that and how soon we get something on that front. . . .

 

P.S.  I have no issues with retro style PC games.  I've made them myself and love it.

[Kirk_Johnston]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Ugh don't turn into one of those people, those who pop links and don't discuss.

I don't see the relevance of this, you're just re-assembling still images and other oddball stuff.

 

Could the SNES do it?  Likely yes, it would just come down to optimization, proper working with the memory limits, as I don't think the color would be much of an issue or effects, nor would the audio if properly sampled and compressed nicely into instruments the SPC700 can handle.  The question is would anyone bother like they are on Genesis right now because on there you can just brute force it a bit more seeing the progress there.

Well, I think I discuss more than enough stuff in general in here that the occasional link to something external that I created is acceptable.

 

And the relevance is simply that it's two level backgrounds and the main character in idle anim pose taken directly from PlayStation Symphony of the Night and formatted for SNES to show how it could look on it, which is pretty much identical in these examples, then some other examples of Mode 3 with a bunch of 8pp 256-colour images formatted for SNES, and then a demo of Mode 0 and four fully overlapping backgrounds as they would work on SNES too. 

 

The first bit is directly related to the topic question, and the other two are just things on the same test program I've been making. But all are examples of things the SNES can do, which I think is kinda interesting in general.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[+Gemintronic]

Ah!  I missed the fact that the YouTube video was your own Kirk_Johnston!

 

Impressive Game Maker skills!  Game Maker Studio 2 and beyond are not worth it.  Been meaning to switch over to Godot but its different enough to feel like a real challenge.  I'd rather put effort into learning C and PVSNESlib to make actual SNES games.

[Kirk_Johnston]

15 minutes ago, Gemintronic said:

Ah!  I missed the fact that the YouTube video was your own Kirk_Johnston!

 

Impressive Game Maker skills!  Game Maker Studio 2 and beyond are not worth it.  Been meaning to switch over to Godot but its different enough to feel like a real challenge.  I'd rather put effort into learning C and PVSNESlib to make actual SNES games.

Yeah, Kirk Johnston and iNCEPTIONAL are the same entities--me.

 

So would I. And I did try for a moment. But honestly--no offense to the people making these SNES tools--the people making these SNES tools just do have not clue how to make something an average human being like me can use. It's far too "programery" designed. Even just getting to grips with setting it up is a massive and imo unnecessary hurdle, before you've even started anything. I've learned then coded and released 8 games/apps and other stuff in GameMaker 8.1, learned and then coded a VR game in Unity, and even scripted levels on GTA V for Rockstar North, and I just can't wrap my head around the stuff these guys are making, mostly because it's far to complex and convoluted right out that gate. It's just a mass of random stuff I think they actually believe other people just magically know about and understand somehow intuitively or something--but some people don't. It really needs to be more designer designed like GameMaker 8.1 imo. Something like a SNESmaker version of NESMaker would be perfect. If we ever get a tool like that for SNES development, I'll be all over it.

 

But, within my own abilities, what I'm just trying to do is put some SNES concept examples and stuff out there and maybe/hopefully inspire someone who can do this SNES stuff to either try stuff like that themselves or actually build a proper user-friendly tool to let the rest of us who are interested in making actual SNES games do it.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[+Gemintronic]

28 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

So would I, but honestly--no offense to the people making these tools--they people making these SNES tools just have not clue whatsoever how to make something an average human being like me can use. It's far too "programery" designed. I've coded stuff in GameMaker 8.1, code a VR games in Unity, and even scripted levels on GTA V for Rockstar North, and I just can't get wrap my head around the stuff these guys are making, mostly because it's far to complex and convoluted right out that gate. It really needs to be more designer designed like GameMaker 8.1 imo. Something like a SNESmaker version of NESMaker would be perfect. If we ever get a tool like that for SNES development, I'll be all over it.

 

We should get to it then.  TRSE is NOT C and supports many systems including the SNES

https://lemonspawn.com/turbo-rascal-syntax-error-expected-but-begin/downloads/

 

UPDATE:  Bah.  Couldn't get the 2 SNES examples to compile.  I'll see if someone in the TRSE community can help.

 

 

 

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, Gemintronic said:

 

We should get to it then.  TRSE is NOT C and supports many systems including the SNES

https://lemonspawn.com/turbo-rascal-syntax-error-expected-but-begin/downloads/

 

UPDATE:  Bah.  Couldn't get the 2 SNES examples to compile.  I'll see if someone in the TRSE community can help.

 

 

 

Oh, the irony. Lol

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, Gemintronic said:

 

We should get to it then.  TRSE is NOT C and supports many systems including the SNES

https://lemonspawn.com/turbo-rascal-syntax-error-expected-but-begin/downloads/

 

UPDATE:  Bah.  Couldn't get the 2 SNES examples to compile.  I'll see if someone in the TRSE community can help.

 

 

 

By the way, I may not be able to understand the very low-level complex under-the-hood stuff that well, sadly, but, if you ever need some feedback on just the useability and UI of some SNES tool or something else for making SNES games, assuming I can understand things enough to even get it running in the first place, which isn't the case for most of them I've tried or at least looked at, I'd certainly be happy to contribute on that end.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[+Gemintronic]

16 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

By the way, I may not be able to understand the very low-level complex under-the-hood stuff that well, sadly, but, if you ever need some feedback on just the useability and UI of some SNES tool or something else for making SNES games, assuming I can understand things enough to even get it running in the first place, which isn't the case for most of them I've tried or at least looked it, I'd certainly be happy to contribute on that end.

 

I think making a visual IDE with built in tools is probably more within our grasp.  Take the higher level classic console dev tools and give them the Game Maker IDE treatment.  I know yellowafterlife makes text highlighting extensions but they all might be higher versions than GM8.

https://yellowafterlife.itch.io/gml-string/devlog/479506/gm2022-feature-support

[Mittens0407]

"These tools for programming are far too programery" lol

I can confirm that despite it's proliferation SGDK is still quite programery, due to the need of ability to program.

[+Gemintronic]

4 minutes ago, Mittens0407 said:

"These tools for programming are far too programery" lol

I can confirm that despite it's proliferation SGDK is still quite programery, due to the need of ability to program.

 

When I tried to get into SGDK the community either ridiculed or ignored calls for a visual IDE with integrated tools.  Like it was a rite of passage to helplessly fumble through installing and configuring generic C editors.  Hopefully that has changed over the years.

[Mittens0407]

12 minutes ago, Gemintronic said:

 

When I tried to get into SGDK the community either ridiculed or ignored calls for a visual IDE with integrated tools.  Like it was a rite of passage to helplessly fumble through installing and configuring generic C editors.  Hopefully that has changed over the years.

The main issue I've had with SGDK was documentation. I was able to scroll a screen with the built in text characters but that was just abusing the hello world example lol. Maybe I'm just stupid though. People seem friendly on the Discord, some are even talking of 32x support and what not.

 

Edit: It seems they've sorted out the installation stuff. https://github.com/Stephane-D/SGDK/wiki I was able to use Visual Studio with it pretty easily.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Mittens0407
oops

[Kirk_Johnston]

36 minutes ago, Gemintronic said:

 

When I tried to get into SGDK the community either ridiculed or ignored calls for a visual IDE with integrated tools.  Like it was a rite of passage to helplessly fumble through installing and configuring generic C editors.  Hopefully that has changed over the years.

Probably not.

 

And, because the SNES is a clumsy and convoluted architecture and design as is, with so many different ways of doing things on the system that all affect other things in the most obtuse ways (even having eight different background modes vs the Genesis single one can be a nightmare--many actual SNES developers still don't even understand the full capabilities and potential of half of them properly to this day), with crap documentation to boot, and really, not a very supportive mostly-hardcore-programmer [and quite elitist in my personal experience] development community also, I think SNES needs a game creation tool that's even more user friendly for just actual game designers/artists/creators than normal.

 

It's certainly a steep hill to climb, but, man, I'm praying that one day the SNES community as a whole can figure a way to get up it. Because, honestly, if [once] that happens, I think something magical is going to take place in the SNES development scene.

 

I keep my fingers crossed. . . .

Edited February 8, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Mittens0407]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Probably not.

Why?

[Wayler]

As SotN is a 2D game that doesn't push the PS1 to it's limits, I see no reason why it wouldn't work on the SNES, if you just cut out some of the more fancier effects out or simplify them.

After all, many of the enemies are the same sprites from Rondo of Blood, which was also ported as a gimped version for the SNES as Dracula X (or Vampire's Kiss here in PAL), so a smidgen of that work has already been done.

And I guess it could be viewed as a technical achievement if someone was going to do that but I'd rather someone put up the time and effort to make a new Metroidvania for the SNES.

[Tanooki]

Would really cutting the effects have to happen?  At least anymore so than the scaled back Genesis port that's coming?  The Genesis can't even do some of the effects of the PS1 version, Saturn sure, like dithering vs transparency, but SNES can do that.

[Kirk_Johnston]

Well, here's a slightly updated version either way, this time with some early parallax and the walk animation added in:

 

 

Note: And no sprites were wasted faking that third tree background layer.

 

Again, I sent all the converted assets and the GM 8.1 test over to a SNES programmer, so let's see if they code it up for me. . . .

Edited February 9, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Kirk_Johnston]

8 hours ago, Wayler said:

As SotN is a 2D game that doesn't push the PS1 to it's limits, I see no reason why it wouldn't work on the SNES, if you just cut out some of the more fancier effects out or simplify them.

After all, many of the enemies are the same sprites from Rondo of Blood, which was also ported as a gimped version for the SNES as Dracula X (or Vampire's Kiss here in PAL), so a smidgen of that work has already been done.

And I guess it could be viewed as a technical achievement if someone was going to do that but I'd rather someone put up the time and effort to make a new Metroidvania for the SNES.

I certainly wouldn't complain if that were to happen. But, seeing as I'm not seeing much from the SNES indie/homebrew either way, I guess this is better than nothing for now.

[Kirk_Johnston]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Would really cutting the effects have to happen?  At least anymore so than the scaled back Genesis port that's coming?  The Genesis can't even do some of the effects of the PS1 version, Saturn sure, like dithering vs transparency, but SNES can do that.

Yeah, you'd definitely need to cut down/out some of the more showy effects, and more besides. But, yeah, no more than we're seeing in the Genesis port, and actually less in many cases. And, like you said, there's some things the SNES port could retain above and beyond the Genesis port, like the scaling photo at the end of the intro, the Mode 7 background during the fight with demon Dracula there that starts the game, the coloured semi-transparent menus and dialogue boxes, the Mode 7 background when you first meet Death, the obviously far more colour across the board, some additional parallax in places (without having to waste sprites), the particular orchestrated sound of the music, and even the full controls being mapped to the standard controller nigh-identically too, etc.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Color isn't much of an issue with what you can do on a plane in a good mode, usually around 128 colors if I remember right.  A bit of simple blending would do the trick having 2 colors near each other to kind of cross the barrier having it repeat every other pixel for a row or two which was common back then, and also easier I guess to hide on a blurry CRT, yet still looks nice sharp too on modern output.  Depending how much of the room is used up driving the game, depending how you sample and compress the samples for playback, given the SNES can do 33khz output you could get a pretty decent facsimile of the music, which Dracula X(SFC XX) vs Dracula X(PCE) sounds of fairly nice in tunes both share.  The ability is there to do SOTN, but without anyone oddly having the will despite the system and franchise, the tools I think lack so ...why bother.  Just like it's nuts no one has bothered to right Final FIght on SNES, instead going with Genesis.  I would think, going with a ROM size larger and HiROM, perhaps using Final Fight 2 as a template, a full on graphics, audio, totality of it really swap I think the old original could be done with all characters.  If not there, then at least Final Fight 3 seeing it did have 2P too.

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Color isn't much of an issue with what you can do on a plane in a good mode, usually around 128 colors if I remember right.  A bit of simple blending would do the trick having 2 colors near each other to kind of cross the barrier having it repeat every other pixel for a row or two which was common back then, and also easier I guess to hide on a blurry CRT, yet still looks nice sharp too on modern output.  Depending how much of the room is used up driving the game, depending how you sample and compress the samples for playback, given the SNES can do 33khz output you could get a pretty decent facsimile of the music, which Dracula X(SFC XX) vs Dracula X(PCE) sounds of fairly nice in tunes both share.  The ability is there to do SOTN, but without anyone oddly having the will despite the system and franchise, the tools I think lack so ...why bother.  Just like it's nuts no one has bothered to right Final FIght on SNES, instead going with Genesis.  I would think, going with a ROM size larger and HiROM, perhaps using Final Fight 2 as a template, a full on graphics, audio, totality of it really swap I think the old original could be done with all characters.  If not there, then at least Final Fight 3 seeing it did have 2P too.

Yeah, there was a very rough hack that added in the second player to Final Fight on SNES, and that was cool, but it just wasn't anywhere near as final [no pun intended] and polished as what the Genesis is getting with its new port, which genuinely looks great. And it's very frustrating, because I know fine well the SNES is capable of so much more than both the version of Final Fight it got and even the slightly updated version the SNES community has saw fit to put together thus far.

 

I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like the standard of quality people are willing to push for with the stuff they are working on for Genesis is just generally a lot higher than whatever people are making for SNES. Maybe the Genesis guys feels they have something to prove and the SNES guys are kinda resting on their laurels or something. But, I can definitely say this, the Genesis has pulled far ahead of the SNES in modern times in terms of all the new and extremely high quality content coming to it, including a load of proper brand new games that anyone owning the system must be extremely happy about and satisfied with. I'd love to one day see the same for SNES too.

 

But, hey, I'm posting some stuff within my own limits and hoping it maybe at least makes some people in the SNES development/indie/homebrew/hacker communities think, why the hell not, let's making an amazing new game for SNES, or even just do a high-quality port or demo version of this and that.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[jeffythedragonslayer]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:23 PM, Mittens0407 said:

Why?

I can't really speak to the SGDK specifically, but while there many be more than a few here or there in the 16-bit game dev scene that wish that everyone who can't/won't program in assembly would simply go ahead away, I do think things are slowly getting better.  I do feel that these homebrew communities aren't quite big enough to have too much of a choice in who you work with though; I try to adapt. 

[Tanooki]

I don't think it's the console wars revived when it comes to attempts and development.  If you go beyond those two, what else gets the most?  NES?  Gameboy?  Colecovision?  If you look back and then throw Genesis in there anyway, most works seem to come by the most well known and known to be easier to work consoles, helping further when they may have something of a genre missing largely or just not well done within that scope so someone takes the bite.  Genesis has a heap of knowledge about the 68000 and z80 from the arcade and earlier oddball computer tech too.  Gameboy shares this Z80.  The NES chip and Coleco being fairly similar have roots in Apple land being quite similar to the IIe if I remember the model right.  All of them are hot properties with overly well mined for experience hardware that is easy to get and easier to coax something fine out of.  The SNES not so much, maybe not the CPU but that audio chip is a bit of a bitch compared to the YM of the Genesis for sure.  SNES maybe a bit more popular, but being hot and being less easy to make something and less easy to get how to do it than another makes it a bit I think of a homebrew pariah.  For those who do get it, and those who really make a fine attempt you get those road less traveled bit of excellence like Hind Strike I've brought up before that feels like a commercial effort.