What do you think SNES needs to see more new indie/homebrew games?

[Kirk_Johnston]

As I've mentioned before, all I personally think it needs is a single development tool along the lines of GameMaker 8.1* or NESmaker, a "SNESmaker" as it were. Something that more people can get to grips with without having to necessarily go out and learn pure Assembly or basically become a dedicated low-level programmer themselves just to make a start at a simple game for the system. Where they can build concepts of their ideas very quickly and intuitively and ideally test them directly from within the tool but also with the ability to output working SNES ROM files they can run on emulators and the like too, as well as get down into the nitty gritty code stuff if they choose to and/or want to create something a bit more sophisticated. Where installing it takes a minute and learning to use it takes a day, and then you're off. And then I think we'd see a whole load more SNES games and working demos in general.

 

That's what I think it needs, and that's what I'd like to see.

 

So, what do you think think SNES needs to see more new indie/homebrew games and/or what would you like to see for it in that regard?

 

*This is not for hardcore programmers who already know how to make these kinds of games the hard way, but, for those people specifically who have never really considered things from this particular point of view and who aren't sure why I keep bringing up GameMaker 8.1 specifically as the almost ideal model/template for such a SNES game creation tool as I see it, you can download and try GameMaker 8.1 for yourself--I don't think you need have a registration code just to use the basic program--and you'll see just how easy it all could be if such a well-made and dedicated tool existed specifically for creating SNES games:

 

GameMaker 8.1.exe

 

Edited September 25 by Kirk_Johnston

[Mittens0407]

If you're not dead set on making SNES stuff, what you're describing sounds a lot like GB Studio. I wouldn't hold your breath for SNES stuff though, even the Megadrive doesn't really have an "MD Studio" equivalent. So try out GB Studio and see how well it'd actually help you.

[smds]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

As I've mentioned before, all I personally think it needs is a single development tool along the lines of GameMaker 8.1* or NESmaker, a "SNESmaker" as it were. Something that more people can get to grips with without having to necessarily go out and learn pure Assembly or basically become a dedicated low-level programmer themselves just to make a start at a simple game for the system. Where they can build concepts of their ideas very quickly and intuitively and ideally test them directly from within the tool but also with the ability to output working SNES ROM files they can run on emulators and the like too, as well as get down into the nitty gritty code stuff if they choose to and/or want to create something a bit more sophisticated. Where installing it takes a minute and learning to use it takes a day, and then you're off. And then I think we'd see a whole load more SNES games and working demos in general.

Well the issue is that the higher up the creation process you go the less advanced kind of game/demo can be made (Assembly -> high level language such as C -> xyzMaker).

 

You're giving up performance and flexibility for the sake of convenience basically, these old and comparatively slow systems just isn't suited for "xyzMaker" type of tools unless you want to create something very basic. (RPG/GameMaker games tend to be very samey for a reason)

Also, the higher you go the more abstracted the system gets so you learn almost nothing about how the base system works.

 

Maybe I'm elitist but I don't think there's a cheaty "xyzMaker" way around it unless your idea of more games for SNES involves a lot of bad shovelware...

 

 

Disclaimer: I'm a MD/Genesis dev and have never written a single line of code for the SNES.

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, smds said:

Well the issue is that the higher up the creation process you go the less advanced kind of game/demo can be made (Assembly -> high level language such as C -> xyzMaker).

I would agree with that statement for the most part, other than calling it an "issue", which doesn't leave much room for those views that would consider it perfectly fine to sacrifice levels of complexity and niche participation for ease of use and much broader accessibility.

 

1 hour ago, smds said:

You're giving up performance and flexibility for the sake of convenience basically, these old and comparatively slow systems just isn't suited for "xyzMaker" type of tools unless you want to create something very basic. (RPG/GameMaker games tend to be very samey for a reason)

Also, the higher you go the more abstracted the system gets so you learn almost nothing about how the base system works.

I think many newcomers who just want to get started on SNES development would be okay with that.

 

1 hour ago, smds said:

Maybe I'm elitist but I don't think there's a cheaty "xyzMaker" way around it unless your idea of more games for SNES involves a lot of bad shovelware...

It's possible there's a bit of that coming through, but you'd be a better judge of that than I.

 

All I know is if we instantly shut any/all considerations and ideas that don't fit our own personal preferences, we'll certainly never know either way. So I see the value in brainstorming all ideas and possibilities for now, if this is an authentic discussion about how to improve the opportunities for new SNES game/demo development. 

 

Shovelware exists even in the hardcore scene, so I personally wouldn't reject a more intuitive and user-friendly tool just because it will also exist there too. And I know I certainly don't expect every new SNES game to be the next Super Mario World/Donkey Kong Country/Link to the Past/Super Metroid/etc, so I'm happy to consider what might come from such a tool and hope that at least one in however many games would be genuinely worthy of our time. I've seen some amazing stuff done on such kinds of tools by people who have great ideas and the means to actually realise them without studying the likes of low-level Assembly programming for years. In GameMaker's case, I can think of titles like Hyper Light Drifter, Undertale, Hotline Miami, Katana Zero. In NESMaker's case, I can think of games like Doodle World, Zeno Creeps, Hairy Dwarf, Caught Which City, etc. Personally, I would be all in for a bit more democratization of SNES development, and if it leads to even a handful of games like that, I'd be a happy man. The hardcore programmers will still have their options too, so this could be a win win situation as I see it.

 

1 hour ago, smds said:

Disclaimer: I'm a MD/Genesis dev and have never written a single line of code for the SNES.

Okay. Thanks for sharing. I am a Super Famicom/SNES developer, as well as just a dedicated SNES fan for life, and I too have never written a single line of code for the SNES. I cannot speak to your motivations and future plans, but I hope one day I might be able to tick that particular box and progress from being a Super Famicom/SNES developer who currently focuses mainly on the design, art and concepting sides of things to basically an all rounder there.

 

 

So, what do you think SNES needs to see more new indie/homebrew games?

Edited September 25 by Kirk_Johnston

[Mittens0407]

8 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

I am a Super Famicom/SNES developer, as well as just a dedicated SNES fan for life, and I too have never written a single line of code for the SNES.

[+Razzie.P]

As far as "needs..." it really just needs more people to care enough to WANT to develop for it.

 

 

New tools would be nice, of course, and it'll open the door for more people to start tinkering, but really, based on “all things equal…” we see so many homebrews for other systems with the same/similar barriers, like Genesis, Atari, Neo Geo, Colecovision, etc, that it seems like the one thing it really NEEDS is for more people who want to dedicate their talents to that system instead of some other.

 

30 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Shovelware exists even in the hardcore scene, so I personally wouldn't reject a more intuitive and user-friendly tool just because it will also exist there too. And I know I certainly don't expect every new SNES game to be the next Super Mario World/Donkey Kong Country/Link to the Past/Super Metroid/etc, so I'm happy to consider what might come from such a tool and hope that at least one in however many games would be genuinely worthy of our time. I've seen some amazing stuff done on such kinds of tools by people who have great ideas and the means to actually realise them without studying programming for years. In GameMaker's case, I can think of titles like Hyper Light Drifter, Undertale, Hotline Miami, Katana Zero. In say NESMaker's case, I can think of games like Doodle World, Zeno Creeps, Hairy Dwarf, Caught Which City, etc. Personally, I would be all in for a bit more democratization of SNES development. And if it leads to even a handful of games like that, I'd be a happy man. The hardcore programmers will still have their options too, so this could be a win win situation as I see it.

 

I agree with all that.   Funny thing is, NES Maker actually helped me take steps to learn to code for NES.  In a lot of ways, using that tool for anything more than asset management is more difficult than creating from scratch.  I like it and I love the idea, but it's very problematic to use for anything more than the small demo type things that are already coded in there.  BUT... thanks to it helping me get started, I can now create a NES game from scratch (without it) efficiently.   I doubt that I ever will, because I don't like coding, but I know can.

 

 

And I guess I'm an example of what I mentioned by how it just needs more people to care enough to do it.  I've played around with coding to see what it'd be like, and I'm confident that I can start creating for SNES, but I don't want to.  It wouldn't be easy and there'd be some learning along the way for sure, but I know I could.   But if I'm going to put in the effort, there are a lot of other formats and other systems that I would prefer to invest the time in, so it's down the list of "stuff I'll do"

 

 

I'd be more curious to know why more people don't already develop for it.  Is it strictly because of difficulty or some great preference for other systems instead?

 

[Kirk_Johnston]

44 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

As far as "needs..." it really just needs more people to care enough to WANT to develop for it.

 

 

New tools would be nice, of course, and it'll open the door for more people to start tinkering, but really, based on “all things equal…” we see so many homebrews for other systems with the same/similar barriers, like Genesis, Atari, Neo Geo, Colecovision, etc, that it seems like the one thing it really NEEDS is for more people who want to dedicate their talents to that system instead of some other.

 

I agree with all that.   Funny thing is, NES Maker actually helped me take steps to learn to code for NES.  In a lot of ways, using that tool for anything more than asset management is more difficult than creating from scratch.  I like it and I love the idea, but it's very problematic to use for anything more than the small demo type things that are already coded in there.  BUT... thanks to it helping me get started, I can now create a NES game from scratch (without it) efficiently.   I doubt that I ever will, because I don't like coding, but I know can.

 

 

And I guess I'm an example of what I mentioned by how it just needs more people to care enough to do it.  I've played around with coding to see what it'd be like, and I'm confident that I can start creating for SNES, but I don't want to.  It wouldn't be easy and there'd be some learning along the way for sure, but I know I could.   But if I'm going to put in the effort, there are a lot of other formats and other systems that I would prefer to invest the time in, so it's down the list of "stuff I'll do"

 

 

I'd be more curious to know why more people don't already develop for it.  Is it strictly because of difficulty or some great preference for other systems instead?

 

Your experience with NESmaker is exactly the kind of thing I expect would happen if a "SNESmaker" existed. And I think it would immediately make a lot more people interested in, excited about, and motivated to develop something/anything for SNES as a start. From there, I'm confident the SNES indie/homebrew scene would naturally grow quite a bit larger as a result, just as the NES indie/homebrew scene did after NESmaker came out. For me, I can say with absolute certainty it's really just a barrier to entry over everything else. And I have no doubt there's plenty of other people out there who genuinely want to developer for SNES too--I honestly think more than any of the other systems from around the NES to end of SNES era--but they just don't have a means that's realistically practical without jumping through too many pretty huge and obnoxious hoops. What I believe we need is a SNES game creation tool that's a bit more democratized and built a bit more with game developers in mind rather than just Assembly programmers. And I think, beyond everything else, it's really just a case of "if you build it, they will come".

Edited September 25 by Kirk_Johnston

[turboxray]

38 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

I'd be more curious to know why more people don't already develop for it.  Is it strictly because of difficulty or some great preference for other systems instead?

 

 Outside of demos, creating a game is pretty big project/task to take on. People's interest also were drawn to how the SNES dominated the translation scene. Its hacking scene was lively too. If you wanted gamers to enjoy your content on snes, those two areas were very accessible and a guaranteed audience; that's the part that made it competitive to homebrew on the snes IMO (having also been in the hacking/translation scene over the years). Given all the amazing SNES RPGs, I think it was worth the trade-off to homebrew.

 

 There's also the fact that expectations for SNES homebrew are much greater than on other systems. Why? I'm not sure.. but expectations somewhat align with that snes homebrew needing to be close to top tier quality - which is absurd, but true. With the advent of new Genesis homebrew really hitting that stride, the pressure is even greater now. I think this is why the hacking scene grew as big as did (well, mostly SMW hacking) - you have a top tier title that you could refashion into your own creative work, and still has that association with the original title.

 

 Anyway, I've been asking this question for the past 10 years in SNES dev. The answer hasn't changed. Assembly is not really the barrier here (because plenty of people do some complex hacking in translations and game hacks in assembly for the SNES). It might be a higher barrier to entry for people that want to make really simple stuff, but issue isn't really even "assembly" language - that's the easy part. Anyone and their mother can learn basic level of understanding of assembly - you might not like it, but you can easily learn it. Interfacing with the supporting hardware is much more complex IMO (when it comes to SNES). You could throw "C" at it, and still have that same issue (maybe slightly lower barrier to entry).

 

 

Quote

 a bit more democratization of SNES development

That's a nonsensical statement.

 

Quote

really just a case of "if you build it, they will come".

Yeah.. come complaining that X|Y|Z feature isn't implemented to take advantage of the SNES or such, but won't take the necessary steps to learn it. Razzie.P's experience is the exception to the rule, not the rule. 

 

Edited September 25 by turboxray

[turboxray]

Also, why are all these snes dev threads in this section, anyway??? There's are Programming and Homebrew sections on AA.

Edited September 25 by turboxray

[Kirk_Johnston]

Well, here's something rather interesting that just popped up on my Twitter for those of you who are able to see this sequence of tweets:

 

Talk about perfect timing.

 

I won't truly believe until I see it and try it for myself, but I'll keep dreaming of the day:

Edited September 25 by Kirk_Johnston

[jeffythedragonslayer]

1 hour ago, Razzie.P said:

I'd be more curious to know why more people don't already develop for it.  Is it strictly because of difficulty or some great preference for other systems instead?

 

Because there are two dialects of 65x assembly language you to learn, one for the 5A22 and one for the S-SMP, and you need to have both chips talk to each other if you want to have standard sound.  You can easily derail the CPU from the code if you aren't careful about the mx bits.  There's 8 background modes.  The NES is just a much simpler system.

Edited September 25 by jeffythedragonslayer

[+Razzie.P]

54 minutes ago, turboxray said:

Outside of demos, creating a game is pretty big project/task to take on.

 

Oh, absolutely.   I guess what I was really asking, though, wasn't so much "why aren't they developing for SNES (although I see it came out that way)" as much as all things equal, apples to apples, why does it seem that developers are choosing to create for something like Genesis instead of devoting those talents to SNES?  I'm out of the loop and never dabbled in coding anything for Genesis, but I figured they'd have similar barriers to getting started and people are just actively choosing "the other system."  That just me being ignorant, and are there more tools available to make game creation on Genesis an easier path somehow?

 

 

 

 

 

[jeffythedragonslayer]

2 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Oh, absolutely.   I guess what I was really asking, though, wasn't so much "why aren't they developing for SNES (although I see it came out that way)" as much as all things equal, apples to apples, why does it seem that developers are choosing to create for something like Genesis instead of devoting those talents to SNES?  I'm out of the loop and never dabbled in coding anything for Genesis, but I figured they'd have similar barriers to getting started and people are just actively choosing "the other system."  That just me being ignorant, and are there more tools available to make game creation on Genesis an easier path somehow?

 

 

 

 

 

The Genesis is a much easier system to develop for.  Even the manual uses normal page numbers instead of the triplet page numbers the SNES manual.

[turboxray]

11 minutes ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

Because there are two dialects of 65x assembly language you to learn, one for the 5A22 and one for the S-SMP, and you need to have both chips talk to each other if you want to have standard sound.  You can easily derail the CPU from the code if you aren't careful about the mx bits.  There's 8 background modes.  The NES is just a much simpler system.

Sure, but that's no different than the z80 on the Genesis. At least the S-SMP is still 65x based. The z80 is painful compared to coding on the 68k.

 

 But they solved the problem with just having someone else supply a "driver/engine/interface", and you just interface with it via whatever functions. I did the exact same thing on PCE; I wrote a complete music and sound FX engine - people can use it without ever knowing the details under the hood or having to ever write code for it. And being ISR driven approach means there are timing issue (you no longer have direct access to audio registers because the ISR will trample them and vice versa), but the "interface" provides everything you need. It's no different than most embedded systems.

 

 But yeah, the NES is just simpler. You can design a simpler game, and gamers will still accept it within the ecosystem of NES commercial tier games. Tho I personally was annoyed when that whole "single screen game" fad would just NOT die out on the NES homebrew scene haha. I mean, the NES CAN scroll. It can. It's not that difficult. It was cute at first, but then got old fast.

[turboxray]

13 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Oh, absolutely.   I guess what I was really asking, though, wasn't so much "why aren't they developing for SNES (although I see it came out that way)" as much as all things equal, apples to apples, why does it seem that developers are choosing to create for something like Genesis instead of devoting those talents to SNES?  I'm out of the loop and never dabbled in coding anything for Genesis, but I figured they'd have similar barriers to getting started.  That just me being ignorant, and are there more tools available to make game creation on Genesis an easier path somehow?

Part of it is that C/C++ on the 68k is better performance for the arch than anything 65x design wise (clock speeds aside). But mostly, it's the tool chain and library support (Stef went above and beyond for the sprite sheet parser... it's that good). And code looks and feels more modern.

[Austin]

It doesn't need anything. It already has a massive library of excellent titles. I'm all for whatever homebrew is cooked up, but in the meantime I'd suggest people stop wanting, and start playing what's already there.

[Kirk_Johnston]

1 hour ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

The Genesis is a much easier system to develop for.  Even the manual uses normal page numbers instead of the triplet page numbers the SNES manual.

Yup, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's currently just a lot easier to get up and running on Genesis, so more people are doing exactly that right now. And, as someone mentioned above, a lot of half-baked crap will come of it all just being easier for people to make something quickly using a slightly higher-level development environment, but a lot of great new stuff can and has come out of it too. Similarly, when NESmaker came out, which looks even easier to use than any of the Genesis SDKs I've seen, development on that system increased dramatically too. And that also came with its mixed bag of games and unfinished/unpolished demos and the like, but also some gems that make it all worth it imo. And I think if/when a genuinely intuitive SNES development tool comes around, the SNES will see a big jump in indie/homebrew development also, both good and bad, and maybe even some great. I'll take it!

Edited September 25 by Kirk_Johnston

[Atariboy]

3 hours ago, turboxray said:

Also, why are all these snes dev threads in this section, anyway??? There's are Programming and Homebrew sections on AA.

He's never written a single line of code on the SNES, so it really wouldn't make any more sense in the programming section.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

5 hours ago, turboxray said:

Also, why are all these snes dev threads in this section, anyway??? There's are Programming and Homebrew sections on AA.

The homebrew section seems to be about games not demos.

[+bent_pin]

This project would require a micro-language to be written including a compiler and debugger. On top of that language, 2 SDKs would need to be developed. On top of that an IDE would need to be developed, which would require its own VM and debugger. 

 

I've written more than one micro-language (I'm writing one right now) for specialized hardware and they take a minimum of a few hundred hours to a couple thousand hours. And that's the first of 6 major components.

[Tanooki]

8 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

I am a Super Famicom/SNES developer, as well as just a dedicated SNES fan for life, and I too have never written a single line of code for the SNES. I cannot speak to your motivations and future plans, but I hope one day I might be able to tick that particular box and progress from being a Super Famicom/SNES developer who currently focuses mainly on the design, art and concepting sides of things to basically an all rounder there.

 

So, what do you think SNES needs to see more new indie/homebrew games?

And an admission like this is the first step to recovery.

 

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt despite wondering if I should, a lot, and I'm going to be kind in this post as I once was as also a dedicated SNES (and NES, and Gameboy) fan for life.  While I'm also not a developer, I did help root out bugs/issues and help on the side rethink a few things helping with emulator projects directly with authors in the 95/96-early 00s era and SNES96 w/sound was an early one, then later zsnes before that went beta/test public too keeping to the realm of here despite there being far more.  IN that time I used to work also on 8 and 16bit sprite art and background tiles as well, so I have a grasp of what can and can't fundamentally work for actual solid play, vs a chugging mess, or just a beautiful display piece.  And that there is there things went south with your approach on things and lashing out as with I think most others here too despite their differing backgrounds.

 

That said...

I think what we need to see for SNES indie/homebrew development is a better set of core tools, not NES Maker/GB Studio easy, because you'll get a lot of samey watered down stuff, which to be fair, given the limited spec of the 8bit era it's far more acceptable and suited to, plus they also allow for open ended tweaking, coding, and enhancing where their tools get muddy or fall flat.  I recently had a friend gift me NES maker, if you think that's easy, good, but it's a pretty deep tool and has a lot of help videos online to try and figure it out.  Had I not picked up as second job recently I was suppsoed to re-learn my sprite/tile skills for the NES to help a friend start developing some Famicom games.  The tools I used 25 years ago are dead, lost and gone, even if found I'd have to run some crap virtual machine as they're from another time which is no bueno.

 

What needs to be done are core tools a C and ASM package depending on what weeds someone wants to get that deep into it.  I'm talking for core coding, then the audio side, and also I would say independently but outputs both as normal images as a visual test but also as SNES proper in style file format too to apply to an actual game.  But all that is moot without someone taking all the leaked and revere engineered documents out there about the core of the systems CPU, PPU, SPC700, and the rest, and secondarily to that the Hi/LoROm style carts nad the various expansion chips if someone wants to go hog wild on that.  Make these things very easy to read, good exmaples, perhaps even examples to download to see how they execute as well.  This exists for the 8bit stuff largely, it does not for 16bit, and as the SNES is more unique, and the Genesis is super generic given its CPU and audio chips are stock standard arcade stuff that' cheapened/watered down to a budget console it's super understood which is why the sega machine gets more love, not because there's a huge shadow conspiracy of sega suckups.

 

I'd also add in, given how we've gone in under a decade cost lowering ever so, perhaps using an off the rack stupid cheap FPGS, rockchip, whatever someone could make their own wonk version of a Nintendo expansion chip the hardware can understand instead of mutilating old carts like HIND STRIKE did to get the DSP1 processor for its display.

[Kirk_Johnston]

6 hours ago, bent_pin said:

This project would require a micro-language to be written including a compiler and debugger. On top of that language, 2 SDKs would need to be developed. On top of that an IDE would need to be developed, which would require its own VM and debugger. 

 

I've written more than one micro-language (I'm writing one right now) for specialized hardware and they take a minimum of a few hundred hours to a couple thousand hours. And that's the first of 6 major components.

Yeah, I have no doubt. It clearly took the NESmaker and GameMaker guys a whole lotta time, skill, and dedication to the thing they were passionate about to make such game creation tools. Total respect to them for that. And the results speak for themselves, both in terms of it opening up game development to far more people and indeed the money they're making from their game creation tools. And, since I was interested in developing simple mobile and PC titles at the time, the GameMaker guys got my money as a result, multiple times over with multiple versions, which amounted to multiple hundreds of pounds from me alone at the end of the day. And I ultimately published seven games on iOS/Android/Amazon, got a game greenlit on Steam (although never actually released it), used it to build a simple platform game for the youth employability group I was working with at the time, and have created endless playable demos/concepts/mockups out of it. So I give absolute thanks to them for that. They done did good!

 

So, here I am in the SNES sub-forum opening up a discussion about the creation of a similar tool for SNES, or indeed whatever it would take to help meaningfully grow the SNES development community ideally beyond primarily a handful of hardcore Assembly programmers. Because I think that would be a game-changer, and it would certianly aid me immensely too in terms of making actual working SNES content.

 

Is any of the stuff you're working on for SNES?

Edited September 26 by Kirk_Johnston

[+bent_pin]

3 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

indeed the money they're making from their game creation tools. And, since I was interested in developing simple mobile and PC titles at the time, the GameMaker guys got my money as a result, multiple times over with multiple versions, which amounted to multiple hundreds of pounds from me alone at the end of the day.

If 2000 people were able to pay that for version 1, it might break even. That's the amount of work that's needed, even at a charitable rate.

 

While loads of fun to play and to program, there is almost no educational benefit to it as it has no modern parallels. That is, it would be difficult to use it to teach about a modern concept. The NES and most Atari 8-bit line are much better in that, for educational and income potential. 

 

3 hours ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Is any of the stuff you're working on for SNES?

Nothing so grand for SNES, just toying with a couple simple games on the back burner. Probably not ever without the income potential either.

 

[Kirk_Johnston]

24 minutes ago, bent_pin said:

If 2000 people were able to pay that for version 1, it might break even. That's the amount of work that's needed, even at a charitable rate.

Quite possibly. I guess the people who've made these kinds of commercial development tools would know the exact details and be able speak more to that, so I'll leave that for them.

 

24 minutes ago, bent_pin said:

 

While loads of fun to play and to program, there is almost no educational benefit to it as it has no modern parallels. That is, it would be difficult to use it to teach about a modern concept. The NES and most Atari 8-bit line are much better in that, for educational and income potential. 

Well, there would have to be a SNES version of such a tool for me to form any kind of conclusive opinion on that. But I can say that having no such tool isn't helping much, at least not from my position. So I'd certianly still advocate for it. Because, as I see it, all the hardcore low-level stuff is already there, those people are catered to, and it's not yet resulted in lots of modern SNES devlopment and a large selection of brand new games for the system, so adding a more approachable, user friendly, and intuitive option for the other SNES developers too is really only a win win imo.

 

24 minutes ago, bent_pin said:

 

Nothing so grand for SNES, just toying with a couple simple games on the back burner. Probably not ever without the income potential either.

 

Coolio.

 

So, what do you think the SNES needs to see more new indie/homebrew games?

Edited September 26 by Kirk_Johnston

[+bent_pin]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

Because, as I see it, all the hardcore low-level stuff is already there, those people are catered to

Not really, it's more of a self-serve pot luck. 

 

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

it's not yet resulted in lots of modern SNES devlopment and a large selection of brand new games for the system

Correct, it was a limited market in its day. The only reason it was a commercial success is because Nintendo released it.

 

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

so adding a more approachable, user friendly, and intuitive option for the other SNES developers too is really only a win win

Meh, the market for SNES homebrews is so very limited. There's no gain in investing in a nearly non-existent market. The 4th gen winner was Genesis. Were someone to invest the time, Genesis would be wiser target for at least a chance at a return on the time invested.

 

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

So, what do you think the SNES needs to see more new indie/homebrew games?

A miracle.