Heart of the OHR Contest 2016

Oh, good on you for trying to learn 6502 assembly. It has a very good reputation; I've always wanted to learn it. Comes up often enough that I've picked up the basics.
The NES audio processing unit is documented here (or see the Nerdy Nights article). As you can see, it is controlled by setting the states of 21 memory-mapped registers, which control 5 channels (instruments). One of those instruments actually plays samples, meaning that you point it at a buffer containing a waveform (like a .wav file) while the others are like the OPL chip instruments that .BAM was created for. If you want to write a NES game don't do it from scratch, instead take some existing code to play .NSF files or similar. Playing music would be the most modular part of the engine, where you can easily slot in existing code, but you probably ought to try to use existing code for other parts too.

MIDI was proposed in 1981 and not standardised until 1983.


Well, aside from Kids These Days, any programmer can program any computer, right? Maybe you can look more broadly.

You might also look into one of those things where the gut an NES and put a teeny computer inside of it that can play almost anything. Combine it with one of them NES Cartridges that's actually a USB storage device and you could have the joy of plugging your own game's cartridge into an NES and playing it on a TV without the hassle of actually programming for a 30 year old family computer.

How about a Raspberry Pi and turning it into a dedicated OHRRPGCE machine and printing a custom 3D case? I'd call it the Official Hamster Republic RPG Raspberry. Then I'd just fix my hamster game up and not worry about the NES. Be way cheaper too than hiring someone I can't find.

I saw an NES cart emulator on ebay, thought it sort of odd. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ALL-IN-ONE-video-game-emulator-cartridge-Super-Nintendo-Sega-Atari-Gameboy-NES-/111950000566?hash=item1a10bd71b6:g:uJQAAOSwxp9W-Wct

Some sort of OHR console would be fantastic, despite the small potential audience.

I'd kickstart that.

Though, given that the OHR already ports so easily to Android and the ease at which you can make android consoles, that's what I'd go for personally.

Or, you know, just get an OUYA or something.

Hi Dragonchaser,

Just downloaded your game and took a quick look - it looks like you've put a lot of effort into this. I will give it a playthrough in the near future, but so far it looks like a solid old school style RPG.

Cheers.

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Seth Hetu got the OHRRPGCE running on Raspberry Pi.

I am not sure why but I just bought a RasPi off ebay, likely use is a home made mini arcade. I was also thinking solar/battery powered for a twist and an all wood cabinet since I like working in wood.

I am glad Hamster runs on Pi and it's been figured out. Is there any way to full screen Hamster or is that a limitation it has?

I've heard some good and mostly bad about the Ouya and no interest in getting it. I seldom play new games but when I do it's a Dragon Quest one. It's true, bought a PS1 from a pawnshop when Dragon Warrior 7 came out to play it, played some other great games too because of that like MechWarrior and Resident Evil 2. Then I bought a PS2 when DQ8 came out, bought a DS when DQ 9 came out.

Can you do a first person battle perspective in Hamster like Dragon Warrior? I thought I read somewhere it could be done. Also you can do platformers and shooters on Hamster?

I am trying Successor's Legacy, I like it, feels more polished than my game. I am stuck, I think I read you can play to the 3rd boss but after 16 minutes I can't seem to progress any further. Will keep playing.

To fullscreen the program, press alt+enter. Also, the next version Callipygous (which might be the current version by the time you read this) lets you set the game to start in fullscreen by default, or add a Fullscreen option to the main menu.

For first-person perspective, again, this works better if you use Callipygous, in which you can go to the Hero Formation editor and simply place the heroes at the bottom of the screen, or off the screen, and don't use any Attacker Animations like 'Dash in' or Attack Animations like Projectile which cause a hero, enemy or projectile to move across the screen (because they cause the hero/enemy to run up to the right/left side of the target). However if you place the heroes totally off-screen then you then can't see which hero you're targetting or which is being attacked.

There's no built-in support for platformers/shooters, although they're possible if you script them (there is a good set of scripts and article series, SideScroller 101) and a lot of people have (page hasn't been updated in 5 years). But it would probably be easier to use a dedicated game engine.

Don't make a platformer with the OHR.

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Unless you're making a platformer with RPG battles that happen when you run into enemies. Which would potentially be kind of cool.

Yea, you'd have to be stupid to make a sidescroller with the ohrrpgce.

Platforming RPG does sound like it has potential.

Crazy or Genius.... sadly I'm not quite either of those

99% of genius is effort.

I ended up in the ER this morning after a sleepless night of frightening anxiety/panic induced symptoms that felt like I was having a heart attack. Really hope this isn't going to derail my momentum on this project, which I feel has been going surprisingly well the first month. I'll do my best to hang in there and get something good released.

I'll give you an extra day or two at the end of the window if you want. Health comes before contest deadlines. I don't mind accommodating people who get derailed unexpectedly. Just remind me I said that in case I forget.

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