User:Zero/Nomolos

I began this project in late 08' when I finally realized what I really wanted to do with programming as a hobby. I realized that making a game for one of the video game consoles I dearly loved as a child would likely motivate me more than anything else. I had a couple of ideas when I was a kid, and partially developed those ideas in QuickBASIC. But now that I'm a little older and wiser I thought it'd be way cooler to put those ideas on a real video game console and actually finish them.

Nomolos is a constrained right-scrolling action platformer game that borrows elements from the original Castlevania, Super Mario Bros. and other well known games. It stars an orange cat in armor named Nomolos (this is Solomon backwards, the name of one of my cats), and the setting is renaissance/baroque era. The soundtrack will consist entirely of baroque music by Domenico Scarlatti, but I may throw in a couple of pieces I've written also. My goal is to make a simple and fun game---I have no intention or desire to break new ground with it. I'm all about nostalgia and that "classic" feel.

Overview

• Project owner: Gradualore
• Developer: Gradualore
• Artist: Ravenwolf
• Compiler : CA65
• Sound driver: Famitracker
• Soundtrack by: Domenico Scarlatti
• Started on: ~November 08
• Current status: working on it consistently but gradually.
• Expected date: January 2013
• Will make cart: Considering as possibility.

Current status

2010-2-20

One of the new enemies has been completed. Finally, there's more than one enemy! This one has much more interesting movement than the first one I coded (which just went back and forth and didn't do much else). Hopefully things will start to accelerate from here on out.

2010-1-7

I recently completed yet another overhaul, but this time it was to my graphics editor and general development environment. For nearly all development activities, I've got it down to a single keystroke (build/run, build/run/debug, invoke various editors, generate data files that incorporate themselves into source code, etc.). I practically have my own personal NESICIDE working for me, although admittedly many of the tools are specific to my own way of doing things. I also made some improvements to how entities work, so developing new entities moving forward ought to be a little bit simpler. I've got some new graphics from Ravenwolf for a couple of new enemies, and my next task is to code them.

2010-1-30

Just completed a major overhaul of the game engine with the goal of significantly improving efficiency of ROM-space usage with more bankswitching. With my current test data, I have halved the amount of ROM space needed by adding more bankswitching (redundancy was needed before when the non-fixed bank was used for all in-game data). This should give me a lot more space. I believe there is even more opportunity for space savings, but that can be added later depending on how "spacious" everything feels as I add more enemies, graphics, levels, etc.

2010-1-24

Made various minor improvements to the workings of the game engine. Particularly, the workflow of taking graphics data from my editor and putting it into my game is a little better now. There is now a 1-up item, and you can finally die when you fall into a bottomless pit. Also, I integrated graphics (by Ravenwolf as always), animations and logic for a new weapon: a flail! It's cool because it can hit enemies in front and behind of Nomolos. Doing this forced me to come up with a slightly more organized approach to handling sub-states of states of Nomolos, so that's good. Now I'm ready to start creating some new, more interesting enemies! We'll soon learn if 16 bytes is really enough for a single entity instance...I suspect I may end up having to use more in order to get more appealing movements out of the enemies.

2010-1-17

I recently learned that producing UNROM boards for physical cartridges is much easier/cheaper than other mappers. Therefore, to keep physical cartridge production an option for the future, I have overhauled Nomolos to use UNROM (Mapper 2) instead of MMC1. NOW it is ready to move forward with more game content =)

2010-1-13

Mock-up title screen and game over screen have been integrated. Now, exiting the levels fades out and displays the "level in" transition. You also see this "level in" transition when you press start from the title screen and when you lose a life. The game engine is very close to being ready to be fleshed out with more content. This year is going to be exciting!

2010-1-9

Nomolos now has a dying animation. I tried to make it slightly less cliche looking than when most platformer characters die, but I won't tell you what it looks like, that'd spoil it! =). There's also a "level out" transition which fades out the palette. I completed some routines for dealing with strings and converting a number to a decimal string (for displaying lives left etc.). Before long, I should have a complete framework in place of title screen, main gameplay, level out/in transition, and game over screen. When that's done, the game should be ready to be fleshed out with a lot more content. I hope to spend most of 2010 working on some new enemies and maybe a couple of powerups. If I'm lucky and everything goes smoothly I may get around to a boss.

2009-12-13

Meta sprite clipping is now working and integrated for Nomolos, and the few entities I currently have implemented for testing (mouse powerup, "Deentle" spider, and explosion entity). Ravenwolf finished a "dying" graphic for Nomolos. Hopefully in a few weeks or so I'll have the dying graphic integrated for when Nomolos loses all his hearts, and some kind of transition to a level saying what level you are on and how many lives you have left.

2009-11-14

I recently completed some code for switching between levels that may have graphics or PRG data residing in seperate banks using MMC1. Some very basic game play mechanics are in place, a single enemy and a single item. Development is going to start getting exciting soon as I begin to flesh it out with more enemies, more items, possibly a couple of powerups, a boss, etc. I hope within a year to have a worthy demo to show others.

Screenshots

2009-12-14

Other links

Coming soon