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Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
15.9K posts
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Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
@matthughson
Homebrew GameDev: • From Below (NES|2020) • Witch n' Wiz (NES|2021) • From Below Pocket (GB|2023) • Super Sunny World (NES|TBD) #nesdev #gbdev #ファミコン
Vancouver, BC, Canada
linktr.ee/matthughson
Joined July 2010
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  • Pinned
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Feb 4, 2024
    HI! I'm Matt! I'm coding a brand new platformer for the NES, inspired by Super Mario Bros 1 + 3. It's called... Super Sunny World 🌞 Follow me to get updates as it approaches alpha, and please repost to let other folks know about it! 📷 #nesdev #gamedev #screenshotsaturday
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Apr 24, 2024
    How can a game be hyper-real and ps1-aesthetics at the same time?!
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    IVAN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN 🌲🏎️💨🌲
    @Nothke
    Apr 23, 2024
    Going on stream to implement some new audio features with SoLoud, fixing a few bugs and adding some effects like reverb and low pass effects. Meanwhile C1RCUI7 on has made a nice mod with custom sounds! #ShakedownGame #gamedev
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 20, 2022
    Did you know: 🤔 The infamous "sprite flicker" you see on the NES, is not actually a built-in hardware feature. This flicker needed to be hand-coded into every game! But why!? 🧵👇
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 2, 2024
    GB Studio has come to the NES! You can build games for the NES, using the world-class toolset found in GB Studio! #gbstudio #gameboy #nesdev github.com/michel-iwaniec…
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 20, 2022
    Replying to @matthughson
    The flicker is an attempt to avoid a limitation of the NES: The NES can only display 8 sprites per horizontal line of the screen. Source: nesrocks.com/blog/nes-graph…
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 20, 2022
    Replying to @matthughson
    The NES's default behavior is to *stop drawing sprites* once that 8 sprite limit it reached. This is what *that* looks like. Notice that the purple character on the left just completely vanishes. You can imagine why games avoided this. (The 4 skeletons use 8 sprites total)
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 20, 2022
    Replying to @matthughson
    And the final results running on a real NES + a CRT TV where I find it looks a lot better than in an emulator + LCD. #nesdev
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Nov 23, 2022
    Ever wondered how devs measure performance on real a NES, which has no dev kit? An common way is the change the "color emphasis" while an operation is executing, during screen rendering. This effectively draws colored bars representing how long something takes. #nesdev
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 20, 2022
    Replying to @matthughson
    Here's a basic version of the flicker. In an emulator you can see that the sprite memory on the right (highlighted with a red circle) is changing the order of sprite data every frame, which means that *which* sprites come *after* the 8-sprite-limit changes every frame aka flicker
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Sep 15, 2024
    Good or Bad Level Design? The player is forced to exploit the auto-scroll + temporary invincibility to reach a pipe that is completely sealed in. #nesdev
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Feb 13, 2023
    30 days... 1 all-new NES platformer! Announcing... 🌞Super Sunny World🌞 Over the next month we are going to work, start to finish, on a BRAND NEW platforming game for the NES! At the end of it, the game will immediately go on sale as a physical cart! #nesdev #gamedev 🧵👇
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Aug 23, 2024
    "Your game is too much like Super Mario Bros" The game:
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    PROGRAMANCER
    @Programancer
    Jan 4, 2024
    "Your game is too much like Castlevania" The game:
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Dec 14, 2024
    If I made a tutorial on creating NES games, what would you want to see? C or Assembly? Short or Long? Video or Written? Assume No Coding Experience or Skip the Basics? Comment below to let me know these thing or anything else you think is important! #nesdev
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Oct 19, 2024
    That's a wrap! After 30 years, I finally completed Zelda 1! On original hardware, no guides. I know it's kind of redundant at this point, but it's a true 10/10 game. One of the most playable games on the NES. Highly recommend giving it a go if it's still on your bucket list.
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    I started on the NT Noir but after it deleted my save 😡, I switched to the original NES.
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    Matt Hughson (NES & Game Boy Developer)
    @matthughson
    Oct 14, 2024
    Despite Zelda being one of my favorite franchises, I've never beaten either one of the NES games! So for (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, I've been plugging away at the game in between family stuff.
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