Update [Thu 24th Oct, 2024 13:30 BST]: Something Nerdy Studio has now released a demo of the hover boots world map mechanic it showed off last week, for those interested in checking it out for themselves.
It is available to download from the developers’ website and requires an NES (or Famicom / TinyNES), a CRT TV, and an EverDrive N8 Pro (with OS v2.15 or above), in order to run it properly.
Instructions on how to install the demo are available in a .txt file, distributed along with the demo ROM and mxm.rbf file. Something important to note, though, is that those with NES consoles without enhanced audio enabled will be unable to hear the game’s music at present. As a result, Something Nerdy Studio has shared a link to the music that plays during this section, for those playing on a basic unmodded NES.
Original Article [Tue 15th Oct, 2024 10:30 BST]: When the SNES launched, one of its signature tricks was Mode 7, a graphics mode which allowed the console to rotate and scale backgrounds in hardware. This feature wasn’t available on rival systems like the PC Engine and Mega Drive / Genesis, and it was used to good effect in games like F-Zero, Pilotwings and Super Mario Kart.
Given that its 16-bit rival wasn’t capable of Mode 7 (that would have to wait for the Sega CD add-on), you wouldn’t think that it would be possible on a console like the NES – but Something Nerdy Studios has achieved just that (kinda).
The indie developer is currently working on Former Dawn, an Action RPG for the NES and PC, and has just shown off footage of “Mode 7” working on original NES hardware.
As noted by the developer, this would have been possible even without the unique memory mappers it has developed, but the mappers take some of the load off the CPU.
Furthermore, while it can handle scaling to give the impression of perspective, it can’t do rotation. “It’s just a little bit beyond the design philosophy to implement rotation or scaling in hardware in our mapper, so we haven’t done that,” says Something Nerdy Studio. “This effect is more properly called ‘fake HDMA’, since that’s the analogous part of the typical effect on the SNES.”
Former Dawn’s Kickstarter campaign launches today, so if you’d like to see this in the flesh, you might want to consider pledging some cash.