Pc Engine Homebrew scene?

[rainbow_bright]

This forum doesn't seem to be too busy, so I'm assuming if there is a Pc engine homebrew scene, then its quite small. Most old consoles and computers seem to have a homebrew scene. I'm not too familiar with most, but know that the Atari scene (from 2600 up to the Jaguar) is thriving. Do we have any coders here? or anyone making new pc engine games?

[ParanoiaDragon]

Well, we have 2 teams that are specifically making games, Mindrec who have released 2 commercial games so far(Implode & Meteor Blaster) with 2 games coming soon(Xymati & PC Gunjin), & Frozen Utopia of which I'm a part of, as 3 commercial games on the way (Mysterious Song, Neutopia 3, & one secret game).  Mysterious Song will be our first release, it's currently getting it's cinemas & music overhauled, which ofcoarse also requires some extra coding, so, it's taking forever, but, it's getting done.

I'm also working with a coder & sprite artist of Frozen Utopia (plus with some help with Mindrec's tile/sprite artist) to make Turbo Grafx ports of NES games currently, along with anything elese he needs me for, like tech demo's.  There are also a bunch of individual coders, though, it's always nice to have more.  They're all cracking the power of the Turbo.

[rainbow_bright]

Thats cool Where can I buy these games or see screen shots etc? Are they on hu card or cd?
ps-how difficult is it to get into coding for the pc engine, this coming from someone, who has never even coded a shoe lol

  O:)

[Necromancer]

See the games at http://www.mindrec.com/?main=pce/index.php and http://www.frozenutopia.com/projects.html or search this forum.

Buy Implode and Meteor Blaster at http://mindrec.com/?main=store/index.php

[rainbow_bright]

Thanks

[ParanoiaDragon]

Keep in mind, we (Frozen Utopia) haven't upated the website in about 6 months, the pictures of Mysterious Song on there are old, the game looks better now, & the cinemas look way better now.   We got a classic artist to do the cinemas & box art.

I'm not sure about difficulty in coding, I only do music, voice acting, & gameplay concepts, along with general ideas that we as a team all come up with.  Someone like Chris Covell, Malducci, Nodveidt, or Dave Shadoff would be able to explain what it's like to code.

[ccovell]

It's like warm apple pie.

[ParanoiaDragon]

MMmmmm, pie!

[malducci]

..would be able to explain what it's like to code.

 Coding in assembly for the PCE, is like making passionate love to the CPU. Whispering sweet mnemonics...

[rainbow_bright]

That sounds very pleasurable How would I go about, learning to code for the pc engine?

[peperocket]

You FORGET to talk about Tongueman's Logic who is A COMPLETE GAME for the PC Engine ! 

And here a nice Phantasy Star Port, write in assembler : http://www.hyakushiki.net/consoles.htm

This guy has write a good PCE tracker 

[Necromancer]

Ahh, shit!  How the hell could I forget Tongueman's Logic?  It's half the reason why I bought a flash cart, for cripes sake!

Anyways, Tongueman's Logic is tongues of fun (hee-hee) and should be mandatory for anyone who likes a good puzzler.  Download the game here and don't forget to check out Mr. Covell's Fractal Engine and other goodies while you're there.

[nodtveidt]

Coding a simple game for the PCE isn't too much work, especially if you can fit everything into the normal 8 megabit ROM space. However, coding a major production can be a real nightmare and requires a high level of dedication to your craft. I've never worked so hard at programming until I started coding the PCE port of Mysterious Song.

[rainbow_bright]

HMm, well would it be silly of me (as someone who has never programmed anything!) to learn to program on Pc engine, I mean is that jumping in at the deep end?

What resources would I need? I have a lot of time on my hands and would like to make this year as productive as possible, and I'm a creative person too!

[malducci]

 You've never programmed? Don't worry about it. I recommend learning ASM as your first language. The 65xx series and variant CPUs aren't overly complicated and you can find tons of documents/examples too. You don't need much math skill to jump in and start programming. Writing a large program or involved game in any language is going to be difficult, but the benefit of writing in ASM, at least for the PCE, is that you have a debugger that helps you track down or step through your code, one instruction at a time. It's pretty much 1:1 of what you wrote/coded.

 There is a C compiler for PCE and it doesn't require a lot of intimate knowledge of the system/hardware to get something up and running. While it's pretty decent IMO, it lacks a proper C debugger. Trying to debug a C program with an ASM debugger is a chore and a half, though it can be done and requires you to know quite a bit of ASM and the hardware that you would already know if you coded in ASM in the first place.

 If you got the spare time, pick up on ASM. Feel free to pester me on questions and such. Plus you can always ask some questions over at efnet - we don't bite... (PM me for the channel). We need more ASM coders