Recommend Reading?

[kevintron]

I'm making progress with NESmaker and am enjoying the experience. The forums are informative and helpful. I've watch a good amount of the tutorials and followed a lot of the recommended links. I am super greatful for all of this.
That being said are there any books that anyone might recommend on related subjects? Intro to the code, understanding the NES hardware, design practices for creating levels and content for 8bit. Year one type stuff. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jonny]

Some book suggestions and websites here....

https://www.nesmakers.com/index.php?threads/best-source-for-learning-about-asm.75/

For level design I suppose it depends what type of game you're making. Inspiration / info might be a bit more fragmented as its quite specific to the genre.

For adventure games, this article by Ron Gilbert (Maniac Mansion/Monkey Island designer) is really good. Although, he's referring to point and click type adventures, most of the rules could be applied to more traditional NES adventure games.

I've been looking for articles about scrolling platformers and game design practices. Haven't found a great deal. Playing games recognised for their good design and jotting down ideas, analysing everything is as good as anything.

 

[puppydrum64]

skilldrick.github.io/easy6502

This site helped me a ton because you can actually see the accumulator, X, and Y change with the debug tool. Sadly it does not use all the 6502 opcodes, for example you cannot use "+label" syntax with the JMP command, nor can you use CMP, it forces you to use CPX. But for the most part it's a good way to get a visual grasp on flow and program structure.

EDIT: Forget what I said about not being able to use CMP, that's incorrect.

 

[TakuikaNinja]

skilldrick.github.io/easy6502

This site helped me a ton because you can actually see the accumulator, X, and Y change with the debug tool. Sadly it does not use all the 6502 opcodes, for example you cannot use "+label" syntax with the JMP command, nor can you use CMP, it forces you to use CPX. But for the most part it's a good way to get a visual grasp on flow and program structure.

CMP does work on easy6502, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.
The "+label" syntax is a feature of asm6, the assembler NESmaker uses. Reading the documentation for it would help: asm6 documentation
For general reading, I'd recommend the Nesdev Wiki since it includes a variety of topics ranging from hardware specifications to obscure methods of optimizing code.

 

[puppydrum64]

CMP does work on easy6502, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.
The "+label" syntax is a feature of asm6, the assembler NESmaker uses. Reading the documentation for it would help: asm6 documentation
For general reading, I'd recommend the Nesdev Wiki since it includes a variety of topics ranging from hardware specifications to obscure methods of optimizing code.

I just tested it again and you're right. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work before. I'll edit my original post to reflect that.

 

[PasseGaming]

I hear a book is on the way from NESmaker. Hopefully it has some useful stuff in there for beginners. Sometimes it feels the tutorials aren't enough.

 

[pigeonaut]

This Shovel Knight article is really good for level design: https://yachtclubgames.com/2020/01/specter-of-torment-level-design-deep-dive-15/

They were inspired by lots of NES mechanics and aesthetics!