It seems like one issue with homebrew is purity. I'm sure there must be a lot of discussions out there about whether using modern tools and hardware is really cheating. I was noting that some of the homebrew carts contain more memory or such that start to beg the question of whether it's really something that would have been possible or feasible back then. If that's not an issue, then why bother with the vintage hardware at all? I'm having a hard time articulating what it is that's bothering me, but if you set out to make an Atari 2600 game, I'd try to limit myself as much as possible to what was available at the time period.
Well, it would be foolish not to use modern development tools to make homebrew games. The bottom line is is that the original developers did this as their living, whereas homebrewers do it as a spare time hobby, so they need every advantage they can get, including "unlimited" time.
Ed Fries Halo creation is straight up old school, meaning it was developed in a fairly standard way and only requires a 4K cartridge, which was nothing special even by early 1980's standard, so in the case of that, you should have no particular ill feelings.
It's true that depending upon the platform, the cartridges can contain more RAM or storage space to make games that wouldn't have been financially feasible back in the day (the homebrew Pac-Man games for either the Fairchild VES or ColecoVision is a good example). However, it still requires a tremendous amount of talent to code for these systems, and the best homebrew developers today would likely have been superstar developers then. Today's homebrew developers are standing on the shoulders of those who have worked on these platforms since the early 80's (or in some cases, mid- to late-70s), and have learned many, many lessons as a result. Time can be an enemy, but in some cases like these, it can be a friend, particularly in regards to knowledge gained.
The best way to look at it is if these platforms never really went away. Compare, for instance, an Atari 2600 game from 1987 to an Atari 2600 game from 1977. It's like they're two different systems. Part of that is that it was too costly to make larger than 2K games in 1977, and part of it was simply gaining experience with the platform. Now imagine that the Atari 2600 wasn't discontinued in the early 90's. Imagine that it was kept on the market and new games were continuing to be made for it. Wouldn't the games in 1997 be technologically better in some ways than the games from 1987? Of course, through both a combination of learning MORE tricks and access to more memory. So if you have a psychological barrier to modern day homebrews that have advantages like mature dev tools, years of prior works to refer to, and unlimited time, consider that they also deal with the disadvantages of working on this on the side and without any type of financial backing. Consider also that even the most successful homebrews only sell a few hudred copies. That's a far cry from the hundreds of thousands or even millions that sold in the past. So yeah, it's different, but the underlying ideas and concepts are the same.
What *is* debatable, are the expansions that are pending for both the Atari 7800 and ColecoVision, for instance, each of which gives their respective platforms enhanced capabilities and will feature homebrew games that are ONLY practical with the expansions. Now that does in fact encroach on the purity of the original hardware, but again, if you're working from the idea that the crash never happened and these platforms continued to evolve and remain on the marketplace, these are STILL the types of things you would have seen. There's something special about technology of a certain vintage (say, pre-16-bit systems), and certainly I see nothing wrong with keeping that alive through maximizing the original hardware, something that just doesn't come across in emulation.
*************************** Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
It's actually a pretty fun game!
It seems like one issue with homebrew is purity. I'm sure there must be a lot of discussions out there about whether using modern tools and hardware is really cheating. I was noting that some of the homebrew carts contain more memory or such that start to beg the question of whether it's really something that would have been possible or feasible back then. If that's not an issue, then why bother with the vintage hardware at all? I'm having a hard time articulating what it is that's bothering me, but if you set out to make an Atari 2600 game, I'd try to limit myself as much as possible to what was available at the time period.
Well, it would be foolish not to use modern development tools to make homebrew games. The bottom line is is that the original developers did this as their living, whereas homebrewers do it as a spare time hobby, so they need every advantage they can get, including "unlimited" time.
Ed Fries Halo creation is straight up old school, meaning it was developed in a fairly standard way and only requires a 4K cartridge, which was nothing special even by early 1980's standard, so in the case of that, you should have no particular ill feelings.
It's true that depending upon the platform, the cartridges can contain more RAM or storage space to make games that wouldn't have been financially feasible back in the day (the homebrew Pac-Man games for either the Fairchild VES or ColecoVision is a good example). However, it still requires a tremendous amount of talent to code for these systems, and the best homebrew developers today would likely have been superstar developers then. Today's homebrew developers are standing on the shoulders of those who have worked on these platforms since the early 80's (or in some cases, mid- to late-70s), and have learned many, many lessons as a result. Time can be an enemy, but in some cases like these, it can be a friend, particularly in regards to knowledge gained.
The best way to look at it is if these platforms never really went away. Compare, for instance, an Atari 2600 game from 1987 to an Atari 2600 game from 1977. It's like they're two different systems. Part of that is that it was too costly to make larger than 2K games in 1977, and part of it was simply gaining experience with the platform. Now imagine that the Atari 2600 wasn't discontinued in the early 90's. Imagine that it was kept on the market and new games were continuing to be made for it. Wouldn't the games in 1997 be technologically better in some ways than the games from 1987? Of course, through both a combination of learning MORE tricks and access to more memory. So if you have a psychological barrier to modern day homebrews that have advantages like mature dev tools, years of prior works to refer to, and unlimited time, consider that they also deal with the disadvantages of working on this on the side and without any type of financial backing. Consider also that even the most successful homebrews only sell a few hudred copies. That's a far cry from the hundreds of thousands or even millions that sold in the past. So yeah, it's different, but the underlying ideas and concepts are the same.
What *is* debatable, are the expansions that are pending for both the Atari 7800 and ColecoVision, for instance, each of which gives their respective platforms enhanced capabilities and will feature homebrew games that are ONLY practical with the expansions. Now that does in fact encroach on the purity of the original hardware, but again, if you're working from the idea that the crash never happened and these platforms continued to evolve and remain on the marketplace, these are STILL the types of things you would have seen. There's something special about technology of a certain vintage (say, pre-16-bit systems), and certainly I see nothing wrong with keeping that alive through maximizing the original hardware, something that just doesn't come across in emulation.
***************************
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.