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Developing homebrew games for retro consoles has always been a really in-depth process, with developers requiring to know a lot of the technical details about the console to even attempt starting a "Hello World" program for any given device. Not only that, but usually when it comes to retro consoles, anyone attempting to develop for one would be required to know an assembly language specific to that console's chipset, for example, the NES worked with 6502 assembly, SNES with 65816, and so on, varying from console to console.

The homebrew community has since seen a huge step up in terms of giving support and new experiences to older consoles, with many homebrew devs working on all-new games, like E.T. for NES by Khan, or Classic Kong, a remake of the original Donkey Kong arcade game, for the SNES. The amount of new titles developed by homebrew developers surged during the last decade, with many tools and compilers being developed to aid in the development process.

NESFab is a new programming language created to help with the coding of NES games, recently released just a month ago in its initial 0.1 version. This programming language is specifically tailored with the 8bit limitation of the NES, with the creator claiming that this language is much more ergonomic to use than C, and also providing a much faster assembly code and better optimized than any other high-level compiler available, like GCC and LLVM.

The language does have its limitations though, as one of the most prominent cons of the language is that it only supports a select number of mappers for the system, and of course, developing a game in assembly code directly will always surpass any other type of language.

However, without any doubt, this will surely help in developing new titles for homebrew devs, and the creators of NESFab have also released an NES game purely developed with NESFab, titled "Hang Glider", which for those interested, they can try it out right now by getting the game from their website.

Source
GitHub Repository

 

[VinsCool]

Looks pretty cool, the syntax looks like a hybrid between C and 6502 ASM, which is not too far from the C programs with Inline Assembly code baked into them, but without actually going for the full 6502 mnemonics there.

 

[raxadian]

Why not make a Nes game maker like we already have a Gameboy game maker?

 

[VinsCool]

Why not make a Nes game maker like we already have a Gameboy game maker?

There is already one, nothing wrong with more tools for programmers, however.

 

[SylverReZ]

That's pretty awesome stuff, now I don't need to pay for overpriced shit like NES Maker.

 

[halfashark]

Why not make a Nes game maker like we already have a Gameboy game maker?

Do you post on hackaday?
Sounds like you'd fit right in.

 

[J-Machine]

just looked at the nes maker site that was shared and boi howdy that's a garbage way to advertise things by not giving a price and then sending someone immediately to a paypal invoice. glad there is an alternative.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Not a bad little project. Definitely worth sharing the love.

 

[SylverReZ]

just looked at the nes maker site that was shared and boi howdy that's a garbage way to advertise things by not giving a price and then sending someone immediately to a paypal invoice. glad there is an alternative.

Yes, and that's exactly why we have this as an alternative.

 

[raxadian]

Now we need a Sega Genesis game maker.

 

[Atomyiik]

This is some pretty neat stuff. Seems like a great tool for a programmer who knows a bit about the NES, but isn't too good with assembly.

 

[raxadian]

Hope we get similar stuff for the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis.

 

[Shape]

Not enough Pokemon. Let me know when it has more Pokemon.

EDIT: Somebody just informed me that you can, in fact, code your own Pokemon using this tool, somehow. So, thanks for letting me know!

 

[forresttrunn]

I would try this out just for fun!