NES Limitations, All the Limitations MFGG can find!

ITT we will post all the Limitations for NES-Styled Games we can find so people can make more NES-Styled Games.

Resolution Limitations:
-Up to256x240 Pixels on PAL Games
-Up to 256x224 Pixels on NTSC Games+NTSC TV
-Up to 256x240 Pixels on NTSC Games+PAL TV

Graphics Limitations:
-Entire 54-Color Palette Here: http://spriters-resource.com/nintendo/othe...NESpallette.png
-Up to 8 Sprites Per Scanline
-Up to 64 Sprites On-Screen at Once
-Sprites must ALL be the same size, either 8x8 or 8x16
-Sprites have a Max Palette of 3 Colors
-Up to 25 Colors Visible at Once(1 BG Color, 4 Sets of 3 Tile Colors, 4 Sets of 3 Sprite Colors)

Sound Limitations:
-5 Channels
-16 Volume Levels

Controller Limitations:
-8 Buttons:
--4 Direction D-Pad
--Start & Select
--A
--B

Can you find any other Limitations? Let me know!

This post has been edited by OniLink10 on Dec 19 2008, 04:48 PM

it's really ****ing slow

8-button controller

Don't forget sound limitations.

Which I don't know specifically, I just know them.

I included the Base Sound Specs(The 5 Main Channels) and the Controller Buttons.

the day someone actually makes a NES game that follows the rules I will be amazed

According to Wikipedia:

Sprites may be either 8 pixels by 8 pixels, or 8 pixels by 16 pixels, although the choice must be made globally and it affects all sprites.

Also:

The standard display resolution of the NES is 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels. Typically, games designed for NTSC-based systems had an effective resolution of only 256 by 224 pixels, as the top and bottom 8 scanlines are not visible on most television sets.

PAL has a different screen size not mentioned in the Wikipedia page.

Adding Sprite info. Also, with the Resolution, if you can find the proper Resolution for PAL, I will thank you.

You can't make a NES game without following these rules.

It's like trying to carry 5 liters of water with a 2-liter bucket. You just can't do it.

And the following sample of your text is just

Mainly because in like every Nintendo-related thing the D-Pad is recognised as one singular button and the fact that you have to have brains the size of half a peanut not to see how many buttons it has.

Oh and sprites actually have 4 colors max. What with the transparents and all.

This post has been edited by LocoRoo on Dec 18 2008, 11:04 AM

I love the idea, all for it!
But it's spelled 'bass'

Well you could only follow the graphic rule. Loads of games doing just that on the main site.

There's been plenty of NES homebrew apps




but really I don't understand why everyone's so keen to restrict themselves to the "rules of NES hardware". There's far more restrictions than you may think. I mean you can get onto the techincal details about how sprites will start flickering if there's x number at y coordinates but seriously, who in the right mind would want to emulate that through a fangame? Sure it's good for the authentic NES experience, but tbqh, it's pretty pointless. You're a thousand times better off making a homebrew ROM. And considering you'd have to keep the game at stupid sizes like 64 and 128kb, it's just not worth the hassle.

It's a different story if you're planning on making "NES sprites" or "NES music" because these restrictions aren't hard to go by. But "NES gameplay"? It's far too difficult without emulating the hardware itself. Also in order to get the most out of the hardware you'll end up having to take advantage of "tricks" and all sorts of programming shizzle, otherwise your games will look like the first batch of NES titles, i.e. ugly.


Mind you I'm not a NES fan. I don't see the huge attraction that some of you might do. Same with the SNES. There are far more interesting 8-bit machines (such as the Commodore 64) that have more fun limits.

Base as in Basic.

I thought the NES supported 8 directions.. In Megaman 2 you could shoot diagonally with the metal blade.

Who said it didn't?

PAL resolution is 256*240, according to this page.

This post has been edited by Hohoo on Dec 19 2008, 03:31 PM

That's what I said, but they said I was wrong. D:

Well then don't believe "them".

If you want a game with limits of NES, make the game for the NES. Compile into .NES file so it can run by a NES emulator.

Also, some limitations can be circumvented by using mappers

This post has been edited by zzo38 on Dec 20 2008, 03:09 AM

Looks like I was wrong...

You can do diagonally by 2 direction at same time. But NES/Famicom D-pad you can't push 2 opposite direction at same time.