Hello everyone. First post here so I figured I'd make it a good one.
With no prior coding knowledge I scraped this little game/demo together over the course of about four months. This is only like 30 seconds-1 minute of gameplay, but I'm proud of it. I go into the whole backstory in the included readme, which is a mini behind-the-scenes of this project, and I encourage you to check it out, especially if you're interested in making a PS1 game but have no idea where to start.
It's quote verbose though and including it here would make this post huge.
Some excerpts though:
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Largest asset:
Ending Jingle - 113,424 bytes ~ 113 kB (used primarily because I had the space to burn)
Smallest asset:
Enemy Projectile - 208 bytes ~ 0.2 kB
Average filesize (without ending jingle):
7,259 bytes ~ 7 kB
Average filesize (with ending jingle):
11,182 bytes ~ 11 kB
TOTAL SIZE OF ALL (non-code) ASSETS:
290,748 bytes ~ 290 kB
Some notes:
This has been tested on several emulators (noPSX, Duckstation, PCSX-Rearmed, ePSXe) and it worked fine on all of them.
I've also tested it on real hardware (SCPH-5501) and it worked on that as well. Unfortunately there's a bug with some of the sprites that results in weird vertical lines showing up (most noticably on the 'WELCOME' text). This is apparently caused by having sprites with odd-numbered widths, in addition to using GsSortFastSprite, but even changing the widths and using GsSortSprite changed nothing, so I don't know.
I didn't have the ability to test this on real hardware until the end of development, but I'm aiming to make sure all my future projects work exactly as they should on real hardware.
If you plan on running this on a real PS1 you'll either need a serial cable and the ability to upload .exes (what I use), or to make your own disc image with a license file. Or gut an existing PS1 disc image and use that.
Also, the corners of the border seem to be misaligned on real hardware, yet look fine on (most?) emulators.
With everything said and done I couldn't be happier to have taken-up this project/learning experience. I now have a newfound respect for the Playstation among other things. This thing is a serious powerhouse and if you want to make a 2D game, I couldn't recommend the PS1 more.
***Please note that I only tested this game about a thousand times, so I'm sure I missed a few dozen bugs.***
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I'm already planning my next PS1 game and have a few ideas already. Feel free to share anything you think would make for a cool 2D PS1 game. I'm sticking with 2D not just for simplicity, but because I MUCH prefer PS1 2D graphics over 3D ones.
My ideas so far:
Diablo 2-style game with loot/mobs/etc, but in a LoZ:ALttP-style top down affair.
Baccarat/casino game - There aren't enough good baccarat games out there, for any console. Should be relatively easy as well.
Mahjong solitaire - I'm leaning towards this since I've been playing a lot of Shanghai II on Genesis lately and I like these games in general. I'm thinking some soothing music and a nice presentation could make this pretty slick.
Final Fantasy 1 redesign - In my top 3 FFs and I'd love to go all-out with a remake, but focus more on the DnD roots to make this into more like a DnD game with FF tropes in a FF setting.
Shadowrun (Genesis) redesign - A great game but marred by many problems and needs a full overhaul to add selectable races/portraits/etc. Way more then could be achieved through ROM hacking.
So yeah, that about does it. Let me know what you think and feel free to ask any questions and I'll try my best to answer them. And let me know if you discover any bugs, though keep in mind I probably won't be coming back to this demo. Thanks.
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