Alright, so I've been dabbling in some basic development for the last ten years or so. Mostly, I've been a hobbyist and have become apt with various 3d modeling tools and programming languages. I'm certainly not a visual artist, but I have created some decent very basic low poly rigged and animated characters...I'm not a programmer but I'm very competent with logic and am pretty proficient with a few languages. I even taught beginning game design and development to high school students for a few years, and worked with a small production company on a few casual projects.

Here's my current conundrum. While visiting my hometown not long ago my parents told me there were some boxes out in the toolshed that had some childhood stuff in them, and they asked me to clear them out. I found one box that was like finding a buried treasure...it was from 1988 (I was 8 years old and living and breathing the NES Legend of Zelda games at the time) and contained a "design document" and a whole mess of concept art straight from the hand of my eight-year-old-self for a video game that I wanted to create...in fact, I also found the form letter response to a letter I sent Nintendo asking them to please send me the equipment I would need to make my own game, certain that they would send it to me. It was overwhelming nostalgia for the good old days of eight bit magic, and I realized with a start that I was now in a position to actually CREATE a game based on those early documents! Sort of silly, I know, but there would be something fun and vindicating about dusting it all off and creating the dormant project.

So here is the conundrum. I highly doubt I'll find many people to help with this pet project...and I'd like to create it JUST for the sake of it existing in the world. I am trying to figure out the best way to develop it.

OPTION 1: My first exciting thought was that I could learn Assembly, build a NES ROM, and port it to a cart...actually MAKING a NES game! That's option #1, and while that would be the ultimate of awesome, the practical side of me realizes that without an EXCESS amount of help it would probably never get finished. I'd create something buggy that got 10% done and then abandon it for another 25 years. The pro is that the project would be limited, but truly realized as a NES game, and to have it on a playable cart would be the coolest thing in the universe. The con is, of course, time and agony of learning Assembly and the pretty damned near impossibility of completing the project myself. My logical mind suggests that if it were more feasible, many more homebrews would be popping up all over...they're VERY few and far between considering how much gamer nostalgia for that era exists.

OPTION 2: A quicker way of creating this project might be using GameMaker. Having taught it for 6 years and dabbled with it for many years prior, I can pretty much easily devise how to program anything I want to make happen quickly and easy. It also can now port to many platforms. While it is revered as sort of a 'toy' by a lot of people, I've created some decently cool stuff with it in the past. The drawback is mostly graphics. I could just do some sprite editing of existing games and probably find some generic tilesets with google...but that feels sort of cheap. I could also create my own sprites, but as stated I am certainly not an artist. It would take an agonizing amount of time to create decent animated sprites for me (frighteningly enough, maybe as long as to learn Assembly! hahahaha!)

OPTION 3: I'm pretty proficient in C# and Javascript as well, and have been using Unity3d for a bit. I can build models (faster and better than I can sprite too) in 3dsMax, but these are still pretty sub-par all things considered. The pros are, this is actually a pretty cool tool to create for many different platforms - I do have a pro license as well as iOS license for it already. IF I could pull off decent graphics, it could probably also sort of stand up as a 'casual game' by today's standards. However, trying to keep gameplay comparable to the original vision might actually prove difficult...I might have to build some sort of 3d tile system, etc. I'd spend as much time sort of creating creation tools as I would building the actual game.


So - knowing that this will never be a commercial project, its just a personal thing to satisfy an open IP developed almost 25 years ago by a wide-eyed, ambitious 8 year old, what do you guys think? Go crazy and try to go Assembly route and try to wind up with an actual playable NES cart? Suck it up and create some crappy sprites but be able to program a competent game much more quickly? Build myself a Unity3d engine that will emulate the strengths of 2d and try my hand at building worthy models?

I'm definitely curious to hear your thoughts! Thanks so much. And of course, if anyone is just bored and needs a rainy day project and is good at any of those above mentioned skills...hahaha.

a. ...I even taught beginning game design and development to high school students for a few years, and worked with a small production company on a few casual projects.
...I highly doubt I'll find many people to help with this pet project...and I'd like to create it JUST for the sake of it existing in the world.
...So - knowing that this will never be a commercial project, its just a personal thing to satisfy an open IP developed almost 25 years ago by a wide-eyed, ambitious 8 year old, what do you guys think?

b. I am trying to figure out the best way to develop it.
OPTION 1: My first exciting thought was that I could learn Assembly, build a NES ROM, and port it to a cart...actually MAKING a NES game!
OPTION 2: A quicker way of creating this project might be using GameMaker. Having taught it for 6 years
OPTION 3: I'm pretty proficient in C# and Javascript as well, and have been using Unity3d for a bit.

c. And of course, if anyone is just bored and needs a rainy day project and is good at any of those above mentioned skills...hahaha.

a. I think "well, good for you, but why are you asking this in the Game Design forum?"
b. I read your whole post looking for a Game Design question. This post is off-topic in Game Design.
c. Now you're turning this into a Help Wanted post, and those are not permitted in the discussion forums. Use the Classifieds.

I'm moving this from Game Design to The Lounge (a more appropriate place for asking "what do you guys think" about making a pet project as a personal thing).

Fair enough Tom - my first post here. I figured that it was sort of an early pre-prod quasi design question...what platform to develop for / examining limitations of each, etc, but thanks for getting it to where you think it better belongs. As for the last part...the help wanted...that was more of a joke, as I don't anticipate actually getting any bites on it, but its always worth asking.

Thanks. That all being said, any recommendations after reading the post?

Do the most expedient thing. Time's a-wasting.

any recommendations after reading the post?

If you have a technology question (what tools should I use), you might want to ask in a technical forum: either For Beginners or Mobile/Console Development.

If you have a question about the gameplay, use the Game Design forum.

If you went with the NES rom route, you wouldn't have to do it in assembly.
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Hey Happy Coder - I've seen a lot of this stuff, but haven't seen a whole lot of 'games from scratch' made with it. There's the Nerdy Nights tutorial set too. Have you ever attempted anything like this? Thanks so much for the feedback!