2 Getting set up

 

This chapter covers

  • Selecting an emulator
  • Selecting and setting up a text editor
  • Selecting and setting up an assembler
  • Selecting a tool for creating tile and sprite patterns
  • Selecting a tool for creating sound effects and music

To start creating games that will run on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), you will need a development environment. Back when games for the system were first created, specialized computers hooked up to a hardware-based development system were required, which was quite an expensive undertaking at the time, and these were only handed out to selected parties by Nintendo. Now, due to the availability of modern personal computers, we can not only simulate this development environment completely in software, but we can have far more advanced tools. An easy-to-use development environment with a modern text editor with syntax coloring, along with additional tools to compile and debug your programs, will allow you to focus on developing the functionality of your game.

We will cover getting a development environment set up on Windows-, Linux-, or macOS-based systems, and you will be able to choose the tools that suit your preferences. The selection of tools is far more limited on Linux and macOS systems, but a usable setup can still be achieved.

2.1 Emulation

2.1.1 Mesen

2.1.2 FCEUX

2.1.3 iNES

2.1.4 Other options

2.2 Editor

2.2.1 Visual Studio Code

2.2.2 Sublime Text

2.3 Assembler

2.4 Graphics creation

2.4.1 NES Tileset Editor

2.4.2 NEXXT

2.4.3 NES Assets Workshop

2.4.4 NES CHR Editor

2.4.5 Other options

2.5 Sound effects and music creation

2.5.1 FamiTracker

2.5.2 FamiStudio

Summary