Item — HN Reader

On the topic of solo game devs... if this sounds like your jam (and modern mobile games isn't your jam) then consider the console homebrew scene as an outlet. All the "retro" platforms still have a pulse and several are thriving enough to have competitions and forums and podcasts.

8-bit NES and 16-bit Genesis (Mega Drive) both have a supportive community and one or two publishers who can take your game from ROM.BIN to physical cart and/or digital purchase.

Hardware limitations naturally demand fewer man-hours to build out a "complete" game. You won't make a fortune. Or a dime. But then neither did a lot of one-person shops in the original 8-bit days.

[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-assembly-line-an-n...

[2] https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/homebrew-game-club/id1...

3 comments

Pikuma has a 25 hour “NES Programming with 6502 Assembly” that is both accessible to beginners with little to no prior knowledge and being packed with content. [1]

He also has other interesting courses which touch upon “retro” programming in a very accessible manner. [2]

[1] https://pikuma.com/courses/nes-game-programming-tutorial

[2] https://pikuma.com/courses

I follow them on twitter and it looks like the next course will about programming the original Playstation!!!

There's something ingenious about coding with artificial restrictions that brings out your creativity and drive to come trough. I participate yearly in a Web game jam called js13k where you have to code a game under 13kb zipped. It drove me to learn better compressible code and generating audio and graphics. But in our case we can harness all the power of the modern Web platform. Coding for old systems probably is the same but on steroids.

Or pick one of the ESP32/Arduino/Pi based handhelds, it will give similar vibes, with hardware designed for coding, instead of hacking cartriges, or being afraid to kill the only home computer available at home.