NES Homebrew Celebrated in Awards Show Video

Time and time again, we see incredible games developed for older systems. While they are likely considered obsolete consoles by average consumers, many of the popular consoles of the past are getting plenty of reasons to fire them up. One of the most active homebrew communities revolves around the Nintendo Entertainment System, NES for short. Following a fun competition, the folks behind the NESmaker software and documentary put together a special awards show to recognize the talent at display.

The video is surprisingly well done and hits a similar tone to what Limited Run Games have been doing for E3 the last couple years. The NESMaker Byte-Off Awards sits comfortably in the realm of parody, as the audience is filled with pixelated characters and villains, but there is genuine pride and respect on display for these games. It’s clear that the hosts, Joe Granato and Austin McKinley, love the NES and the people that continue making magic for it.

When asked about why they put this video together, Granato answered, “We have an overwhelmingly positive community. It is this community that has been the driving force behind NESmaker. We wanted to do the awards show for two reasons. One, as a huge thank you, to make everyone who created games truly feel like the rockstars they are. And two, to help foster the idea that we all are a growing community, not separate developers.”

This is the finale of a contest that was held where developers were given thirty days to complete a playable demo based on the theme, “This world needs new heroes.” The NESmaker community has been a vibrant place ever since the software launched, where lots of designers shared their ideas and have collaborated with each other. It would not surprise me at all if some truly stellar games come out of this community.

What’s even better is that the software supports the ability to easily flash created games to an actual NES cartridge, allowing for play on an original console and many FPGA clone consoles like the RetroUSB AVS. Of course, many players enjoy these projects via emulator.

We asked Granato what he might say to those hesitant about diving into NESmaker and he replied, “The question is simple. Do you want to get into NES development? Do you want to join the legacy of games for the NES and create something that will play on the real hardware? If so, NESmaker is a great start.”

“Traditionally, the only way to develop NES games was to spend years learning 6502 ASM, figure out memory management, solder eproms. . . it was really for dedicated niche hobbyists and might have been a bit off-putting for less technical developers, even if they had great ideas and creativity,” said said Granato over Facebook Messenger, “NESmaker is intended to open the world of NES development to creative individuals the same way that modern game development environments have done.”

As someone who’s only been haunting the NESmaker community, I have yet to use the software myself. I have really been enjoying seeing people take sketches or concepts to turn into something playable. As a player though, this video is a perfect collection of NES games to look into. We also got lots of guests throughout the gaming community to give out the accolades including: Howard Phillips, Marc Ericksen, Justin Vachon, Amanda VanHiel, James Landino, Kirsten Sponseller, John Riggs, Joe Alonzo, Bryan Bernal, and Josh Fallon.

Find out more about the NESmaker software and The New 8-bit Heroes, check out their official website.

For more NES homebrew content, check out our recent podcast episode with Kevin of K3VBOT's Homebrew Highlights. We also had John Riggs on to talk about repro carts and cereal.