Setting up your tools

You’ll need a few tools to get started with NES Game development. I’ll list them out, and detail what it is used for. Make sure you have installed everything marked as REQUIRED before moving on to the next chapter.

Important Note

_This tutorial is built entirely for Windows - create-nes-game and the tools also support linux on both x86_64 and arm64 systems, however other related tools may not support linux.

This is not handled in this guide, so you will be on your own to find working tools for graphics, etc if you use an operating system other than Windows.

create-nes-game

REQUIRED

This library expects to use a tool called create-nes-game to build the rom. This tool knows how to build C and assembly code, as well as do graphics conversions, and a few other useful things. It can also install a copy of the code for this project.

Installing the app is recommended, however it can be run in-place if you would rather. You may have to close and reopen any terminals you had open after installation.

Get the code!

REQUIRED

The easiest way to get a copy of the code is to run create-nes-game in a terminal. Choose to install using a tutorial, then nes-starter-kit should appear in the list. (Be sure to use at least version 1.0.10!)

Choose that, give your game/test a name, and pick the base version of the game. Some later chapters require large numbers of code modifications, and can be copied separately using the tool, if desired.

If you’d rather, you can also use git to clone this repository, or download a zip from github. create-nes-game will work in any of these cases.

Tiled

REQUIRED

Tiled is a tile editing tool for maps. We will be using it for designing our levels. It’s similar to a paint program, but with map tiles. We won’t go into too much detail now; you can probably get by without it for a little while.

Get it here: http://www.mapeditor.org/

The tools are built for version 1.9.2, however later versions should be fine. Some earlier versions will likely work too, but are unsupported.

Famitracker

Famitracker is a music editing tool for the NES. We will use it to make music and sound effects for the game. You don’t have to download this right away if you don’t want to; the built-in sound effects and music can probably cover you for a while!

Visual Studio Code (Or other code editor)

You probably want a program to edit your code! I prefer VS Code, as it has a lot of powerful features for our use built in.

Get it here: https://code.visualstudio.com/

For best results, go to file, then open folder, and point it at your game’s base folder. (Where README.MD is located.)

Of course, you are able to use another program such as vim or notepad++ if you prefer.

Additional VS Code Tweaks

If you like using VS Code, there are some little things you can do to make it even better.

Compile and run on pressing ctrl+shift+b

This is already set up for you too! You can change how this works by editing .vscode/tasks.json.

Suggested VS Code Extensions

These extensions aren’t required at all, but add features that could make development more pleasant. Check out the store pages, then make the call for yourself!

C/C++ (Microsoft)

This provides C and C++ syntax highlighting for VS Code. You probably want this one! To note, the application will suggest installing this automatically when you open a .c or .h. file for the first time. You don’t need to find this one manually if you don’t want to.

MADS (Jaromir Obr)

This is a 6502 assembly language support extension. You probably don’t need it for most nes-starter-kit projects. It will provide syntax highlighting for the raw assembly language in neslib, and some of our custom extensions. You want this if you’re planning on modifying or extending the guts of nes-starter-kit. If you’d prefer stick with C, you can skip this.