Micro Mages is a NES homebrew with remarkably modern game design. Morphcat Games managed to fit an entire 4-player Towerfall-inspired co-op platfomer into just 40kb. It’s an incredible feat of 6502 assembly programming, and an incredibly fun game to boot!
You can download Micro Mages on itch.io or Steam for $10.99. Either option includes the PC version of the game as well as an NES rom that can play on nearly anything, including actual NES hardware via a flash cart like the EverDrive-N8. Expect it to take about 3-5 hours to complete depending on your NES jump-and-shoot chops.
Links for this episode:
- Micro Mages
- OpenEmu – Multiple Video Game System
- EverDrive-N8 – Stone Age Gamer
- Analogue Nt mini – The Ultimate Nintendo FPGA console?:: RGB307 / MY LIFE IN GAMING – YouTube
- I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform (Platform Studies) – Amazon:Books
- How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes – YouTube
- Playdate. A New Handheld Gaming System
- A Teen Dirtbag Beat-Em-Up With Phenomenal Writing – Kotaku
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Your hosts this week were:
- (00:00) - Intro
- (01:45) - Micro Mages
- (07:35) - Playing An NES Homebrew Game - How and Why
- (14:42) - A Game In 40kb
- (23:17) - Classic Console, Modern Design
- (39:37) - Power-ups
- (41:54) - Multiplayer
- (50:02) - Wrap Up
- (52:52) - What’s Making You Happy This Week?
- (53:01) - Nate - Playdate
- (01:00:15) - Raygan - The Friends Of Ringo Ishikawa
- (01:08:12) - Outro