I think what happened is that these developers figured out a way to reduce the color cell information from 16 x 16 down to 8 by 8 pixels allowing four times as much color then originally possible. That's a pretty cool feat!
@@ItsPaybackTime16just I mean with big enough cart you can make amazing looking stuff usually it was more storage space limit that affected the look back then. Just compare early NES games with the later ones
To anyone wondering they are using a brand new custom mapper called MXM1, not pushing MMC5 or VRC7 to the max with some until now unknown wizardry. Look at the Kickstarter link. Reminds me of the MSU1 custom chip on the SNES for enhanced visuals and FMV titles
Haha it does. The lack of color options kind of gives it away but if you showed this in 1988, I think people would have been like "yeah, that's 16-bit"
Seeing how the animations are so smooth, i'm wondering if they're not using some kind of "Out of this world"/"Flashback" code to generate the graphics... But yeah, it's quite intringuing!
I just love how developers have finally decided NOT to limit themselves in mere 40K of ROM. The game is looking gorgeous! That's the true potential of NES not held by ROM size and mapper cost!
After seeing just how limited NES programmers were, gives me 100x the respect I have for modern game programmers. Not that modern programmers aren't good, but they have literal gigabytes to work with...NES guys had a tiny amount of storage.
@@pvanukoff I was referring to modern indie delopers who make NES games. Most of modern NES games I saw were too simplistic. Except for NES Doom. That's why Former Dawn stands out so much for me.
@@mattm7798yes and that is why modern games like this are not as wow as some make it tech wise. It’s wow for the result but if you would have given those cart sizes modern nes games have to the people back in late 80s and they would also had made amazing things.
Just built a custom NES with a nesessity 1.6 board, clear retro game restore shell, nintend-drawer from etsy and custom metal logos. Kickstarted this game as the perfect compliment to my new NES system.
The animation is probably the most impressive part of this. Graphically, it doesn't quite hit the 16-bit look, but instead looks like a really high-end Master System game to me, or maybe a GBC game that doesn't have to be cropped for the screen resolution. Looks really nice.
Right. It's really really close. The lack of colors is the give away it's not 16-bit but yeah, if this were like a launch title in 1988 for the mega drive, i think people would believe it. Definitely looks as good or better than any master system game, and master system was more powerful than the NES.
This is the BEST looking NES games hands down. Will it fit on a cart for real hardware is the question. Via extra ROM / bank switching and mappers Edit: Wow, they literally made their own mapper for this. makes sense now. Super impressed )
This answers a longstanding question I've had, which is how nice a finished game could someone make for the NES today, because I have ideas for games. Beautiful.
I doubt it's trickery as much as they are likely using some permutation of the advanced Memory Mapping Chips and increased ROM and RAM chips in the cartridge. It's typically how the graphics and sound of NES games improved over time during it's generation.
Been following this for a while myself and while I am confident I'll see it on the PC in some form, I'm STILL not convinced it'll arrive on an unmodified NES. At least not in that state anyway. Those graphics, animations and music are astounding. If it does come through like that and the custom mapper they claim to have developed is real, I will be very happy, as will the NES emulation and Homebrew communities. I wish the dev team all the best and will keep my fingers crossed. Sorry, it seems all this SuperSEGA business has me a tad skeptical of projects of this nature. 😮💨
Looks like as of right now we only have 5 days left to fund this project and it's about $34k short. I really hope it makes it because I really want to play a legit version on original hardware.
The art/ graphic style reminds me of the old VGA graphic style in games like Monkey Island and the later Kings Quest games Pretty cool its in 8 bit game
Yeah, this game is indeed an impressive technical marvel in every possible way. Though it's a bummer there won't be a PAL version of this game according to their FAQ. Would have been a huge bliss seeing this running on my Scandinavian NES console.
NES game enhanced with a special MXM-0 mapper which allows much (much!) more memory to be used (and switched quickly on scan-lines). Also, it contains AY synth chip (possibly emulated) for sound/music. Impressive? Well, it takes a lot of time, skills and encouragement to design and use something like that. But please don't forget it is not a "standard" NES cartridge.
This is a perfect example of why console life cycles should be MUCH longer. Push the devs to squeeze every ounce out of the systems capabilities before moving on. We see this with every early release and late release on consoles.
The animation of the fella running kind of reminds me of Prince of Persia, or Moon Crystal. They really pushed the color palette to the max. If they did this on Master System, it wouldn't be as cool because the hardware is superior. This is the NES, and thats pretty amazing! That main menu music slaps too. Now Imagine if they utilized Famicom expansion audio.
It DOES utilize Famicom expansion audio. The NES version does the same thing, which is why we provide an expansion audio bridge with every NES cartridge that we sell. Nintendo gimped the NES's expansion audio out of the box so that you have to un-gimp it with a little wire (resistor, technically). Sad chapter in their otherwise stellar record of console design.
@somethingnerdystudios2147 oh wow, that is an awesome little detail to supply the bridge for expansion audio! I have no idea why our US and EU NES systems got shorted that feature. I mean it's just a wire and a little resistor. Maybe because we never got the Disk System? Idk. So I'll be keeping my eye on this. Looks amazing so far.
I'd imagine it can run better as well on SNES if they plan to expand on it. It's just nice to own complete games on game carts like it used to. This is worth supporting.
This game looks absolutely epic; probably the best looking NES game ever... This only makes me sad in the sense that I cannot adjust the spacetime continuum to bring this game to myself during my childhood.
I cannot see this being an NES game unless they use one of the later mappers like the MMC5 or the FME-7. If they do, I hope they have an expanded music option.
Its a totally different mapper than MMC5. Their mapper is MXM and it bank switches the graphics on the fly all the time. That is the only way to get smooth animation like this.
You think the graphics would slow the NES to a crawl but look how smooth that is. Holy crap. This is some tech-wizardry here. I am loving this retro NES revival
@@litjellyfish could you explain this for a casual gamer who doesn't understand the technical ins and out of this? Could this have been done in the '80s?
@ yes it could technically / theoretically have been done. Only thing is that the size of the cartridges for such a game would be very very expensive. So financially it would not be realistic to do such
That custom mapper will be a double edged sword. It nets beautiful visuals for sure, but this means enjoying on emulators for example most likely will not happen from my understanding which will limit its sales to strictly physical sales. Seems like a tough decision in 2024. This won't for example most likely be run on the MiSTer with that mapper situation.
They'll open source the mapper after the game releases then someone can choose to add support to the emulators. But they won't add the mapper support to emulators officially.
I'm looking closely at it and I'm not seeing anything that's beyond the NES hardware capability. I'm not even seeing more advanced tile+sprite layering techniques to squeeze 3 more colors into a tile, most of the graphics just seem to be the memory mapper updating the tile memory on the fly.
After all,the Nes can battle with turbo grafx 16 and still give a good fight. I bought an original Nes last month ago and even growing up with Master System and Mega Drive, i consider this one the most important of the game industry
Did they put more ram in the nes or a cart enhancement chip. Also that port at the bottom can be used or programing techniques because WOW on a old NES.
Did they put more ram in the Old NES or a cart enhancement chip. Also that port at the bottom can be used or programing techniques because WOW on a old NES.
Yes and no. Yes, it uses an expansion chip in the cartridge like almost every good NES game ever did -- Metroid, both Zelda games, all 3 Castlevania games, and all of the RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. But "no" in the sense that the expansion chip is anything like Super FX. Super FX and all those other expansion chips for the SNES are really CPUs or primitive GPUS, not memory mappers. Our memory mapper is much more like the one used in Castlevania III than anything else.
Every NES game after Super Mario Bros 1 uses an extra chip in the cartridge. Without an extra chip, the game can only be 40kb or less. Plus the extra graphics capabilities.
Yea, that's impressive. This would've been one of the more expensive carts of it was released back in the day. I remember certain nes games being like $70+ dollars
Looks amizing, let me ask you something, its really can run on original nintendo? Its a greate work, always im get myself surprised how can people can makle a amazing job on vintage games.
Looks amazing. Only playable with an Everdrive? For the extra storage space I presume. With the extra memory it's amazing what could have been with the original Nintendo.
I say all the NES could of had was a 256 color palette and it would have been killer! it only had 54 colors and could only display I guess way less than that on the screen... so if the games were colorful like the SNES it would have rocked hard!
@Dominic Right, but that still does not change the fact that the inputs are different. I’m assuming you would still need some type of adapter. Otherwise, there’s no way physically that the super NES controller would fit on an NES. ❤@
They're using a bridge on the expansion port for the audio but their (likely FPGA) mapper chip will also be doing double duty by providing the extra audio channels.
Support on Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/something-nerdy/former-dawn
The character looks like Basil Expansion
Thank you John ❤
I'm getting concerned that this one might not make it to their goal, but I've done my part.
Why didn't you mention its using the MXM-1 mapper?
Holy smokes! I didn't think the NES could pull off such slick graphics. Actually amazing.
I think what happened is that these developers figured out a way to reduce the color cell information from 16 x 16 down to 8 by 8 pixels allowing four times as much color then originally possible. That's a pretty cool feat!
Mapper duh!
@@nickfifteenNo, it's obviously using a mapper, duh!
@@nickfifteenwoot no the default tile resolution is 8x8. 16x16 was just software based meta tile system to save space
@@ItsPaybackTime16just I mean with big enough cart you can make amazing looking stuff usually it was more storage space limit that affected the look back then. Just compare early NES games with the later ones
To anyone wondering they are using a brand new custom mapper called MXM1, not pushing MMC5 or VRC7 to the max with some until now unknown wizardry. Look at the Kickstarter link.
Reminds me of the MSU1 custom chip on the SNES for enhanced visuals and FMV titles
Yeah....I was thinking this exactly. Thanks for the clarification.
The MSU-1 chip allows for FMV and CD quality audio. I don't think it enhances the visuals other than it can play FMV.
Yes and a beefy cart size also I assume 😅
Honestly looks like a very early Genesis game, and that is NOT a criticism.
I was thinking the same thing.
I thought at first: there's no way this an nes game, the colors are very vibrant and pop.
Early? Honestly it looks like a GBA game.
My jaw seriously dropped when I first saw the graphics!
Haha it does. The lack of color options kind of gives it away but if you showed this in 1988, I think people would have been like "yeah, that's 16-bit"
Genesis does what Ninten-finally-did
this is visually impressive for a NES game. it kind of reminds me of Willow
I do love Willow.
Yeah, I totally get Willow vibes.
That is amazing for NES!
That's insane. I'm always impressed with the indy developers who push the old machines to the absolute brink.
I think it’s more tha. Pushing the machine. I don’t see so much pushing her but a really big cart size and some new mapper
This is definitely looking like it's going to be a high capacity cart to store all of the unique tiles and artwork.
Seeing how the animations are so smooth, i'm wondering if they're not using some kind of "Out of this world"/"Flashback" code to generate the graphics... But yeah, it's quite intringuing!
Yeah there has to be some serious bank switching going on here. :)
I just love how developers have finally decided NOT to limit themselves in mere 40K of ROM.
The game is looking gorgeous!
That's the true potential of NES not held by ROM size and mapper cost!
After seeing just how limited NES programmers were, gives me 100x the respect I have for modern game programmers. Not that modern programmers aren't good, but they have literal gigabytes to work with...NES guys had a tiny amount of storage.
It could go up to 1 MB
Finally? They've been exceeding the 40K limit since the 80's.
@@pvanukoff I was referring to modern indie delopers who make NES games. Most of modern NES games I saw were too simplistic. Except for NES Doom.
That's why Former Dawn stands out so much for me.
@@mattm7798yes and that is why modern games like this are not as wow as some make it tech wise. It’s wow for the result but if you would have given those cart sizes modern nes games have to the people back in late 80s and they would also had made amazing things.
Ok this looks amazing. I’m considering backing it now thanks John!
This is Amazing! I want to see more NES games like this that really push the hardware in ways we couldn't have imagined in the 90's, NES forever!!
Just built a custom NES with a nesessity 1.6 board, clear retro game restore shell, nintend-drawer from etsy and custom metal logos. Kickstarted this game as the perfect compliment to my new NES system.
man that looks amazing
That is some impressive looking eye candy you got there...
I just hope he brought enough of that eye candy for everyone.
The animation is probably the most impressive part of this. Graphically, it doesn't quite hit the 16-bit look, but instead looks like a really high-end Master System game to me, or maybe a GBC game that doesn't have to be cropped for the screen resolution. Looks really nice.
Right. It's really really close. The lack of colors is the give away it's not 16-bit but yeah, if this were like a launch title in 1988 for the mega drive, i think people would believe it. Definitely looks as good or better than any master system game, and master system was more powerful than the NES.
looks like an old pc game like ultima
Looks like the result from an advanced 8-bit computer, such as the MSX2+.
This is the BEST looking NES games hands down. Will it fit on a cart for real hardware is the question. Via extra ROM / bank switching and mappers
Edit: Wow, they literally made their own mapper for this. makes sense now. Super impressed )
I've been following the X page for this game for a while, and this is WILD. I cannot wait for the full game to release.
def reminds me of a kings quest game on PC
This looks really amazing. I mean, yeah its a fancy mapper thats basically an FPGA, but its still amazing!
That's incredible
That looks really cool! Thanks for sharing, John! 😎👍🏻
This answers a longstanding question I've had, which is how nice a finished game could someone make for the NES today, because I have ideas for games. Beautiful.
I doubt it's trickery as much as they are likely using some permutation of the advanced Memory Mapping Chips and increased ROM and RAM chips in the cartridge. It's typically how the graphics and sound of NES games improved over time during it's generation.
Looks and sounds awsome! Someone used their skills for an actual game and not only for an audiovisual tech demo.
wow!! Bonkers!! Crazy impressive!!
I love these playthroughs. Wish you did more but I’m content with this ☺️
Looks really good!
Thanks for posting bud!
Been following this for a while myself and while I am confident I'll see it on the PC in some form, I'm STILL not convinced it'll arrive on an unmodified NES. At least not in that state anyway. Those graphics, animations and music are astounding. If it does come through like that and the custom mapper they claim to have developed is real, I will be very happy, as will the NES emulation and Homebrew communities.
I wish the dev team all the best and will keep my fingers crossed.
Sorry, it seems all this SuperSEGA business has me a tad skeptical of projects of this nature. 😮💨
The playable demo is available to the public and plays on unmodified hardware. You just need an Everdrive N8 Pro to play it.
How they’ll doing this on the nes is freaking insane! I wonder what the rom size is gonna be, it’s gotta be huge.
They said dozens of MB (mega bytes).
That smooth animation is incredible
Thanks! I did all the humanoid character sprite animations. It uses very high frame counts per animation thanks to their custom memory mapper!!
@@FireskiesStudiosincredible work, looking forward to playing it!
We've come a long way from Donkey Kong on the NES
Wow 😳... that is incredible for an NES game 😮...
Seriously.. Can't wait to play the full game
Very impressive. I’d love to see a behind the scenes making of video on this game.
How ya feeling John? Great video as always. This game looks amazing for the NES.. it's so cool there are talented devs still pushing it further.
Reminds me of The Secrect of Monkey Island! Good stuff!
Looks like as of right now we only have 5 days left to fund this project and it's about $34k short. I really hope it makes it because I really want to play a legit version on original hardware.
Awesome! Finally somebody is covering this game!
Damn, that is impressive for the hardware! Amazes me what people can make with old hardware that official companies haven't tried.
I really enjoy seeing new games that seem to push the limits of the hardware.
The art/ graphic style reminds me of the old VGA graphic style in games like Monkey Island and the later Kings Quest games Pretty cool its in 8 bit game
I would say it actually goes above SNES in some aspects. That's insane!
Yeah, this game is indeed an impressive technical marvel in every possible way.
Though it's a bummer there won't be a PAL version of this game according to their FAQ. Would have been a huge bliss seeing this running on my Scandinavian NES console.
You know you can modify you pal nes to run ntse games right?
Looks awesome. But I'm skeptical about how well it will perform on NES hardware.
I doubt it will go beyond NES capacity
It runs on NES hardware, they created a new mapper for this game. A mapper is a new PCB.
You can literally try it yourself now if you have an Everdrive N8 Pro.
NES game enhanced with a special MXM-0 mapper which allows much (much!) more memory to be used (and switched quickly on scan-lines). Also, it contains AY synth chip (possibly emulated) for sound/music. Impressive? Well, it takes a lot of time, skills and encouragement to design and use something like that. But please don't forget it is not a "standard" NES cartridge.
Looks like a Megadrive game with Super Nintendo music wow
no it doesn't
Nah.
@ItsPaybackTime16 yeah 🤣
@ItsPaybackTime16 🤣
@@georged7627 Only possible via mapper.
BET! 😆
This is a perfect example of why console life cycles should be MUCH longer. Push the devs to squeeze every ounce out of the systems capabilities before moving on. We see this with every early release and late release on consoles.
Outstanding job !
How the hell its this good? The sprites.... they r damn gorgeous!
Isometric battles
Ive been thinking how cool it would be to see some of the old classics remade and made better! I would love an updated TMNT for example.
That music is Konami’s VRC7, which had fm synth channels.
The animation of the fella running kind of reminds me of Prince of Persia, or Moon Crystal. They really pushed the color palette to the max. If they did this on Master System, it wouldn't be as cool because the hardware is superior. This is the NES, and thats pretty amazing! That main menu music slaps too. Now Imagine if they utilized Famicom expansion audio.
It DOES utilize Famicom expansion audio. The NES version does the same thing, which is why we provide an expansion audio bridge with every NES cartridge that we sell. Nintendo gimped the NES's expansion audio out of the box so that you have to un-gimp it with a little wire (resistor, technically). Sad chapter in their otherwise stellar record of console design.
@somethingnerdystudios2147 oh wow, that is an awesome little detail to supply the bridge for expansion audio! I have no idea why our US and EU NES systems got shorted that feature. I mean it's just a wire and a little resistor. Maybe because we never got the Disk System? Idk. So I'll be keeping my eye on this. Looks amazing so far.
I'd imagine it can run better as well on SNES if they plan to expand on it. It's just nice to own complete games on game carts like it used to. This is worth supporting.
This is phenomenal looking.
Works on my everdrive. Looks promising.
Which model and revision?
@@KeithPhillips The Everdrive N8 Pro.
@Dominic_Muller Thanks! I was kind of assuming it was that one! Looks like it's time to upgrade, Lol
This game looks absolutely epic; probably the best looking NES game ever... This only makes me sad in the sense that I cannot adjust the spacetime continuum to bring this game to myself during my childhood.
I cannot see this being an NES game unless they use one of the later mappers like the MMC5 or the FME-7. If they do, I hope they have an expanded music option.
Its a totally different mapper than MMC5. Their mapper is MXM and it bank switches the graphics on the fly all the time. That is the only way to get smooth animation like this.
@@erockbrox8484 I see, so will this work on NES hardware then? I've never heard of that mapper. I have the N8 Pro
@@MavHunter20XX Their own custom mapper. It'll work on the NES. Already does of you have an everdrive pro N8
This looks amazing
That's wild
Bro I can’t wait for this!
Chip N Dale/ Darkwing Duck/ TMNT 2 Arcade/ Gremlins 2 all great looking games on NES.
And these guys are apparently planning on working on SNES either next or in the future. That I cannot wait to see!
Wow! Just... Wow. It's like Pier Solar all over again!
You think the graphics would slow the NES to a crawl but look how smooth that is. Holy crap. This is some tech-wizardry here. I am loving this retro NES revival
MXM-1 mapper is the wizardry.
@@ItsPaybackTime16exactly. Like how do people not get that this is the result of a mapper and big data storage?
@@litjellyfish could you explain this for a casual gamer who doesn't understand the technical ins and out of this? Could this have been done in the '80s?
@ yes it could technically / theoretically have been done. Only thing is that the size of the cartridges for such a game would be very very expensive. So financially it would not be realistic to do such
@@litjellyfish Nope, they are using a very advanced mapper to achieve this, and that's why sone are saying what's the point of this.
That custom mapper will be a double edged sword. It nets beautiful visuals for sure, but this means enjoying on emulators for example most likely will not happen from my understanding which will limit its sales to strictly physical sales. Seems like a tough decision in 2024. This won't for example most likely be run on the MiSTer with that mapper situation.
it's being released simultaneously with a pc port. A native PC Port.
@@sunderark that is great news!
They'll open source the mapper after the game releases then someone can choose to add support to the emulators. But they won't add the mapper support to emulators officially.
Amazing. However, looks to have too large a colour palette for regular NES game on original hardware
It does work on original hardware
@@NesrocksGamingVideos Well that is just astounding
I'm looking closely at it and I'm not seeing anything that's beyond the NES hardware capability. I'm not even seeing more advanced tile+sprite layering techniques to squeeze 3 more colors into a tile, most of the graphics just seem to be the memory mapper updating the tile memory on the fly.
Looks pretty cool! 👍😁
how fast the text draws is pretty bonkers for NES
Doesn't quite look like a SNES game because of the lower colour gamut imo, but I think it could easily be mistaken for a Genesis game.
This is actually very impressive.
Hory cow! This looks like a 12 bit game! (in between 8 and 16 bit😆)
After all,the Nes can battle with turbo grafx 16 and still give a good fight. I bought an original Nes last month ago and even growing up with Master System and Mega Drive, i consider this one the most important of the game industry
Did they put more ram in the nes or a cart enhancement chip. Also that port at the bottom can be used or programing techniques because WOW on a old NES.
Did they put more ram in the Old NES or a cart enhancement chip. Also that port at the bottom can be used or programing techniques because WOW on a old NES.
It's weird seeing a NES game with sprites that have more than 3 colors and who aren't flickering.
Game looks great. Would this be available as a ROM to play on an emulator?
Genesis/Super Nintendo hybrid homebrew game
So is it like the FX chip for SNES where the "cart" provides extra hardware for the NES to use?
Yes and no. Yes, it uses an expansion chip in the cartridge like almost every good NES game ever did -- Metroid, both Zelda games, all 3 Castlevania games, and all of the RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. But "no" in the sense that the expansion chip is anything like Super FX. Super FX and all those other expansion chips for the SNES are really CPUs or primitive GPUS, not memory mappers. Our memory mapper is much more like the one used in Castlevania III than anything else.
@@somethingnerdystudios2147It actually uses a very advanced mapper the MXM-1, which is capable of mode 7 graphics.
@@ItsPaybackTime16 you just replied to the developers of the game.
Every NES game after Super Mario Bros 1 uses an extra chip in the cartridge. Without an extra chip, the game can only be 40kb or less. Plus the extra graphics capabilities.
Yea, that's impressive. This would've been one of the more expensive carts of it was released back in the day. I remember certain nes games being like $70+ dollars
for a NES game, the graphics are quite good. Animations too.
Wow! Colour me impressed!!
The graphics kind of remind me of the style they used in platoon on the NES
Not quite 16 bit, but definitely better than typical NES. Looks alot like Sega Master System level graphics.
Looks amizing, let me ask you something, its really can run on original nintendo?
Its a greate work, always im get myself surprised how can people can makle a amazing job on vintage games.
That is insane!
That boss battle, i hope its not like that in the full game because when you attack, it looks like there is no reaction from the boss
Looks amazing. Only playable with an Everdrive? For the extra storage space I presume. With the extra memory it's amazing what could have been with the original Nintendo.
The final will be available on an NES cart.
I say all the NES could of had was a 256 color palette and it would have been killer! it only had 54 colors and could only display I guess way less than that on the screen... so if the games were colorful like the SNES it would have rocked hard!
Really good!
@Dominic Right, but that still does not change the fact that the inputs are different. I’m assuming you would still need some type of adapter. Otherwise, there’s no way physically that the super NES controller would fit on an NES.
❤@
Oh of course, yes, you need a physical adapter.
Oh cool, i just read an article about this game !
this can't look like this on an unmodded nes tho... can it?
Yes, absolutely it can, and it does!
100% does.
That's the promise.
I'm assuming there's some extra bits in the cart when it gets released to achieve the look.
Looks very much like Young Merlin on the SNES (graphically), very impressive.
Does it use a special sound chip in the cartridge through a pass-through hack, like Pitfall 2 did?
They're using a bridge on the expansion port for the audio but their (likely FPGA) mapper chip will also be doing double duty by providing the extra audio channels.
Witchcraft. Clearly they made a pact with the devil.
Mappers duh!
gorgeous!!!!
that pointer would drive me nuts, I can't stand those on NES games. Did the NES have a mouse?
How many megabytes is it? There was chip limitations on nes. I bet that makes a world of difference.
I would like to see this nes game port and upgrade to snes version.. wanna see if the graphics improve or not.