Four decades after becoming an international sales phenomenon and dominating a crowded gaming market, the Nintendo Entertainment System – the 8-bit box that spawned some of the media’s greatest enduring franchises – today finds itself playing host to something else entirely: a new aftermarket of IPs that are incredibly polished and cheerfully entertaining.
The home NES scene flourished for two decades, especially with the rise of tools like NESmaker in 2018, making development for consoles far more affordable. Inspired by the pioneering developers, the minds behind them Morphcat games earned their stripes coding games from scratch using 6502 assembly language.
input Micro mages. As an homage to NES-era platformers, the 2019 game was the subject of virality Making videos on YouTube which showcased the clever optimization techniques used by developers Julius Riecke and Nicolas Bétoux, who took it upon themselves to limit their game to just 40 kilobytes, in line with the file size of the iconic NES launch title Super Mario Bros.
Scan the comments on YouTube and the general feeling is, “If this had come out during the NES’s heyday, it would have been a milestone in gaming.” Physical copies of Micro Mages run flawlessly on the original NES hardware, though its physics and gameplay, which supports up to four players, feel distinctly modern to the touch, with gorgeous pixel art to boot.
we’ve noticed that new players also enjoy this old-fashioned physical experience
“Creating a ‘Nintendo Game’ has been a dream of mine since I was young,” Riecke tells Nintendo Life. “Back in the day, even though I never had my own NES, I always looked forward to playing it at my friends’ house. I guess that circumstance and the great times we spent together are what put him on a pedestal for me.”
Riecke and Bétoux, who live in Berlin, listed titles such as Kirby’s Adventure, the Super Mario Bros. series. and Mega Man 2 as the ones that left a lasting impression. “Later we discovered Mr. Gimmick and Little Samson who impressed us too! All these games have a high level of refinement, paying attention to every detail. Really impressive and inspiring.”
Riecke began working on NES development in 2005 and linked up with Bétoux in 2015. The duo at Morphcat Games now have a handful of acclaimed aftermarket NES games under their belt. With Riecke handling the programming and sound, and Bétoux creating the graphics and levels, the pair have carved a niche for themselves by pushing vintage hardware to its limits.
“Back in 2005, things were different: I grabbed all the technology documents I could find and spent several weeks reading them over and over again until the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place,” says Riecke. “Today, the state of the NES documentation is excellent. Although we use assembler as experienced programmers did, the tools available today are MUCH improved.”
While coding in assembly language, which is known to be much closer to the binary machine code that a computer’s CPU understands, is undoubtedly very demanding and time-consuming, “the advantage is that you have control over every aspect of the NES,” says Riecke. “It also helps to understand exactly how much CPU time each part of your code is using.”
Although modern tools have greatly simplified the NES development process, “handwritten assembler still outperforms code written in a higher-level language like C on the NES,” adds Riecke. “This makes it possible to really push the limits of the console beyond anything seen at the time. I dare say that, still, no one has come close to exhausting its full capabilities.”
Bétoux also finds joy in pushing the boundaries of hardware graphics limitations. “I started learning 6502ASM with Nerdy nights in 2011, a series of great tutorials for beginners” hosted by the now-defunct NintendoAge forum. “The NES graphical limitation is so attractive and it’s also challenging for creativity. There is so much to explore!”
In addition to 2019’s Micro Mages, the Morphcat duo has since released Bobl 2020, a water physics-based Metroidvania with a catchy soundtrack and an emphasis on exploration, and Space seagulls in 2021, which brings the controls together vividly duel with elements from the Mega Man series. Both titles were created for NESdev Compo and were limited to a more lenient 64 KB limit.
“The level of ROM space optimization we did on Micro Mages really took a long time. But doesn’t everything become manageable if you focus on one step at a time? That’s what we did, we got lost in the optimization maze for a while, not knowing where it would take us, but it was so much fun that we didn’t mind,” says Riecke.
Fewer memory constraints meant that the pair needed less time to optimize, although Böbl, which turns players into a literal bubble in particular, “was focused on optimizing the code to run smoothly on the NES’s 1.7 MHz CPU. The ripple effect of the water surface alone takes up more than 50% of the available CPU time.”
The duo spent nights and weekends fueled by sushi and pizza to complete Böbl in its entirety in one month. “With Spacegulls, we just had fun and were able to focus on exploring game design with the tools we already made for Böbl. However, the deadline was even shorter: a week from start to finish.”
Despite all the time it takes, Morphcat’s output gives no indication of that. For the curious, the slick physical edition of Böbl, Spacegulls and Micro Mages: Second Quest – an expanded version of the base game with new elements and increased challenge – is now up for pre-order on a single NES cartridge as part The Triple Jump Collection
“Physical cartridges with box and manual are so charming. Holding the game and diving into the instruction booklet is so satisfying. In fact, it extended the game experience beyond the gaming sessions,” Bétoux tells us, shedding light on Morphcat’s partnership with publisher Broke Studio to release in-game Micro mages and the Triple Jump collection.
Physical releases would have been “impossible” without the input of Antoine Gohin, creator of the subsequent NES game Twin dragons and head of Broke Studio, says Bétoux, who said the publisher handled heavy production for Micro Mages’ circuit board and case, while the box, manual and labels were all done in-house.
“Bringing [out] a new game is difficult and expensive to produce, but it’s a real pleasure to see people enjoying the final result. There’s also an element of nostalgia for people who grew up in the 8-bit era, but we’ve noticed that new players are also enjoying this old-school physical experience, wanting to buy an NES console and having fun discovering old and new games.”
Bétoux hints that Morphcat is thinking “a lot” about modern consoles, with something in the pipeline for 2024. “The Nintendo Switch is a great console for local multiplayer games, and a lot easier than finding an NES Four Score,” referring to the accessory announced for NES in 1990 to allow four-player local co-op – a prerequisite if you want to play Micro Mages with your friends on old hardware.
“All this fun keeps the NES alive.”
