Skip to content
Hallway
0:00 / 0:00

#micromages#nes#assembly

How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes

Morphcat Games

52K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 8 people: 6 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters and 1 in engineering communities.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2019 to 2024.
  • Made by the vendor. The company whose product it covers made or sponsored it.
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 8 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

3.7M views8 years ago8 recommendations

Game developmentSystems programmingGame programmingRetro games and consolesPerformance and optimization

Morphcat Games explains the clever compression and optimization techniques used to fit their game Micro Mages into a 40KB NES cartridge.

Trailer/Gameplay: youtu.be/VFX401vvKTQ NES CARTRIDGE NOW AVAILABLE: brokestudio.fr/en/shop/micro-mages-2/ DIGITAL VERSION: morphcatgames.itch.io/micromages OR ON STEAM: store.steampowered.com/app/1065020/Micro_Mages/ Both the itch.io and Steam releases contain a ROM file for use on NES emulators and are thereby playable on many different platforms! Twitter: twitter.com/morphcat Kickstarter page/updates: kickstarter.com/projects/morphcat-games/micro-mages-a-new-ga…

Why it's here

8 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as a fascinating look at extreme optimization, retro game development, and clever data compression techniques.

u/friedrichRiemannin r/embedded • Recommends

Fitting a NES game into 40 Kilobytes
29View on Reddit

JordiGHon Lobsters • Recommends

How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes
13View on Lobsters

splchon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: How were video games from the 90s so efficient?”

I love this video: link to this video As part of a Kickerstarter campaign, Morphcat Games made this video explaining how they eked out a really incredible game with only 40 Kb (a lot like Super Mario Bros 2). I definitely recommend checking this out as they go over interesting compression methods and more general thought processes.
View on Hacker News

arnaudsmon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Street Fighter II, subtile accurate animation (2021)”

Here is my favorite video about 8-bit era optimisations. Makes you appreciate games from this era even more. This arcane magic survived in the demoscene to this day. link to this video
View on Hacker News

MrFoofon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Super Mario Bros. game was just 31 Kilobytes. How's that possible?”

Very much agree with the parent. If you want a better idea on how you can cram everything into 40KB — using every trick in the book, including ones not considered 30+ years ago — take a look at a how a recently released NES game (Micro Mages) managed it. Their primary design constrain was that they restricted themselves to 40KB, despite wanting to do far more than the games that were done in 40KB back in the 80s. link to this video
View on Hacker News

aleccoon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2019?”

ZFS for newbies link main ideas behind ZFS and why it blows out the competition in many scenarios Making C Less Dangerous in the Linux Kernel link NUMA optimizations in the FreeBSD stack (Netflix) link How we fit a NES game in 40KiB link to this video
View on Hacker News

Timpyon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Top games from the JS13K 2020 competition”

I'm absolutely blown away by some of the games they managed to make in under 13kb. This video "How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes" is an interesting illustration of just how small these games are. link to this video
View on Hacker News

MrFoofon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Yoyozo (or, how I made a Playdate game in 39KB)”

A similarly interesting story is regarding the NES homebrew game, Micro Mages. The goal with Micro Mages was to get a full-featured game into the same footprint of the original, "Black Box" NES releases for the North American launch, where a fair number of games fit in 40KB of ROM or less. Video, but it's a good summary: link to this video Morphcat has done other great NES games as well, such as Space Gulls and Bobl.
View on Hacker News

throwawayk7hon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Crafting a 13KB Game: The Story of Space Huggers”

Incredible. I love these stories of kb games. For those interested, there's a great video for this 40 kb nes game, micro mages: link to this video
View on Hacker News

nineteen999on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Architecture of the Nintendo DS”

I remember seeing this video on that about the clever compression tricks used to cram the sprites and map layouts into 40K. link to this video
View on Hacker News

latexron Hacker News • Mentions

On “A new line drawing method for the cycle savvy”

…arity also play a role. Today, pixel graphics are an aesthetic choice. Developers and artist can go beyond what was possible when they were a necessity and create something entirely new. Yet some still derive enjoyment and pride from following the limitations of yore to the letter: there are games created in the 2000s which work on the NES. link link to this video…
View on Hacker News

hollow-moeon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Htmx 4.0, the first JavaScript library to release exclusively on the Game Boy”

Love to see new stuff on ancient platforms. Surprised I couldn't find a post about Micro Mages on HN, only comments. link to this video Spoiler, when the time will come you'll never see something like this on the play station 4.
View on Hacker News