BB Studio -- An Awesome Retro Game Engine For the Nintendo Entertainment System

Ever wished the awesome open-source no-coding required game engine GB Studio could make NES games in addition to GameBoy and GBC games? Well, now it can... sorta. With BB Studio, a heavily hacked together open-source port of GB Studio that adds the ability to build for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). With a few different restraints and a different color pallete system, the process stays more or less identical.
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[@UltimatePerfection]

Can't wait for GBA Studio and SNES Studio.

[@BadTranzlator]

N64 studio when?

[@safebox36]

I've been waiting for a GBA studio for years now. There's already a SNES one that Gamesfromscratch covered a while ago.

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@BadTranzlator Ask Kaze Emanuar.

[@olivierschyns7166]

While there is no GUI game engine, there are already frameworks for working on GBA, SNES, N64, PSX in either C or Rust.

[@olivierschyns7166]

​@@BadTranzlator libdragon

[@Henry_GamesX]

WOW, this is a Christmas present for me. I'm going to use this for my next game!!! I've always wanted to make original Nintendo games; especially since A LOT of people are trying to play old retro games now!! I think now is a great time to make them!!

[@RiccardoBocci]

Best game engine for NES still NesMaker, it's fantastic, you can even implement "scripts" via native 6502 assembly. lotsa dope games made with it!

[@disruptive_innovator]

sure. but this is free.

[@system64_MC]

There is NESFAB too, it's a Python-like programming language optimised for the NES. More complex than BB Studio or NES Maker, but worth to have a look at.

[@NewMateo]

if the internet has taught me anything BB means Big and Beautiful. so Big Beautiful studio it is!

[@Aeduo]

🤣

[@ameerashourdraws]

This is really impressive stuff! I wonder if anyone will make an engine for the SNES next heh

[@Henry_GamesX]

I hope so! That would be awesome!!

[@enjitanaka9020]

Makers of NESmaker announced dev of SNESmaker last week on official YT channel (The New 8-bit Heroes)

[@olivierschyns7166]

There is a C framework called PVSnesLib for making SNES games.

[@Michirin9801]

​@@olivierschyns7166 For SNES I think Assembly might be a better option than C... Like, there's a reason why the Mega Drive and GBC homebrew scenes are really poppin' rn, but the SNES one isn't... I do hope SNESmaker will change that though! Personally, I'm lowkey hoping for a PC Engine Maker lol

[@amirroohi4566]

BB: "Big Brother", yeah, sure, lets go with that, why not...

[@Henry_GamesX]

Lol 🤣

[@brodriguez11000]

Better Bosses.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

Big Booty Engine?

[@Zevest]

This reminds me of Pico-8, but for real hardware. By the way, I don't think I've seen a showcase of Picotron (Pico-8's "big brother") on this channel. I know it's not yet ready, but it's fun to use.

[@aguia_azulino]

2:20 *"You forgot the dynavision by:dynacon, Polystation and top game from CCE in Brazil too (alternative NES Famiclones) !"*

[@darkflux]

about the name BB Studio? it explains it right on the Github page: "It replaces the Game Boy target with the NES (the Game Boy's "Big Brother")." note that they put "Big Brother" in capital letters, and in quotes, just like they did BB Studio" at the start.

[@OmeedNOuhadi]

Thanks for sharing!

[@disruptive_innovator]

this is good. I love GBStudio. Really waiting for a SNES maker though.

[@Michirin9801]

6:26 Ok so, the GB and GBC have a Z80 CPU, not a 6502 like the NES, totally different architectures, and the NES was clocked at 1.79 MHz, the GB was clocked at 4 MHz (which sounds like a lot in comparison, but that's not how it works cuz of different architectures, it's about on-par with the NES, maybe even a lil' slower) and the GBC was clocked at 8 MHz (now THAT is a lot, legit faster than the NES and by quite a bit) Here's the thing, the 6502 doesn't seem to handle C code quite as gracefully as the Z80, and GB Studio IS coded in C... So like, don't expect performance on more action-packed games...

[@piratesephiroth]

The language GB Studio is coded in is irrelevant. Also the 6502 has nothing to do with C code, that's just an optimization problem with the most popular c compiler (cc65). GB Studio uses GBDK, which should be more efficient.

[@voidquaternion]

So finally someone did a super game boy (color) for NES haha :)

[@tangreen7267]

This is pretty cool !

[@ScavengerFX]

Thanks for this awesome video

[@MaxOakland]

This is so cool. Need help compiling the Mac version?

[@MrLarsalexander]

Another group of awesome coders that will end up on the Nintendo lawyers list of naughty people....

[@DarkerCry]

Someone just needs to hack it to make GBA games. I like gameboy games and nes but GBA has the extra oomph that I think would be more appealing.

[@olivierschyns7166]

GBA is closer to a NDS than anything else. There is a framework called agb which allow to make games for it in Rust. There is an other framework using Nim if I recall.

[@DarkerCry]

@olivierschyns7166 the appeal of this is the gui though, I know there are frameworks but this engine in particular would probably become more popular if it supported the gba. NDS would be interesting but asking for 3D support would be a lot.

[@deprecated8036]

0:57 What you are describing is a software fork, not a hack.

[@piratesephiroth]

it is a hack, they say that themselves.

[@Michirin9801]

I just released a wee lil' game made with GB Studio! I'm not hopping on NES dev yet, but I'll keep an eye on this project, I've had NESmaker for years but never made anything with it...

[@jeffhauser8031]

400 mb download for making NES games. Imagine what 400 MB where back in the 80s - unheard of.

[@mazimadu]

Intriguing!

[@mihoshiproductions9809]

Hmm, I would have been interested in this for the music and sound effects designer in GBStudio, however from reading the documentation, BBStudio doesn't use it, requiring one to make their music in FamiStudio instead. There are also a lot of restrictions that would make either building your own engine or using another tool more ideal. However, if one was already a GBStudio developer or liked a WYSIWYG approach then I could see how this would work out well enough.

[@aztekno2012]

So what would happen if that and A.I. were to incorporate?? Imagine the games!!!

[@NatanCanDraw]

Ok, I'm gonna get back to programming now

[@safebox36]

I'm waiting for someone to build a UI interface around the Butano game engine so we can get some GBA titles. I love Butano, but C++ is such a pain to work with.

[@olivierschyns7166]

There is also agb which works with Rust and support Tiled's maps.

[@gricchastain6506]

Nice

[@D0NU75]

if it wasn't for the horrible native screen resolution of the GBC, you really wouldn't need to export to NES

[@jwr6796]

Cool.

[@RlsIII-uz1kl]

Real-time AI generated retro stye gaming with memory (remembering what it's already generated) will probably be coming sometime soon.

[@dr-doctor-1992]

Why not add desktop executable as export option

[@pandueka7718]

use godot instead

[@dr-doctor-1992]

@pandueka7718 I do use Godot as well

[@at1965]

BLUE BALLS STUDIO

[@promaster424]

Wow, it reminds me of the gba exporter someone did for the 2.0 version. I hope this gets updated unlike that project

[@PanosGeorgiadis]

llvm mos or cca65 behind the scenes?

[@supermariomistickgames4700]

That's wild... I didn't even know about GB Studio lol

[@EternalRecurrence88]

My question is, can you make games that exceed cartridge limitations? Like could you make a game potentially in the gigabytes, and require more ram? Essentially could emulators handle games like that? Possibly more layers then the NES hardware would be capable of using. Or is everything still forced to those constraints?

[@piratesephiroth]

The NES' native limits are quite low so the real limits come from the mapper chip used in the cartridge. BBStudio uses a custom mapper that's still being worked on, so I think the specifications aren't finalized yet.

[@EternalRecurrence88]

@ but can emulators play games that would exceed a cartridge capacity?

[@piratesephiroth]

@@EternalRecurrence88 yes, as long as someone adds support for the mapper. Currently they link to a modified version of Mesen if people want to test their games on a PC.

[@maingrought6906]

i'll like more simplify game engines o addons for already known engines like Godot for old consoles, i always wanted to make games for my psp or gba but you need amazing skills on C++ and i barely know GDscript and C# in the unity enviroment

[@johnmickevich1]

I keep getting an error when I try to install it

[@prestoncorless2980]

The GB had the Z80 not the 6502

[@NotThatVinny]

Too bad we can't upload to official emulators on the Switch.

[@vikingzeppelin]

first thing you said was "gb" studio

[@TuanBaoDoratom]

That's for the best, no one wants NESmaker anymore, sadly.

[@calebprenger3928]

What mapper does it use?

[@Elrinth]

says around 7 minute mark something like 248 or such... but will be different seems.

[@piratesephiroth]

a custom one

[@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx981]

BB stands for Nethanhayu. It's made in Israel. They just love their politicians

[@gonhunter3994]

Tf is you on about? Are you mental?