New Action Adventure Game [NES]

[UglyJoe]

The only downside is that you need a controller with a daisy-chaining port (like the ASCII Stick Turbo has) or some other sort of simple adapter like the JoyPair or Twin Adapter (not the Hori 4 Players Adapter though as it's basically the Famicom version of the Four Score) in order to plug in a controller 4.

This is a big downside for me, personally, as those adapters are not especially easy to come by.

Even though the 1/3 2/4 setup is the most common, it is incredibly uncommon to require select/start buttons for player two in Famicom games (I'd hazard that zero official games required this, but could be wrong).  So I think the 1 2/3/4 setup makes more sense here, as that would be the way to enable the most gamers to play the game in two-player mode.

I will admit that it has its own downside of not letting a single-player use their favorite external controller when playing the game by themselves, though.

[olddb]

What most games do is to use controller 3 as an alternative to controller 1 and controller 4 as an alternative to controller 2. This way you can use any external controller you want instead of the hardwired ones, and player 2 can get START and SELECT.

I realize my original code already supports this setup.

The only downside is that you need a controller with a daisy-chaining port (like the ASCII Stick Turbo has) or some other sort of simple adapter like the JoyPair or Twin Adapter (not the Hori 4 Players Adapter though as it's basically the Famicom version of the Four Score) in order to plug in a controller 4.

I want to go with the simplest and most user friendly solution. I image not many own the four player adapter, like you said.

I guess you could give the player the option to either make controller 3 work as controller 2 like you do now, or let them work like explained above so that both players can use external controllers if they want.

Why would both players need to use external controllers, thought? Do the attached ones often run faulty?

Thanks for the reply.

EDIT:

This is a big downside for me, personally, as those adapters are not especially easy to come by.

Even though the 1/3 2/4 setup is the most common, it is incredibly uncommon to require select/start buttons for player two in Famicom games (I'd hazard that zero official games required this, but could be wrong).  So I think the 1 2/3/4 setup makes more sense here, as that would be the way to enable the most gamers to play the game in two-player mode.

I will admit that it has its own downside of not letting a single-player use their favorite external controller when playing the game by themselves, though.

I guess the optimal solution would be to give the player a choice. But how to to this elegantly?

[P]

I think the most straight-forward solution is to include an options menu where the player can select which mode they need.

Reasons to use external controllers includes being able to use your favorite controller, an arcade stick, longer cord etc.

Although those adapters are very hard to find, they are also very simple to build. Here is one that can be built using a Neo-Geo controller extension cable and two NES controller extension cables and allows using normal NES controllers as external controllers. They can also be replaced for SNES controller extension cables to support SNES controllers (Virtual Boy controller also possible).

Yeah the only Famicom game that we discovered to require START and SELECT for controller 2/4 is Bokosuka Wars, and it was only to do a cheat code that doesn't even seem to be possible.
Some NES games also requires it (Battletoads and R.C. Pro Am 2 for 2-player modes).

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Any particular tune you didn't like? Or is the music overall lacking?

It's not any particular tune, but the engine itself plays like an early pre-1986 NES/FC game where notes being held sound loud without any fade/tremolo. I can understand if that's the aesthetic you're going for.

Some have complained about this before and we find it odd. The cut the grass mechanic is inspired by Zelda ALTTP. I believe in that game it works the same way.

Fair enough. It's the same situation with the sound. If you want to mimic the style of a 30-year old game's mechanic, it's your choice, but even the GBA version improved on this: https://youtu.be/6lLv3VTB7qA?t=474

[olddb]

It's not any particular tune, but the engine itself plays like an early pre-1986 NES/FC game where notes being held sound loud without any fade/tremolo. I can understand if that's the aesthetic you're going for.

The sound engine went through various iterations and became more complex in time. Some of the simple tunes were designed for the first version. For example, the first town music. Only a minority of the game's music suffers from this.

Thanks for the honest feedback.

Fair enough. It's the same situation with the sound. If you want to mimic the style of a 30-year old game's mechanic, it's your choice, but even the GBA version improved on this: https://youtu.be/6lLv3VTB7qA?t=474

Thanks for the link; wasn't aware of this.