182: Micro Mages

Micro Mages is a NES homebrew with remarkably modern game design. Morphcat Games managed to fit an entire 4-player Towerfall-inspired co-op platfomer into just 40kb. It’s an incredible feat of 6502 assembly programming, and an incredibly fun game to boot!

You can download Micro Mages on itch.io or Steam for $10.99. Either option includes the PC version of the game as well as an NES rom that can play on nearly anything, including actual NES hardware via a flash cart like the EverDrive-N8. Expect it to take about 3-5 hours to complete depending on your NES jump-and-shoot chops.

Links for this episode:

• Micro Mages 
• OpenEmu – Multiple Video Game System 
• EverDrive-N8 – Stone Age Gamer 
• Analogue Nt mini – The Ultimate Nintendo FPGA console?:: RGB307 / MY LIFE IN GAMING – YouTube 
• I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform (Platform Studies) – Amazon:Books 
• How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes – YouTube 
• Playdate. A New Handheld Gaming System 
• A Teen Dirtbag Beat-Em-Up With Phenomenal Writing – Kotaku

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You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

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Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Nate Heininger – @natestl

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:45) - Micro Mages
• (07:35) - Playing An NES Homebrew Game - How and Why
• (14:42) - A Game In 40kb
• (23:17) - Classic Console, Modern Design
• (39:37) - Power-ups
• (41:54) - Multiplayer
• (50:02) - Wrap Up
• (52:52) - What’s Making You Happy This Week?
• (53:01) - Nate - Playdate
• (01:00:15) - Raygan - The Friends Of Ringo Ishikawa
• (01:08:12) - Outro

What is The Short Game?

A podcast about video games that respect your time