Why isn't there a homebrew market for the Neo Geo?

[Iconoclast12]

This kind of eludes me, but I'm sure there's some good technical reason for it. When I say "homebrew market" I don't mean "reproduction market". I don't condone or advocate people selling bootlegs as originals or anything like that, but what I am asking about here is homebrews. For instance, the SNES and Genesis are home to TONS of homebrew and romhack game that have been released unofficially on physical cartridges, so that they can be played on the original hardware. So, that's my question is if people can make these 161 in 1 multicarts, then clearly the boards and the parts are available to make MVS/AES cartridges that are not originals. So why hasn't anyone done this yet with roms for romhacks or unreleased games or even neo geo cd exclusives?

 

[GohanX]

They have, but few have put in the work to do anything for Neo. We have a few improvement hacks like Sam Shodown 3 and SVC Chaos, Slug 2 Turbo, and Razoola's Crossed Swords 2 cart hack. All of these can be bought easily as repros. For homebrew, NG: Dev has done quite well for themselves and Bitmap Bureau's Xenocrisis is pretty popular, even if the system doesn't actually offer anything above other versions.

The only stuff that gets outright rejected by the community are obvious cash grabs, like making some atari 2600 looking 80's game clone and trying to get a cart production run at $300 each.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Seems like NG.Dev poisoned the well pretty early on by showing you can jerk your customers around for years and ask ludicrous prices for your stuff, that rarely happens on systems with an active homebrew base aside from rare cases like that french genny game with the male stripper party I forget the name of at the moment. Do I want a homebrew market like that? Not really.

It's funny that the Neo CD is the perfect system for homebrews -- pressing CDs is still as cheap as dirt and will probably continue to be for the next decade, it has a console-like focus so you don't need to necessarily LARP as if there were arcade operators for your game, and you have virtually the same hardware of the Neo + CD audio + an excuse to not have to scope your game to be a 100 mega shocker. But of course, you can't ask $499 for a CD-ROM and pretend manufacturing PCBs with NOR flash chips is a herculean task that takes years to fullfill.

 

[zaneiken]

like that french genny game with the male stripper party I forget the name of at the moment

Paprium?

 

[Tarma]

Paprium?

What a fucking shit show that was... and after all teh drama the game was mediocre at best.

Most of the Neo homebrew scene has been euro trash, no one, yet, has produced an independent neo game that actually looks like it might even be a neo game - i.e. no one has come close to repliacting even the worst SNK had to offer, let alone its brightest moments.

The day that someone produces an efforts that looks and plays like SNK Neo-Geo I'll sit up and take notice, but until then, fuck the AES/MVS/CD homebrew scene. Fuck it to hell.

 

[Neo Alec]

To answer the OP, the Neo homebrew scene has grown a lot in recent years. A lot of homebrew tools are now finally coming online, but historically it was slow to start.

I wouldn't say NGDev poisoned the well, so much as they were practically the only game in town for a long time, due to the lack of user-friendly homebrew tools. Jeff Kurtz pioneered the scene and was by far the biggest creator of homebrew tools in the past 20 years until recently.

 

[SignOfZeta]

The only reason to make a Neo game instead of a Genesis or SNES game is to use more resources…resources of the exact sort that home brewers have little of: tons of high quality sounds, hundreds of frames or animation, etc. If you don’t have SNK’s art department…if you don’t have an art department you just have an artist…then you’ll never be able to use the Neo for what it’s made for.

What would a homebrewer DO with the extra power that the Genesis doesn’t have and would it offset having 1/100th the user base? Nothing? Then just make it for Genesis.

That’s your answer.

 

[smokey]

What a fucking shit show that was... and after all teh drama the game was mediocre at best.

Most of the Neo homebrew scene has been euro trash, no one, yet, has produced an independent neo game that actually looks like it might even be a neo game - i.e. no one has come close to repliacting even the worst SNK had to offer, let alone its brightest moments.

The day that someone produces an efforts that looks and plays like SNK Neo-Geo I'll sit up and take notice, but until then, fuck the AES/MVS/CD homebrew scene. Fuck it to hell.

I love Fonzie, he is such a douche but I love the drama he creates it makes the retro scene interesting... We all got more amusement out of those 70 euros we paid for Paprium than watching any TV series in the last decade.

In all seriousness:
A French team just ported Eye of the Typhoon to the Neo. Very fun and playable.With some cheeky additions
Another guy is porting Xevious.
Blastar on youtube occasionally makes a demo

All threads can be found in the forum here

 

[Iconoclast12]

I'd give both my balls if in my lifetime, I could see a 100% fully English translated version of Samurai Shodown RPG ported to an AES or MVS cartridge that I could use on my original hardware... Just imagine that.

What blows my mind is with all the English translations we have of Japanese games, even really shitty Japanese games, that this is still an incomplete project in 2023..

 

[Burning Fight!!]

We all got more amusement out of those 70 euros we paid for Paprium than watching any TV series in the last decade.

thanks for being one of the suckers that fed his ego, that was a goldmine of entertainment (for 0 euro)

 

[smokey]

thanks for being one of the suckers that fed his ego, that was a goldmine of entertainment (for 0 euro)

Uhm what? I could sell my Paprium cartridge for a couple of hundred on eBay. If my 4-year-old didn't like the game so much, I would have sold it already.
I wonder when I will receive the Game Gear version probably in 2035. And that secret game he announced? 2045?

 

[basic]

Uhm what? I could sell my Paprium cartridge for a couple of hundred on eBay. If my 4-year-old didn't like the game so much, I would have sold it already.
I wonder when I will receive the Game Gear version probably in 2035. And that secret game he announced? 2045?

i don't think he was commenting on your ability to flip paprium when he called you a sucker.

 

[GohanX]

It's funny that the Neo CD is the perfect system for homebrews -- pressing CDs is still as cheap as dirt and will probably continue to be for the next decade, it has a console-like focus so you don't need to necessarily LARP as if there were arcade operators for your game, and you have virtually the same hardware of the Neo + CD audio + an excuse to not have to scope your game to be a 100 mega shocker. But of course, you can't ask $499 for a CD-ROM and pretend manufacturing PCBs with NOR flash chips is a herculean task that takes years to fullfill.

You know, the flip side to this is that traditionally Neo CDs have been a tough sell even at reasonable prices. Last Hope did so badly on CD that NG Dev abandoned it in favor of Dreamcast, and there aren't many people who grabbed Xenocrisis even though it's been as low as $15 on sale.

 

[Tarma]

I love Fonzie, he is such a douche but I love the drama he creates it makes the retro scene interesting... We all got more amusement out of those 70 euros we paid for Paprium than watching any TV series in the last decade.

So, what you're saying is, you enjoy seeing people getting scammed on an industrial scale? Because there were a shit load of people never reccieved anything for their money... in fact so few people did, that's why the game goes for stupid money on eBay.

You are a strange fellow.

In all seriousness:
A French team just ported Eye of the Typhoon to the Neo. Very fun and playable.With some cheeky additions
Another guy is porting Xevious.
Blastar on youtube occasionally makes a demo

Eye of the Typhoon is not an original work, the game was completed from an abandoned project from back in the day - it was abandoned for a reason: the game is shit.
Xevious - who fucking cares about porting some old Namco game to the Neo? Why not Pacman or Rolling Thunder. It's not a Neo-Geo game it's a homebrew port. May as well port Raiden seeing as it's been on just about every other platform - and it's a better game.
Demos - who fucking cares, seriously.

I really don't understand people like you... getting all wet and flustered over someone dumping some kind of "new" content on to a Neo-Geo cartridge. I bet former SNK employees are rolling round laughing at this desperate shit - well, they would, if they gave a fuck, but they don't.

Really wish I could code. I'd make a nice little side hustle churning out shovelware for the AES / MVS with suckas like you around.

 

[smokey]

So, what you're saying is, you enjoy seeing people getting scammed on an industrial scale? Because there were a shit load of people never reccieved anything for their money... in fact so few people did, that's why the game goes for stupid money on eBay.

You are a strange fellow.

Industrial scale? you do realise this is a homebrew game made by a couple of people. Pretending you're a real company seems to be the name of the game of these homebrewers. I doubt more than 2000 copies were ever ordered. Everybody gets a copy in the end. The question is how long do you have to wait? And I guess you have to wait longer if you complain a lot. That would be totally in line with Fonzie's character. I think most people have received their game (seeing how many copies there are on eBay)
That launch party was genius, even if he didn't really bring a working copy. I still wonder if that was a fuck up or intended.

Eye of the Typhoon is not an original work, the game was completed from an abandoned project from back in the day - it was abandoned for a reason: the game is shit.

That's like your opinion man.

Xevious - who fucking cares about porting some old Namco game to the Neo? Why not Pacman or Rolling Thunder. It's not a Neo-Geo game it's a homebrew port. May as well port Raiden seeing as it's been on just about every other platform - and it's a better game.
Demos - who fucking cares, seriously.

The man just asked if there was any homebrew my guy not if it was any good.

I really don't understand people like you... getting all wet and flustered over someone dumping some kind of "new" content on to a Neo-Geo cartridge. I bet former SNK employees are rolling round laughing at this desperate shit - well, they would, if they gave a fuck, but they don't.

I doubt any old SNK member still thinks about their job from 20 years ago. Do you still think about that?

Really wish I could code. I'd make a nice little side hustle churning out shovelware for the AES / MVS with suckas like you around.

If it is playable and fun I would buy it, I'll doubt it will be a nice salary if you actually count the hours you invested in, better be flippin' burgers at wendy's.

 

[Neo Alec]

You know, the flip side to this is that traditionally Neo CDs have been a tough sell even at reasonable prices. Last Hope did so badly on CD that NG Dev abandoned it in favor of Dreamcast, and there aren't many people who grabbed Xenocrisis even though it's been as low as $15 on sale.

The reality is NGDev's others games probably wouldn't have worked on NGCD without modification. You make it sound as if they abandoned the NGCD to spite the owners.

Eye of the Typhoon is not an original work, the game was completed from an abandoned project from back in the day - it was abandoned for a reason: the game is shit.

They had to build it for Neo Geo from scratch using art and sound assets from the released ports for 3DO and PC. Not exactly a small task for homebrew development.

 

[Tarma]

They had to build it for Neo Geo from scratch using art and sound assets from the released ports for 3DO and PC. Not exactly a small task for homebrew development.

An admirable achievement that may have been... but the game is still shit, no one was asking for it, only the collectards like our friend above have gone and wasted their money on it, and are now trying to justify the purchase by saying how amazing it is. Be like me buying an original Quiz Chibi and telling people it's the best thing since Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

I don't know why people won't admit that the homebrew scene on Neo Geo has only produced (to date) sub-par games irrespective of the coding skills required to produce whatever piece of shovelware we're discussing on any given day.

 

[Tarma]

I doubt any old SNK member still thinks about their job from 20 years ago. Do you still think about that?

Because it's a DEAD PLATFORM.

Buy what they published, and then if you've still got money burning a hole in your pocket start collecting for Jaguar or 3DO or some other shit.

 

[smokey]

The reality is NGDev's others games probably wouldn't have worked on NGCD without modification. You make it sound as if they abandoned the NGCD to spite the owners.


They had to build it for Neo Geo from scratch using art and sound assets from the released ports for 3DO and PC. Not exactly a small task for homebrew development.

That is not true. I mailed them shortly after they released their second game. At that time I only had a Neo Geo CD not an AES or MVS. I asked them why they didn't make a CD version and they replied honestly that bootleggers were able to make an MVS/AES version out of the CD version of Last Hope and that is why they stopped making CD games and added the extra chip to their games. It is just security against bootleggers. Not because the NG isn't powerful enough.
I suspect that is also the reason why they are lagging behind deliveries because they have issues obtaining the FPGA chips for security reasons. Also the reason I think that Paprium was such a shit show. The "Datenmeister" security chip was/is unavailable

 

[smokey]

I don't know why people won't admit that the homebrew scene on Neo Geo has only produced (to date) sub-par games irrespective of the coding skills required to produce whatever piece of shovelware we're discussing on any given day.

I do admit that the Mega Drive homebrew scene has very good games. And I was also sad that the Neo Geo version of Xenocrisis didn't have any extras.
But the programmer had an accident with permanent brain damage in that period. And I think due to the fiasco of the bugged cartridges we won't see their newer games on the neo. Which is a shame. Because they really have a beautiful sprite artist Henk Nieborg.

But do you really think that anybody can or will recreate the quality level of SNK both sprite and gameplay-wise? and make a profit? That is just impossible.
TEOT sold like 50 cartridges. Nobody can make a profit from that. They had fun making it I have fun playing it with my son. He always starts laughing when the fat guy does his little moonwalk.
Have you played the ROM? yes, it is a simple button masher but they made some fun additions. Every time you press player 2 a smile comes to my face.
When I first heard the price I was shocked but I wanted to support them anyways because I loved reading the thread.

 

[StevenK]

I'd give both my balls if in my lifetime, I could see a 100% fully English translated version of Samurai Shodown RPG ported to an AES or MVS cartridge that I could use on my original hardware

This is a man who isn't optimistic about his future sex life

 

[smokey]

Because it's a DEAD PLATFORM.

Buy what they published, and then if you've still got money burning a hole in your pocket start collecting for Jaguar or 3DO or some other shit.

No, I meant that differently. Do you still think about what you did at your job 20 years ago? That is why they don't care.
My brother-in-law has programmed Divine Divinity 2, Far Cry, Killzone 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Death Stranding. He doesn't give two shits about all of that stuff. If somebody makes a Killzone 3 3DO version. He would never know of be charmed by it. Because he wouldn't find out he simply doesn't care.

 

[Neo Alec]

That is not true. I mailed them shortly after they released their second game. At that time I only had a Neo Geo CD not an AES or MVS. I asked them why they didn't make a CD version and they replied honestly that bootleggers were able to make an MVS/AES version out of the CD version of Last Hope and that is why they stopped making CD games and added the extra chip to their games. It is just security against bootleggers. Not because the NG isn't powerful enough.
I suspect that is also the reason why they are lagging behind deliveries because they have issues obtaining the FPGA chips for security reasons. Also the reason I think that Paprium was such a shit show. The "Datenmeister" security chip was/is unavailable

I apologize, smokey. That does ring a bell now that you mention it. You or someone reported something like that back in the day. All the same, I believe most of their games since Last Hope are either way too big or would require significant reprogramming to fit on Neo Geo CD, regardless of the reasons given.

 

[smokey]

I apologize, smokey. That does ring a bell now that you mention it. You or someone reported something like that back in the day. All the same, I believe most of their games since Last Hope are either way too big or would require significant reprogramming to fit on Neo Geo CD, regardless of the reasons given.

Ha no need to apologise to me! Sure but the code an sich won't be that much they could do that in redbook. I don't understand their logic because everybody and their mom bootlegged the dreamcast version.

 

[Neo Alec]

I don't understand their logic because everybody and their mom bootlegged the dreamcast version.

Yeah, exactly. It means the Neo Geo version is protected while the DC one gets pirated all day long. It's their game though, so they get to do as they please.