Making of Aspect Star N: "Making" Aspect Star N!
The biggest benefit, in my book, of making games for older consoles is that you can make physical cartridges for them. As a young kid, video games felt almos...| nicole.express
The biggest benefit, in my book, of making games for older consoles is that you can make physical cartridges for them. As a young kid, video games felt almos...| nicole.express
Over and over, I look at games that are part of “systems”: the Sega System 1, the Hyper Neo Geo 64, the CAVE CV1000. But there ain’t no rule that says you ha...| nicole.express
Last year, I wrote up an article on the Alpha 68k arcade platform. A complex system made primarily with discrete logic by the Alpha Denshi Corporation, it wo...| nicole.express
The ZX Spectrum is beloved of British microcomputer enthusiasts everywhere. (Of course the British are everywhere, hence why they had the whole Empire thing)...| nicole.express
There’s a concept called the “Uncanny Valley”; when a human looks at a cartoonish face, they’ll generally recognize it as a person. When they’re presented wi...| nicole.express
When it comes to electronics, I am a woman of simple interests. Ideally, I only want to care about one voltage, and ground– there’s a reason I did so much be...| nicole.express
Today we’re talking about ALF. It’s a surprising move for Nicole Express; we do not condone cat-eating. But neither did Alf, eventually. In any case, we’re n...| nicole.express
From Pitfall II to the Channel F to the NES cartridge port, a spectre has lurked in the background of Nicole Express: the spectre of the Atari 2600. The best...| nicole.express
So! You’ve gone “surfing the cyberspace”, and you want to make your own edit of a classic Nintendo game! You’ve come to the right place! I’ve acked a few roh...| nicole.express
So one thing I like to do on this blog is take a look at weird unlicensed cartridges. Who can forget the game-bending Ranma 1/2 cartridge? And of course the ...| nicole.express
I’ve made some modern games in retro style, and one thing people will always tell you is, make sure your pixels are the same size. When your base resolution ...| nicole.express
When I took a look at a modern hanemono pachinko machine, it surprised me that many people thought the pachinko dial control was digital; either you were app...| nicole.express
Duck Hunt is considered a classic of the Nintendo Entertainment System. But surprisingly, the concept of hunting ducks did not originate in 1984– people have...| nicole.express
When I looked at vintage pachinko, I speculated that pachinko isn’t as popular in the United States now as it was in the 1970’s because the automatic shooter...| nicole.express
So, you decided that after reading my post on hanemono, you had to get a modern pachinko machine for yourself. And now, after spending some time finding the ...| nicole.express
Did you know: I like pinball! Pinball’s a game with a long history over which the game has changed a lot; its earliest antecedent, bagatelle, was an attempt ...| nicole.express
“Oh, what’d you get there? A new pachinko machine?” “It’s technically not a pachinko machine, though it does use pachinko balls, and a pachinko launcher…” “S...| nicole.express
Do you think children should play pachinko, a Japanese gambling game? I certainly don’t, which is why I’m here to make a difference, by buying the Japanese c...| nicole.express
Growing up in the late 90’s, there was one name that would instantly bring an “oh yeah, that’s cool, I think I’ve seen one of those around, not as cool as Mo...| nicole.express
There comes a time in every woman’s life when she needs to put a Raspberry Pi in something. For me, that time is now; and the thing that requires the Pi insi...| nicole.express
I recently got two new computers. And usually, I might consider doing a “Nicole Buys Stuff”. But those are, well, a bit boring. It’s kind of why I’ve stopped...| nicole.express
In the past, I’ve noted that the Pioneer LaserActive is one of the toughest nuts for upscalers to crack. It combines a game library consisting of fast-paced ...| nicole.express
About four years ago (?!) I wrote a blog post called The Great Composite Comparison, where I compared a number of methods for upscaling composite video. At t...| nicole.express
We’ve talked about interlacing video, and that introduced the fundamental concept of “raster” graphics: a beam that moves across the screen in horizontal lin...| nicole.express
I’ve focused on NEC’s failed attempts to build on the PC Engine before on this blog: the two PC Engines taped together that is the SuperGrafx, and the combo ...| nicole.express
Hey kids! You’ve probably heard from those goons at Feka Corporation that the Sega CD 32X is the first overly complicated combination of consoles and CD add-...| nicole.express
The TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine has been the focus on this blog lately, and that’s totally fine by me. We looked at the LaserActive PAC-N1, a bizarre hybrid betw...| nicole.express
So, after completing Aspect Star “N” for the NES, I went back to my JavaScript dungeon and continued to work on my games there. But the sweet sound of retro ...| nicole.express
Recently, I took a look at Nintendo’s MMC line of mappers, and some other boards. All boards for the NES’ western releases had to be manufactured by Nintendo...| nicole.express
So some concepts got stuck in my head early on when looking into hardware that just don’t hold. One of these was that the Neo Geo was unique because of its h...| nicole.express
Remember Alf? He’s back, much sooner than I expected. In fact, I wasn’t expecting to cover this topic again. But the post on Alf has proven to be one of the ...| nicole.express
This is going to be a bit out there for Nicole Express, but I have to let you all know the truth. A terrible truth that only I, Nicole Express, could have di...| nicole.express
The computer world is filled with all sorts of machines that are opretty obscure, and even there the Canon Cat is obscure; they say it’s the creation of Jef ...| nicole.express
Here at Nicole Express, we’ve been going through a lot of different “game consoles”– small single-purpose computers that are only used to play video games. B...| nicole.express
In the 1970s, video game consoles often just had built-in games, with no cartridge slot. We’ve covered a lot of those here, from the Magnavox Odyssey 500 to ...| nicole.express
Have you ever become fascinated by a piece of hardware, even when it’s not objectively that useful? No? Just me? Well, that does explain why I have the Laser...| nicole.express
Though you might not know it from my blog, I’m told by very reliable sources that there are countries outside of North America and Japan! In some of these co...| nicole.express
It is the early 2000s. Titans are falling: the arcade business sinks to new lows every week, Sega has left the console business, and SNK/Playmore has finally...| nicole.express
I promised you a deeper dive into the Sega System 1 arcade system in the Pitfall II article. And now we get it– let’s never say I don’t keep a non-zero fract...| nicole.express
Oops, I did it again; a section that was supposed to be a smaller part of an upcoming blog post came into being as its own giant post. Here, we’re talking ab...| nicole.express
So, the adventure started in July has come to an end. How did the project go? Where can I get the game? Do I need a SuperGrafx CD with dual Arcade Cards to p...| nicole.express
The LaserDisc is one of the coolest media formats out there. (It’s huge, shiny, and has “laser” in the name. That’s objective coolness in my book.) The Turbo...| nicole.express
The Nintendo Entertainment System, the Famicom in Japan, will definitely go down in history as one of the most popular game consoles in history. It’ll also g...| nicole.express
So in some of my recent posts, I complained about interlaced graphics. But interlacing is actually a pretty interesting topic, and solved a good problem! Why...| nicole.express
I’ve enjoyed digging into the curiosities surrounding NEC and Hudson Soft’s PC Engine consoles, from the LaserActive to the SuperGrafx to the Arcade Card to ...| nicole.express
Region locks and licensing restrictions are something that I think most gamers find more frustrating than anything else. Why can’t I just play the game if I ...| nicole.express
The RCA Studio II and its CDP1802 chipset had much more support from enthusiasts than it did the wider video game market. But I shouldn’t put “had” in the pa...| nicole.express
Long-time readers will know that my first video game love was the text-mode video game slash creation studio ZZT. One feature of this game is the ability to ...| nicole.express
The very first television video game dates back a circuit built by Ralph Baer in 1966; he used vacuum tubes as he was more used to them. This circuit, transi...| nicole.express
It’s 1977, and you’re in charge of the large Toshiba Corporation. Video games seem to be possibly a real market, and as an innovative electronics firm, you’v...| nicole.express
I told you I was done with Pong consoles, but a spectre has continued to haunt Nicole Express in our Epoch series– the spectre of Pong. Specifically, the Epo...| nicole.express
The video game console originated as a way to bring arcade experiences (specifically, Pong) into the home. But the home game took on a life of its own; playi...| nicole.express
The Neo Geo: we’ve talked about it a lot on this site. And it’s an interesting system, so why not? Its sprite-based graphics system proved flexible enough to...| nicole.express
People like to say that 1980’s games are highly regionalized. You could easily recognize a European-developed game like Rare’s Wizards and Warriors, and spot...| nicole.express
The Epoch Cassette Vision was a moderate success. But in 1983, that all ended, when Nintendo and Sega released new consoles, which had more advanced hardware...| nicole.express
The GBS-8200 series of upscalers is, to put it bluntly, mediocre at best. Their main advantage has been their low price, and ability to accept a wide range o...| nicole.express
Remember this was a retrocomputing blog? A certain cookie company remembers, but if they want their name shout-out they’re going to have to send me some cook...| nicole.express
I’ve been talking about video a lot lately; but that was all arcade or some other RGB upscaling. But let’s face it: if you grew up in North America, your arc...| nicole.express
You’ve read my post explaining composite video, and now you want to watch some video encoded in it, or play a game. The best option is a CRT television, but ...| nicole.express
This fall, I released my first NES game, Aspect Star “N”. Though not my first foray into programming for 8-bit systems, it was my first project to actually g...| nicole.express
For some reason, I felt like I should explain a little bit about what the Atari 8-bits were, but I don’t feel like I need to explain this machine. The Apple ...| nicole.express
The internet NES fan scene has changed over time. The modern scene I think is a lot more open to Japan-exclusive titles, thanks to the wealth of fan translat...| nicole.express
Oops, that last Cassette Vision post was supposed to be a review of some games for it. This is a fairly historically important console, but not a huge seller...| nicole.express
So recently I’ve been binge-watching RandomStranger’s Famidaily project and came across his video on Guardic Gaiden, the game we know in the west as The Guar...| nicole.express
I often like to cover oddities here; details of computers and arcade systems people may not have heard of, that didn’t sell well but had unique or interestin...| nicole.express
You might have heard the term “discrete logic” before. What does that mean, and how can you use discrete logic to make an image? And if that wasn’t enough, i...| nicole.express
The Epoch Cassette Vision is often reported as the first Japanese cartridge-based game console. But reality is always a bit more complicated. In 1978, years ...| nicole.express
Recently I’ve had a bit of a fascination with rhythm machines. Not the computerized digital ones like that built into my old Yamaha organ, but fully analog o...| nicole.express
Sears, Roebuck & Co. A name that will surely echo throughout American business forever; of course, such a storied department store chain would dip its to...| nicole.express
In the beginning Bushnell created Computer Space and Pong. And the home game industry was without business, and void, and Magnavox overlays were upon the TV....| nicole.express
Remember the RCA Studio II? A chipset with a fascinating history and enthusiast cred put into the service of the most disappointing game console of 1977. But...| nicole.express
The evolution of consoles from single-game systems like the Magnavox Odyssey 100 to cartridge-based systems like the NES wasn’t a simple process. The origina...| nicole.express
The Apple ][ is one of the most iconic vintage computers of all time. But since Wozniak’s monster lasted all the way until 1993 (1995 if you could the IIe ca...| nicole.express
One of the very first posts on this blog is on the Atari 130XE. The Atari 8-bit computers had some seriously impressive technology (remember, they came out i...| nicole.express
In 2024, it’s easy to look back at home video games in 1979 and think of it as a time of game consoles; the Channel F and the Atari 2600 (VCS) battling it ou...| nicole.express
Did you ever hear of the tragedy of the Capacitance Electronic Disc? I thought not. It’s not a story MCA would tell you. It’s an RCA legend. It’s said they h...| nicole.express
Many vintage computers have advanced hardware, great software libraries, or even both. But how many of them have gravitas. The desk presence that when guests...| nicole.express
If we’re doing all these pong articles, we might as well get a real, authentic, Atari Pong. So much like with their Pinball, we’re not, but are doing the nex...| nicole.express
When I wrote a blog post on my Atari 2600jr, one mod I wanted to do was to replace the voltage regulator. Well, if you want to follow that saga, you’ve come ...| nicole.express
The first video game? Debatable. The first video game console, though, is well-established: the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, brainchild of Ralph Baer. However, the...| nicole.express
If you told Yamauchi Fusajiro that the little playing card business he had just started would one day sell video game consoles, he would have no idea what yo...| nicole.express
Space Invaders is an epochal moment in video games. Arguably the first true megahit, it’s credited with starting the shoot ‘em up genre, making Japan obsesse...| nicole.express
