The idea of gamifying all the things might have died down now that the current hype is shoving AI into all the things — but you’ve probably never seen it quite like EmuDevz, a game in which you develop an 8-bit emulator by [Rodrigo Alfonso].
There’s a lot of learning you’ll have to do along the way, about programming and how retro systems work, including diving into 6502 assembly code. Why 6502? Well, the emulator you’re working on (it’s partially-written at the start of the game; you need only debug and finish the job) is for a fantasy system called the NEEES “an antique game console released in 1983”. It’s the NEEES and not NES for two reasons. One, Nintendo has lawyers and they really, really know how to use them. Two, by creating a fantasy console that is not-quite-a-Famicom, the goalposts for EmuDevz can be moved a bit closer in.
The in-game emulator will handle most NES behavior, assuming you do your part correctly. A selection of homebrew NES games is included with EmuDevz, and they all run fine. A neat touch is giving you the ROMs for offline use as rewards when you get them running correctly. If some edge cases and exotic behaviours get left behind in the interests of simplicity, just remember– it’s not a NES, it’s a NEEES, and who can say? Perhaps this simplified system is exactly how it worked in the alternate universe where this game is set.
Aside from the invaluable assembly code, the work is done in JavaScript, which might not be everybody’s cup of tea. On the other hand, the whole thing is open-source (MIT license for the code, CC for the content) so if you really, really hate JS but love the idea of a learning game like this, you could fork to the language of your choice and learn even more.
Regardless of the language used, we like this model and think the “game where you learn to make games” is a great educational model for programming skills that ought to be used more often. For an idea of what it looks like, check out the trailer below.
Thanks to [Rodrigo Alfonso] for the tip. If you’ve got a great gamified learning tool — or any other cool hack, for that matter — the tips line is fun and rewarding, even if we haven’t tried to gamify it.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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