Introduction
Welcome to our page dedicated to Super Nintendo reverse engineering! The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES, was a popular gaming console released by Nintendo in 1990. If you’re interested in learning more about the technical aspects of this console and how it works, you’ve come to the right place.
On this page, we’ve compiled a list of links to other pages that cover various topics related to Super Nintendo reverse engineering. Whether you’re interested in understanding the hardware architecture of the console, analyzing game code, or exploring the many mods and hacks that have been created by enthusiasts over the years, you’ll find a wealth of resources and information on the pages we’ve linked to.
So grab your SNES controller, and get ready to dive into the exciting world of Super Nintendo reverse engineering!
SNES Game Development Process
How long did it take to develop games for the SNES back in the day?
On average, SNES game development could take anywhere from several months to a couple of years. Some simpler or shorter games might be developed more quickly, while larger, more complex titles could take longer.
Most game development teams only had a handful of people working full time on the game, mostly programmers. Artists and Sound Engineers were often working on multiple projects at the same time. Music was usually created and added to the game near the end of the development process when the game was getting ready to be shipped.
Some examples of the length of time it took to develop Super Nintendo games are:
- Spider Man & X-Men in Arcade’s revenge - Took roughly 6-7 months from start to final build using a team of 4 highly experienced game programmers, 2 talented musicians and 6 brilliant artists1:
- Programmers: Mike Follin, Kevin Edwards, Stephen Ruddy and Michael Webb
- Artwork: Anthony Anderson, Craig Houston, David McLachlan, James Clarke, Jonathan M. Smith and Ste Pickford
- Music: Geoff Follin and Tim Follin
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island - Took exactly 3 years and 5 months to complete (February 1st, 1992 until June 29th 1995 2) with a team of 12 programmers.
- RPM Racing (Interplay) - In an interview with SuperPro (October 1992) Brian Fargo explains that they only had 4-5 months to implement the game after finding out the specs of the Super Nintendo. But he goes on to say that games after that took 1-3 years on average to get a better level of polish. It was developed with the Sluggo III SNES development kit 3.
How would teams send their games to QA or to the press?
FTP servers were setup for sending builds across the world but for local testing the code would be flashed to an EEPROM chip (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) and put in a cartridge shell (either a modified retail cartridge or a specialised cartridge.
How large were SNES game development teams?
According to Brian Fargo of Interplay his SNES games had teams of 5 people on average working on a single game.
In an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto he states that development teams can get up to about 20 or so people in the later half of the development cycle 4:
For our development teams, for the beginning of the first year its usually comprised of 3 to 4 people, then about half a year in we start adding people until about the 8 month mark, where we reach a team of 20 or so. A new game system determines about 60% of the game creation process. In my case I work on that nucleus of the game first. The maps, story, etc are all about 10 or 20%.
How did SNES Game Development teams communicate?
Back in 1992 the internet was still finding its footing in the games industry and much of the communication was done via Fax, here is one example of a Fax sent between the Acclaim production team presumably in the US and the game programmers in the UK.
31 years ago we were working on SNES Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge. We had very little time on for this project and had 3 experienced coders on-board to get it done. Here's a FAX from production at Acclaim to give you a flavour of the pressure we were under 1/2. pic.twitter.com/FrJ6XDIGJu
— Kevin Edwards ( Retro Videogame development ) (@KevEdwardsRetro) October 20, 2023
Although note that in the Fax they mention sending a build of the game to Nintendo via Modem for sound testing so the Internet was in use.
Email was also in use, even amongst japanese game developers such as Square as can be seen in an interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi who worked on Final Fantasy 4:
I use a Macintosh to make the tools we use at Squaresoft, and I also use it when making SFC games. Our team is also connected on the local network, and we pass ideas around via e-mail. This way when one person has an idea, it can be shared with everyone.
SNES Game Programming
What would you need to write SNES games?
Pretty much every development team had their own ways of working back then, some had official development hardware and others had to make their own or license it from a third party development tool company.
You would need the following on your desk:
- Computer to write the code on (e.g Apple II 3, Sony NEWS workstation)
- Either a modified retail SNES or a development Kit
- A CRT Monitor to connect to the SNES
- Cables to connect the modified SNES cart (or devkit) to the computer
On your computer of choice you would need:
- Text editor
- Assembler (e.g Merlin on the Apple II3, asm816 on a Sony NEWS workstation)
- Linker
- Program to send the ROM data to the console
- Program to flash a ROM image to an EEPROM.
- Program to create/edit sounds (e.g SynthLab for music composition or Sound Shop 3) and program to convert sound to a SNES sound format
What programming languages were used to write SNES games?
At least 90 percent for all commercial Super Nintendo games were written in raw 65c816 assembly language, however there have been some hints over the years of ORCA/C support but no confirmation on specific games 5.
Once such game written in C for the SNES was Super Noah’s Ark 3D, which although not licensed by Nintendo it was for sale in retail shops during the SNES lifespan 6.
Also The Western Design Center has documentation for its software development platform called Zardoz that has a section called Nintendo development which has features specifically targeted for the SNES such as being able to assemble binaries into the ISX format 7!
Were there any IDEs for the SNES?
Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) as we know them today were not as prevalent or sophisticated. However, there were some software tools and environments that provided integrated features for assembly language development back in the early 90s.
Merlin was a popular assembly language development environment for the Apple II. It provided an integrated editor, assembler, and debugger, making it a comprehensive tool for writing and debugging assembly code. This was used to write a number of Super Nintendo games for Interplay such as RPM Racing and the SNES port of Out Of This World3.
In Youtube footage from Pernoelle 8, we can see a programmer working on the Super Nintendo game Pilotwings using an IDE back in 1990, but it is unclear which IDE is being used:
However looking closely at the keyboard and the PC we can see its a Sony NEWS workstation, so it must have been an IDE that supported that platform.
Was there an official SDK?
Yes, we have a separate page for the Official Super Nintendo Software Development kits:
ROM and RAM Mapping on the SNES
The Super Nintendo (SNES) features a 24-bit address space split into 256 banks of 64KB each.
However, only select banks are addressable via the SNES’s CPU at any given time, necessitating careful mapping of ROM, RAM, and I/O registers.
What is LoROM and HiROM?
The LoROM and HiROM define how cartridges interface with this segmented memory model.
- In LoROM, ROM data is mapped in 32KB chunks to the lower half of each bank (0x8000–0xFFFF), starting from bank 0x00. This allows for faster access and compatibility with 8-bit address registers but limits addressable space per bank.
- HiROM maps 64KB ROM blocks starting from bank 0xC0 at address 0x0000, offering contiguous addressing at the cost of more complex bank switching.
FastROM variants allow for 3.58MHz access speeds over specific regions, compared to the standard 2.68 MHz, enhancing performance under HiROM configurations.
What is WRAM?
Internal Work RAM (WRAM) occupies 128KB, mirrored throughout banks 0x7E–0x7F.
For more information The SNESdev Wiki Memory Map provides the most authoritative breakdown of the SNES memory architecture.
What is MMIO? (0x2100–0x21FF)
Memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) registers control graphics (PPU), audio (APU), and DMA are primarily located in bank 0x00 and 0x80 from 0x2100 to 0x21FF.
The Tale of LoROM and MMIO Emudev article dives into the specifics of LoROM mapping and memory-mapped I/O access.
What is the ROM Header? (0xFFC0–0xFFDF)
The ROM header is used to convey metadata about the cartridge, including its memory mapping configuration, it is essential for proper ROM emulation but ignored on the SNES hardware itself.
It is typically just before the interrupt vector table but its physical location within the ROM file varies based on the memory mapping mode:
- LoROM: Header at offset 0x7FC0 in the ROM file.
- HiROM: Header at offset 0xFFC0 in the ROM file.
- ExHiROM: Header at offset 0x40FFC0 in the ROM file.
These mappings align the header to $00:FFC0 in the SNES memory map, ensuring consistent access across different ROM configurations9.
What is the format of the ROM Header?
The ROM header comprises several fields that define the cartridge’s characteristics:
- 0xFFC0–0xFFD4: Game Title (21 bytes, ASCII)
- 0xFFD5: ROM Speed and Mapping Mode (e.g speeds: 2.68 MHz/3.58 MHz, modes: LoROM/HiROM)
- 0xFFD6: Cartridge Type (e.g., presence of coprocessors, SRAM)
- 0xFFD7: ROM Size (encoded as 2^n KB)
- 0xFFD8: SRAM Size (encoded as 2^n KB)
- 0xFFD9: Region Code (e.g., NTSC, PAL)
- 0xFFDA: Developer ID
- 0xFFDB: ROM Version
- 0xFFDC–0xFFDD: Checksum Complement
- 0xFFDE–0xFFDF: Checksum
Sound and Music
For anyone interested in how Sound works on the SNES you should watch SNES Audio System Overview from Retro Game Mechanics Explained on Youtube:
Hardware
If you’re interested in reverse engineering software for the Super Nintendo gaming console, it’s important to have a thorough understanding of the hardware that powers it. By comprehending the inner workings of the Super Nintendo hardware, you can better understand how the software interacts with the hardware and how you can potentially modify or enhance it.
This segment of our guide will provide you with detailed information and resources on the hardware of the Super Nintendo, including retail, prototype, and development hardware.
Development Kit Hardware
We have a post all about the hardware that was used to develop for the Super Nintendo:
Retail Console Hardware
For an in-depth look at the SNES Retail hardware architecture check out the excellent post by Copetti.org:
Blanking, timing and lag
Retro Game Mechanics Explained explains lag and blanking on the Super Nintendo. The video connects display timing to behaviour that can otherwise look like an unexplained slowdown.
Was the SNES backwards compatible with the NES?
No, but it was intended to be during early development of the SNES which we found out thanks to an interview with Masayuki Uemura 10:
In truth, we actually wanted the Super Famicom to be able to play Famicom games too. We used a CPU that’s equipped with a 6502 emulation mode and everything. However, the sheer amount of games released for the Famicom, plus the fact that they often used different types of ROMs and chips made it too difficult to produce a perfect conversion.
SNES in-flight Airplane hardware (Nintendo Gateway)
In 1993 Nintendo introduced an in-flight entertainment system called the Gateway, this system allowed passengers to play SNES games for about 4 USD an hour.
The Journalist Ernie Smith has written an excellent article on his site which you can access at Will the In-Flight Entertainment System Survive COVID-19? and also tweeted out the Nintendo Power article which talks about it:
Remember when you could play Super NES games on a plane? That was awesome. Nintendo Power, circa Feb. '94: pic.twitter.com/iKm6mLB8Us
— Ernie Smith (@ShortFormErnie) February 24, 2017
Also if you prefer video-based content the youtuber Top Hat Gaming Man has created an excellent video on the subject:
Satellaview
The Satellaview was a satellite add on for the Super Famicom only ever released in Japan on the 24th April 1995. It allowed users to download games, virtual magazines and listen to radio broadcasts.
The sad thing about the Satellaview is due to the nature of the technology most of the content has been lost to time and has only been partially preserved by finding old recordings on people’s Satellaview cartridges. Some content was broadcast but never downloaded, or soon overwritten with newer content so there is no other way to obtain the data.
In 2020 Luigiblood did a presentation to the AirGap2020 conference about Satellaview Reverse Engineering which can be watched below:
BS-X Cartridges
The Satellaview has little Memory Packs with only 1MB (8 MegaBit) of flash storage space that would slot into the BS-X Satellaview cartridges, it was a cartridge that had a smaller cartridge slot on top. Note that there was one other game that supported these Memory Packs, it was a game creator called RPG Maker.
The BS-X cartridge has that name because it was the entry point into the Broadcast Satellaview (BS) network, and the “X” signified the virtual town interface that users navigated.
In the presentation he has a excellent diagram of the internals of the BS-X cartridges:
It uses a very unique mapper (MCC-BSC) that is only used for these cartridges, which has a 1MB BIOS ROM, 512KB Pseudo-Static RAM (PSRAM) and 32KB Save RAM (SRAM).
One interesting fact about the BIOS ROM is its jump table based which means it could be updated with downloadable patches by replacing the jump table targets with memory in the SRAM, allowing basic software updates on the BIOS.
According to a patent it was originally intended to have Internal Flash RAM but it was removed hence the broken line in the diagram above.
Satellaview Base Unit
The Base Unit was a full expansion subsystem that attached to the bottom of the Japanese Super Famicom via the EXT port. Think of it like a “tuner + data modem + memory system” for satellite-delivered games.
LuigiBlood also has an excellent diagram showing the functional block layout of the Satellaview base unit and how it connects between the satellite broadcast input and the Super Famicom expansion port:
BS IN Port (Bitstream)
The BS IN Port is the raw data input from the external St.GIGA satellite tuner. The tuner delivered a multiplexed bitstream containing both audio (for SoundLink narration) and data (for games, magazines, etc.).
MN88821 (PCM Decoder)
A Panasonic chip designed to decode the PCM audio/data multiplex from the broadcast. It splits the incoming signal into two logical streams:
- Audio PCM (for the SoundLink voices/music, up to 4 channels of audio).
- Data packets (for game code, magazines, metadata).
DCD-BSA (Data Channel Decoder)
The custom Nintendo/Satellite decoder ASIC. It takes the decoded data packets from the MN88821 PCM Decoder and makes them accessible to the SNES EXT Port (the console’s expansion bus on the bottom of the console).
It handles synchronization, error correction, and buffering, it is the bridge that makes broadcast data look like “cartridge data” to the Super Famicom.
SPR-BSA (EEPROM)
A small onboard EEPROM chip for non-volatile storage to store the serial number of the Satellaview. It is not the same as the PSRAM memory packs, this is tiny configuration storage inside the base unit itself.
EXT Port (Custom IDE)
A secondary expansion port on the Satellaview unit itself. Sometimes described as a “custom IDE” interface, it allowed for additional peripherals such as a harddrive or compact flash (AFAIK none were released officially).
Possibly also used for service/debug devices at St.GIGA or Nintendo.
SNES EXT Port
The physical connector to the Super Famicom’s bottom expansion slot. This is how the console actually saw the decoded broadcast data, as if it were coming from a cartridge. Through this bus, the BS-X cartridge (with its PSRAM pack) could receive broadcast game data and present it like normal ROM to the SNES CPU.
Super Nintendo CD Recreation
The Video Game Esoterica channel features an update on Kosam the Great’s ambitious reverse engineering project to re-create the long-lost Super Nintendo CD (Nintendo PlayStation) console.
The technical progress centers on engineering a custom PCB and successfully sourcing a functional, pin-compatible Sony CD-ROM controller chip, the CDX11196, to interface with the Super Famicom (SFC) hardware.
The demonstration includes using an oscilloscope to verify signal integrity and showing the loading of the dumped Super Disc Boot ROM BIOS.
Games
The SNES wouldn’t be as fondly remembered today if it didn’t have its huge library of both first-party and third party games. This section will look at some of those games for those of you looking for inspiration for a new reversing project.
Official Retail SNES Game Source Code
If you are interested to see officially released or leaked source code check for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System check out our other post:
Reverse Engineered SNES Games
If you are interested to see existing reversing projects for the SNES check out our other post specifically on this topic:
The Polygons of Another World
For an in-depth look at how the game Another World was ported to the Super Nintendo check out this article:
Remakes for the GBA
As soon as the Game Boy Advance (GBA) was announced people were describing it as a portable Super Nintendo, Nintendo themselves contribute to this message by re-releasing many of their SNES games for the platform. In total 48 SNES games were released on the GBA, most from Nintendo themselves but third party publishers got on board too.
The GBA is a completely different beast from the SNES in terms of architecture and with most SNES games written in pure 6502 assembly it wasn’t possible to just do a straight port. Most of the games needed to be re-written from scratch to support the new portable console. During this process a lot of changes were made to fit the much smaller non-backlit screen of the GBA, such as increasing the sprite size and brightening the contrast.
The Youtuber CaptRobau has an excellent video showing off the graphical differences between all 48 games that were remade for the GBA:
SNES Emulation
Modern Vintage Gamer examines ZSNES and its contribution to emulation history. It provides context for the tools and compatibility expectations that followed it.
State of SNES Emulation
Every three years Near/Byuu wrote an excellent article on the current status of Super Nintendo Emulation, the last version is from 2019, it covers both bsnes and higen. Sadly with the passing of Near this is the last state of emulation, however it still still very much worth a read, and to remember how much they contributed to the SNES emulation scene.
Game Modification and ROM Hacking
SNES Save Editing with Link to the Past
Excellent video by Displaced Gamers on how to edit SRAM saves for a Link to the Past on Super Nintendo, this is not actually ROM Hacking as the ROM is exactly the same, it is only the SRAM that is modified.
All Posts
The 6502 Microprocessor The 6502 microprocessor was an 8-bit microprocessor that was incredibly popular for 8-bit home computers (e.g Apple II) and consoles (e.g NES) due to its low cost.
Released by MOS Technology in 1975, the 6502 was designed...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a small but unusually useful F-Zero source archive under other/SFC/ソースデータ/FZERO.
This is not just a loose dump of assembly files.
It preserves the main game code, a dated title page, multiple regional build variants, and a...
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On 24 July 2020, a large Nintendo archive was uploaded online and quickly became known as the Gigaleak.
It was not one single neat source drop.
It was a mixed archive of ROMs, source trees, boot ROM repositories, internal tools,...
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NEWS_05.tar is a 109 MB workstation backup snapshot from a Nintendo developer’s machine, dated around May 1995.
Unlike the structured source-code drops elsewhere in the Gigaleak, NEWS_05 captures raw mid-development working directories from two prolific engineers: one focused on 3D...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a very substantial Super Mario Kart source archive under other/SFC/ソースデータ/MarioKart.
Unlike the F-Zero leak, this is not neatly split into Game and Tools.
It looks much more like a live working directory copied straight out of...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a separate Super Mario Kart art workspace under other/NEWS/テープリストア/NEWS_04/home/sugiyama/fly and home/sugiyama/flyman/, from Nintendo artist Tadashi Sugiyama.
These directories are almost entirely art-side production material from the Super Nintendo Pilotwings game.
Super Famicom / SNES File Formats...
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Have you ever wondered what exactly is inside those retro game Cartridges (ROMs)?
In this post we will find out the purpose of ROM cartridges and how they worked.
Advantages of Cartridges Cartridges are not the only format available to...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a surprisingly complete Super Famicom disk and I/O environment inside the Super Mario Kart source directory.
This is the SFX-DOS stack: a SNES-side support layer for floppy access, directory walking, keyboard and serial I/O, printer output,...
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Official Nintendo Development kits Unusually there are actually multiple development kits that could be seen as “official”, one by Nintendo’s Intelligent Systems company and the other by Ricoh who was the creator of the SNES CPU.
Nintendo also seems to...
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SNES workstation file formats, decoded and visualized ...
Official Nintendo Super Famicom SDK Unlike the original Famicom system, Nintendo provided third party developers with some tools to make Super Famicom development easier.
The tools were created by a subsidiary of Nintendo called Intelligent Systems who would later be...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a separate SimCity SNES art workspace under other/NEWS/テープリストア/NEWS_04/home/sugiyama/SIM.
Compared with the much broader Mario Kart CAR folder, SIM is smaller and more focused.
It is almost entirely menu, panel, input, and city-interface material, with a distinctive...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a compact but very revealing Star Fox source drop under other/SFC/ソースデータ/StarFox.
Unlike the F-Zero leak, this one is not laid out as loose source folders from the start.
It survives as two separate LZH archives: one...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a much larger and messier Star Fox 2 workspace under other/SFC/ソースデータ/StarFox2.
Unlike the original Star Fox drop, this one is not just a compact source archive.
It preserves the main SF2 game tree, a separate DOS-side...
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Archive Source This article analyzes the Star Fox 2 2D art and graphics workspace preserved in the Gigaleak - specifically from the NEWS_04 archive, a 96 MB Nintendo NEWS workstation backup.
Path in archive: NEWS_04.tar → home/arimoto/SF2/ The arimoto home...
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Archive Source This page is based on Gigaleak NEWS_04 home/sugiyama/FX2/ (41 files), from Tadashi Sugiyama’s workspace.
Glossary FX2 - Wild Trax / Stunt Race FX UI-art folder.
cpt - Cup/captain selection asset prefix.
p-select - Player-select screen asset prefix.
CGX...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a compact but unusually revealing Super Mario Collection source archive under other/SFC/ソースデータ/srd13-SFCマリオコレクション.
This is the Japanese Super Famicom release better known in the West as Super Mario All-Stars.
This is not a clean one-folder master source...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a separate Super Mario Kart art workspace under other/NEWS/テープリストア/NEWS_04/home/sugiyama/CAR.
Unlike the main source tree, this directory is almost entirely art-side production material.
It is a flat workspace full of screen layouts, character graphics, palette files, object...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a large Super Famicom source tree under other/SFC/ソースデータ/ワイルドトラックス.
This is the Japanese Wild Trax project, better known in the west as Stunt Race FX.
What makes the archive especially useful is that it does not look...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a very large Yoshi’s Island archive under other/SFC/ソースデータ/ヨッシーアイランド.
This is the Super Famicom codebase for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, and it survives in a much richer form than a simple asm drop.
The leak...
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The Nintendo Gigaleak preserves a large Super Famicom Zelda source archive under other/SFC/ソースデータ/ゼルダの伝説神々のトライフォース.
This is the Japanese game better known in the West as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
What makes this archive especially useful is...
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Magazine Interviews
The magazine index collects developer interviews tagged for this system across all indexed magazines.
| Magazine | Issue | Pages | Developer | Platforms | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retro Gamer | 25 | pp. 28-30 | Dylan Cuthbert | Super Nintendo | Cuthbert gives developer insight into the cancellation of Star Fox 2. |
| Retro Gamer | 28 | pp. 26-30 | Jez San | Super Nintendo | San explains Argonaut’s work with Nintendo on Star Fox and the Super FX chip. |
| Retro Gamer | 37 | pp. 84-87 | Ste Ruddy | Commodore 64, NES, SNES, Game Boy Advance | Ste Ruddy discusses his game programming career. |
| Retro Gamer | 38 | pp. 88-93 | David Foster and other conversion developers | Arcade, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, NES, SNES | David Foster and other conversion developers discusses home conversions of Dragon’s Lair. |
| Retro Gamer | 43 | pp. 44-48 | Sean Naden | Amiga, PC, SNES, Mega Drive | Interview about the making of Rise of the Robots. |
| Retro Gamer | 43 | pp. 68-71 | Gregg Mayles | SNES | Interview about the making of Donkey Kong Country. |
| Retro Gamer | 44 | pp. 70-75 | Chris Sorrell | Amiga, Mega Drive, SNES | Interview about the James Pond trilogy. |
| Retro Gamer | 65 | pp. 58-63 | Yoshio Sakamoto | SNES | Interview about the making of Super Metroid. |
| Retro Gamer | 66 | pp. 48-51 | Giles Goddard | SNES | Interview about the making of Stunt Race FX. |
| Retro Gamer | 75 | pp. 24-29 | James Higgins and Warren Lancashire | Amiga, SNES | Interviews about the making of The Addams Family. |
| Retro Gamer | 77 | p. 14 | Ste Pickford | ZX Spectrum, SNES | A Moment With Q&A about his game development career. |
| Retro Gamer | 83 | pp. 28-35 | Brendan Gunn | SNES | Interview in the history of Donkey Kong Country. |
| Retro Gamer | 83 | pp. 76-79 | Yasuhiro Wada | SNES | Interview about the making of Harvest Moon. |
| Retro Gamer | 84 | pp. 28-43 | Brendan Gunn | SNES | Interview in the 25th anniversary history of Rare. |
| Retro Gamer | 89 | pp. 42-44 | Andreas Axelsson, Jim Bagley, William Harbison, Simon Butler and Alex Trowers | Arcade, SNES, Sega Mega Drive | Developer memories in the 20th anniversary feature on Street Fighter II. |
| Retro Gamer | 97 | pp. 34-39 | Kalani Streicher | SNES | Interview about the making of the Super Star Wars trilogy. |
| Retro Gamer | 102 | pp. 80-83 | Chihiro Fujioka | Super Nintendo | The director discusses Square and Nintendo working together on Super Mario RPG. |
| Retro Gamer | 114 | p. 12 | Doug TenNapel | Mega Drive, Super Nintendo | The Earthworm Jim creator discusses his game art and characters. |
| Retro Gamer | 114 | pp. 86-89 | Mike Berlyn | Mega Drive, Super Nintendo | Berlyn recalls creating Bubsy and its original design goals. |
| Retro Gamer | 115 | pp. 34-41 | Indiana Jones game developers | Arcade, Super Nintendo, PC | Developers recall adapting the Indiana Jones films into arcade and home games. |
| Retro Gamer | 117 | pp. 6-7 | David Yu | NES, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive | The Hyperkin developer discusses the emulation and cartridge support in the RetroN 5 console. |
| Retro Gamer | 117 | pp. 50-53 | Ron Millar and Blizzard developers | Amiga, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive | The Silicon & Synapse team recall designing The Lost Vikings. |
| Retro Gamer | 119 | pp. 30-35 | Masahiro Ueno | Super Nintendo | The director discusses Super Castlevania IV and its stage design. |
| Retro Gamer | 120 | pp. 20-25 | Beam Software developers | Super Nintendo | Former developers recall adapting the tabletop RPG Shadowrun for the SNES. |
| Retro Gamer | 120 | pp. 28-35 | Doug TenNapel and David Perry | Mega Drive, Super Nintendo | The creators recall the design, animation, and production of Earthworm Jim. |
| Retro Gamer | 123 | pp. 48-53 | Chris Tilston, Kevin Bayliss, and Mike Willette | Arcade, Super Nintendo, Xbox One | Developers of the original and revived Killer Instinct discuss the series. |
| Retro Gamer | 124 | p. 32 | Roy Fielding | Commodore 64, Super Nintendo | Fielding discusses his programming career at Ocean and Traveller’s Tales. |
| Retro Gamer | 133 | pp. 24-31 | Punch-Out developers | Arcade, NES, Super Nintendo | Nintendo developers discuss the series’ arcade origins and console sequels. |
| Retro Gamer | 137 | pp. 92-97 | Jez San | BBC Micro, Super Nintendo | The Argonaut founder looks back at his games and development career. |
| Retro Gamer | 143 | pp. 18-25 | F-Zero-influenced racing developers | SNES, GameCube, PC | Racing developers discuss the influence of Nintendo’s F-Zero. |
| Retro Gamer | 147 | pp. 38-41 | Michael Wong-Powell and Argonaut developers | SNES | The team recalls creating Vortex with the Super FX chip. |
| Retro Gamer | 147 | p. 49 | Rob O'Farrell | Amiga, Mega Drive, SNES | The Probe producer discusses converting Mortal Kombat II from the arcade. |
| Retro Gamer | 148 | pp. 58-67 | Super Nintendo developers | SNES | Developers recall the hardware and games of the Super Nintendo on its twenty-fifth anniversary. |
| Retro Gamer | 150 | pp. 85-87 | Paul Machacek | NES, SNES, Nintendo 64 | The Rare developer discusses the studio’s work with Nintendo. |
| Retro Gamer | 151 | p. 22 | Mick McGinty | SNES, Mega Drive | The cover artist discusses creating art for Street Fighter II home releases. |
| Retro Gamer | 154 | pp. 6-7 | John Lester | SNES | The CollectorVision developer explains the cancelled Coleco Chameleon project and its planned pack-in game. |
| Retro Gamer | 154 | pp. 64-68 | Mike Posehn | Mega Drive, SNES | Posehn recounts developing Desert Strike and its helicopter combat. |
| Retro Gamer | 157 | pp. 56-59 | Nick Bruty and Alien 3 developers | SNES, Mega Drive | The developers discuss adapting Alien 3 for home consoles. |
| Retro Gamer | 157 | p. 58 | Nick Jones | SNES | The SNES coder discusses Probe’s Alien 3 conversion. |
| Retro Gamer | 158 | pp. 26-31 | David Perry and George Allen | Mega Drive, SNES | Developers discuss how Sonic The Hedgehog influenced the mascot platform game boom. |
| Retro Gamer | 161 | pp. 46-49 | Kiyoshi Sakai | SNES, PlayStation | Sakai explains the design of Umihara Kawase. |
| Retro Gamer | 161 | pp. 62-67 | Ken Pontac, David Ichioka and ClayFighter developers | SNES, Mega Drive | The team recalls creating ClayFighter with digitised clay animation. |
| Retro Gamer | 162 | p. 8 | Eli Galindo | SNES, Mega Drive, Atari Jaguar | The Piko Interactive founder discusses publishing new games for classic consoles. |
| Retro Gamer | 162 | pp. 92-97 | Kevin Bayliss | Commodore 64, SNES, Nintendo 64 | Bayliss discusses his art and character design career at Rare. |
| Retro Gamer | 165 | pp. 22-29 | Takashi Tezuka and Kensuke Tanabe | SNES | The Nintendo developers discuss making The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. |
| Retro Gamer | 166 | pp. 64-71 | David Bishop, Louis Castle and Disney game developers | Mega Drive, SNES, Master System | Developers revisit classic Disney videogame adaptations. |
| Retro Gamer | 167 | pp. 20-29 | Shigeru Miyamoto, Tadashi Sugiyama and Hideki Konno | SNES | Nintendo’s original team explains how Super Mario Kart was made. |
| Retro Gamer | 169 | pp. 94-99 | Nobuo Uematsu | NES, SNES, PlayStation | Uematsu discusses his videogame music career and Final Fantasy. |
| Retro Gamer | 170 | pp. 28-33 | Shinji Hashimoto | NES, SNES, PlayStation | The Square Enix brand manager reflects on 30 years of Final Fantasy. |
| Retro Gamer | 171 | pp. 74-77 | Toshiyasu Miyabe | SNES, PlayStation 4 | Miyabe discusses creating Wild Guns and Wild Guns Reloaded. |
| Retro Gamer | 173 | pp. 62-67 | Bob Churchill and Stuart Atkinson | Amiga, Mega Drive, Mega-CD, Sega 32X, SNES | Core Design staff recall developing the Chuck Rock games. |
| Retro Gamer | 175 | pp. 58-61 | Louis Castle | Mega Drive, SNES | The Westwood cofounder recalls the demanding development of Disney’s The Lion King. |
| Retro Gamer | 176 | pp. 20-27 | Nobuya Nakazato | SNES, Mega Drive | Nakazato revisits Contra III: The Alien Wars and Contra: Hard Corps. |
| Retro Gamer | 177 | p. 57 | Chris Sutherland | SNES | The former Rare programmer discusses the SNES and its games. |
| Retro Gamer | 177 | p. 59 | Mike Dailly | SNES | Dailly discusses developing for the SNES. |
| Retro Gamer | 177 | pp. 82-85 | Nick Bruty | Mega Drive, SNES | Bruty recalls the rapid development of Earthworm Jim 2. |
| Retro Gamer | 180 | pp. 20-27 | Mike Montgomery and Dan Malone | Amiga, Mega Drive, SNES | The Bitmap Brothers veterans revisit the making of The Chaos Engine. |
| Retro Gamer | 180 | pp. 80-85 | Akitoshi Kawazu | Game Boy, SNES, PlayStation | Kawazu discusses the history and design of Square’s SaGa RPG series. |
| Retro Gamer | 182 | pp. 58-61 | Alan Pavlish | Mega Drive, SNES | Pavlish discusses the making of Rock n’ Roll Racing at Silicon & Synapse. |
| Retro Gamer | 184 | pp. 62-67 | Will Anderson | Mega Drive, SNES, Game Boy | The designer discusses creating 7 Up’s Cool Spot games. |
| Retro Gamer | 185 | pp. 70-73 | Zach Manko | NES, SNES, Mega Drive | The Mega Cat Studios cofounder discusses making new cartridge games for classic consoles. |
| Retro Gamer | 186 | pp. 58-61 | Douglas Hare | SNES, Mega Drive, Amiga | Hare recalls adapting Rat Trap into Krusty’s Fun House. |
| Retro Gamer | 188 | pp. 58-61 | Foo Katan and Bits Studios developers | NES, SNES, Game Boy | Former staff discuss the history and games of Bits Studios. |
| Retro Gamer | 189 | p. 77 | Rich Stevenson | Mega Drive, SNES | Stevenson discusses coding Jungle Strike. |
| Retro Gamer | 189 | p. 79 | John Manley | Mega Drive, SNES | The EA producer discusses developing the Strike series. |
| Retro Gamer | 190 | pp. 40-45 | Veetorp and game-randomizer creators | SNES, Nintendo 64, PC | Modders discuss creating randomizer versions of classic games. |
| Retro Gamer | 190 | pp. 44-45 | Veetorp | SNES | The mod creator answers questions about A Link to the Past randomizer. |
| Retro Gamer | 192 | pp. 20-29 | Takashi Tezuka and Shigefumi Hino | SNES | The Nintendo directors revisit the design and development of Yoshi’s Island. |
| Retro Gamer | 195 | p. 63 | Nobuya Nakazato | SNES | The Contra III director comments on the game’s design and Konami’s anniversary collection. |
| Retro Gamer | 198 | pp. 50-53 | Matt Findley and Stu Rose | SNES, PC | Blizzard developers revisit the creation of Blackthorne. |
| Retro Gamer | 202 | pp. 54-59 | Mev Dinc | SNES, Mega Drive, Amiga, PC | Dinc discusses Vivid Image’s development of the multiplayer kart racer Street Racer. |
| Retro Gamer | 202 | p. 57 | Mev Dinc | Commodore 64, Amiga, SNES | The Vivid Image cofounder answers questions about his game development career. |
| Retro Gamer | 203 | pp. 18-27 | Ste Pickford and Chris Sutherland | NES, SNES | Game developers contribute to a discussion of the design of 2D Mario platform games. |
| Retro Gamer | 203 | pp. 54-61 | John Manley and Mike Posehn | Mega Drive, SNES, PlayStation | The developers revisit the creation and evolution of EA’s Strike helicopter games. |
| Retro Gamer | 205 | pp. 68-71 | Tim Williams, Bob Stevenson and John Botti | Mega Drive, SNES | The developers revisit the making of RoboCop Versus The Terminator. |
| Retro Gamer | 208 | pp. 54-59 | John Pickford, Ste Pickford, Lyndon Brooke and John Buckley | SNES | The Software Creations team revisits the development of Plok. |
| Retro Gamer | 211 | pp. 18-31 | Nick Jones, Mike Dailly and Randy Linden | SNES | Veteran developers explain how the SNES hardware shaped the games they made. |
| Retro Gamer | 213 | pp. 72-77 | Supper, Calindro and Spanner | SNES, Mega Drive | ROM hackers discuss modifying console games and translating unreleased titles. |
| Retro Gamer | 218 | p. 25 | Daley Eve Johnson | SNES, PC | The Playtonic designer discusses the Nineties game mascots that influenced her work. |
| Retro Gamer | 218 | pp. 66-71 | Hifumi Kono | SNES, PlayStation | Kono discusses designing the original Clock Tower and its horror legacy. |
| Retro Gamer | 219 | pp. 18-29 | Masato Maegawa | Mega Drive, SNES, PlayStation | Treasure’s president reflects on the studio’s games and development history. |
| Retro Gamer | 224 | pp. 92-97 | Matt Furniss | Mega Drive, Amiga, SNES | Furniss reflects on composing and programming music for console and computer games. |
| Retro Gamer | 225 | pp. 68-73 | Patrick Gilmore, Craig Allen, Patrick Collins, Jon Williams and Mat Sneap | Mega Drive, SNES | Developers recall making the Disney platform game Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow. |
| Retro Gamer | 227 | pp. 54-59 | Ian Stewart, Paul Ritchie and Mark Glossop | Amiga, Atari ST, SNES, Mega Drive | The team recalls developing Nigel Mansell’s World Championship and its conversions. |
| Retro Gamer | 229 | pp. 68-73 | Ian Stewart, Ritchie Brannan, Ashley Bennett and Barry Leitch | SNES, Mega Drive, Amiga | Gremlin staff discuss the creation and conversions of the Top Gear racing games. |
| Retro Gamer | 230 | pp. 18-27 | David Perry, Nick Bruty and Tommy Tallarico | Mega Drive, SNES, PC | Shiny veterans trace the design, art and music of the Earthworm Jim games. |
| Retro Gamer | 231 | pp. 44-49 | Justin Garvanovic, Chun Wah Kong, Ste Pickford and John Buckley | SNES | Developers discuss making games for Nintendo’s Super Scope light-gun accessory. |
| Retro Gamer | 233 | pp. 68-69 | Jas Austin | SNES | Austin recalls the cancelled Fido Dido game for the Super Nintendo. |
| Retro Gamer | 237 | pp. 18-27 | Kevin Bayliss, Chris Sutherland, Kynan Pearson and Vince Joly | SNES, Game Boy, Wii U | Rare and Retro Studios developers trace the Donkey Kong Country series. |
| Retro Gamer | 238 | pp. 48-51 | Scott Krager | SNES, Mega Drive, PC | Krager explains the design and all-format development of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. |
| Retro Gamer | 241 | pp. 18-27 | Thomas Church, Chris Kohler, Stephen Frost and Charles Murakami | Arcade, NES, SNES, Mega Drive | Digital Eclipse and Konami staff discuss the history and preservation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. |
| Retro Gamer | 242 | pp. 62-63 | Philippe Dessoly | Arcade, SNES, Switch, PlayStation 4, PC | The artist discusses Mr Nutz Studio’s updated Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja. |
| Retro Gamer | 243 | pp. 58-63 | Tony West, Michael Carr-Robb-John and Jolyon Myers | Mega Drive, Game Gear, SNES | The developers discuss combining platforming and football in Marko’s Magic Football. |
| Retro Gamer | 250 | pp. 18-43 | Rare developers past and present | ZX Spectrum, NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Xbox, Xbox 360 | Rare veterans trace the studio’s game-development history, from Ultimate to its modern projects. |
| Retro Gamer | 250 | pp. 68-73 | Jonathan Beard and Jonathan Dunn | SNES | The Ocean developers recount adapting Jurassic Park for the SNES. |
References
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Kevin Edwards ( Retro Videogame development ) on X: “@BananaBytesBr IIRC about 6-7 months from start to final build.” / X ↩
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Development:Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island - The Cutting Room Floor ↩
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1994 Game Developers – Interview Collection - shmuplations.com ↩ ↩2
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Super Noah’s Ark 3D (USA) (Source Code) - elude visibility ↩
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https://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/documentation/Assembler_Linker.pdf ↩
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Footage Inside 1990 Nintendo Headquarters in Kyoto - YouTube ↩
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Masayuki Uemura – The Creator of the Famicom - shmuplations.com ↩