How to Help

As a volunteer for Playpower, there are many ways to help.  It really depends on your skill set.

The best way to help is to learn to program the $10 computer

 

Technical

 

Game Porting

• Help port a classic educational game

 

Development Documentation

• Collecting 8-bit 6502 Source Code
• Collecting 8-bit 6502 Development Guides
• If you are well versed programming the NES, please help with the Learning project

 

Visual Design

• Design an 8-bit character
• Create a Character Set
• Create an International Font

 

Development Research

• How to accept Keyboard input?
• Memory map of registers
• Target memory mapper

 

Development Tools

• cc65 has a compiler library called rNES, but it is incomplete. 
• nBASIC can supposedly create functional games, but this needs testing.

 

Cartridge Development

• USB or SD Card Integration
• Designing a low-cost flash-based cartridge

 

Game Frameworks

• Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game framework: in cc65
• Needs the ability to add images and sound
• Needs a script to preprocess text for word wrap
• Web-based text form for writing
• Non-Latin font support
• Quiz Game Framework: in nBASIC
• Open-Source Code Samples for the NES
• Project History
• MILLEE - J2ME development for Mobile Phones

 

Education

• If you are in college, it is usually pretty easy to get school credit for contributing to Playpower.  Ask us how:  derek@playpower.org
• Teach a university level course that involves Playpower development

 

 

Non-Technical

 

Ideas

• Submit an idea for our Ideas page.

 

Game Design

• Game Design Research: learning from history of games
• Develop a Storyboard 

 

Functional Spec Writing

• Check out the ideas page to help with writing Functional Specs for current ideas