What you like best about Saturn developing

[aeroflot]

Was wondering what motivated y'all to get into and keep developing for Saturn.

I love and hate working on a platform that is from the past. One the one hand it's exciting to learn about computer hardware from the era, about programming from the era, what other developers went through, and to try to recreate that experience for myself; on the other hand, perhaps not many people will ever play a game you make for the Saturn. While it seems like it might be more rewarding to work on a current platform, like PC, there's no other system I'd like to work for than the Saturn. Everything else pales. Sometimes when I see images of old Saturn games, I feel really inspired. It's also fun trying to decode the Saturn from what's left of the reference material. Usually if I'm programming something I want to figure out everything by myself, but it's fun to have to rely on other peoples' sources. It's like forced socialization 😛

 

[Red Ring Rico]

I'm of the opinion that it's fun to squeeze hardware for all it's worth. Also, with the new hardware which has come out since, such as the SD card reader for the Dreamcast and USB Development Cartridge for the Saturn, I feel the platform is more permanent than something like a smartphone where users upgrade and discard devices on a near-yearly basis. Take Retro City Rampage, for example, an MS-DOS (though it also works on FreeDOS) port released this year. Of course, that was more of a programming exercise for the developer and could have benefited from being on CD-ROM instead of floppy. As I'm relatively new to the Saturn, there's still a lot for me to learn and that's a part I really enjoy.

I should note that I also work on other platforms, such as the Dreamcast, Xbox, GNU/Linux, Windows, DOS, and Pandora. Really, I like programming on all of them, but find the Saturn to be very rewarding.

I've been working on a game for another platform for the past month now, but I'm going to get back to the Saturn soon. Most likely at the end of October/early November.

 

[aeroflot]

Yeah, it's an interesting idea getting all you get from the hardware. Kinda reminds me of the Shenmue on Saturn video. What Yu Suzuki ended up getting out the Saturn is pretty amazing. It's definitely an inspiration.

There's a sense that there's still a lot for the Saturn to do in the future. It was passed up fairly quickly for "better" systems. However, like a blank piece of paper, you could create a masterpiece of art or you could make a flop of a game, and it's totally up to the developer. All you need is the knowledge and the time. Instead of being creative, the Saturn was just replaced (I know it's not as simple as that, but that's how I tend to see technical "progress.")