JSNES

January 26, 2018 8:14 AM

A JavaScript NES emulator, by Ben Firshman. Castlevania, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, and many more. Via kottke.
posted by carter (15 comments total)

I didn't even realize Lemmings for NES was a thing! The machine apparently lacks the processing power to make little craters after they explode...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:34 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Drag and drop roms is a nice web friendly feature. My kid has a Nintendo Switch and when he takes it out of the taco (cradle) for the long drive to a hockey game he has no idea how lucky he is to have a fully functional console in his hands, we would have killed for something like that.
posted by furtive at 8:42 AM on January 26, 2018

Very nice, perfect for the last 30 mins at work on a Friday evening when all you want to do is the square root of fuck all.

@East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94

Lemmings came out for the Commodore 64 too.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:53 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

And Sinclair ZX Spectrum...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:05 AM on January 26, 2018

I just shared this in the office gaming slack channel.
posted by Fizz at 9:21 AM on January 26, 2018

Lemmings also apparently had an arcade adaptation, according to the collection of MAME ROMs I definitely didn't download from a sketchy website.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:30 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Does Lemmings not suffer badly from the transition from a mouse/pointing device to a 4-directional joystick? I can imagine piloting the pointer between the little walking figures and the icons at the bottom of the screen would add considerably to the frustration.
posted by acb at 9:36 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

There goes our side of the office's Friday productivity
posted by Divest_Abstraction at 9:59 AM on January 26, 2018

Well that's just goshdarn awesome. On a personal note, though trying to play Tetris with the spin on the left (ZX) and the motion on the right (arrow keys) which is opposite what is was on the NES controller is making sparks in my brain.
posted by turkeybrain at 10:05 AM on January 26, 2018

btw, for folks who can get to Philly, there will be an interactive exhibition Game Masters on the history of video game design, opening March 31, at the Franklin Institute.
posted by carter at 10:10 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Lemmings port is... not great, no. Controls appear to be:

• D-pad/arrows to move cursor around the playing field
• A button plus d-pad/arrows to select the type of job
• B button to while the cursor is over the lemming to assign it a job

That said, I could see a controller-based port working well if they changed the control scheme to be more like 'up/down' cycles through the jobs, 'left/right' cycles through the lemmings (with maybe using 'A' to cycle through faster in the case of large numbers of lemmings), and 'B' assigned the job to the currently selected lemming.
posted by Aleyn at 2:42 PM on January 26, 2018

Maybe it's just me but I can't get any button controls to work, and I can only watch helplessly as barrels run me over since I cannot jump over them.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:45 PM on January 26, 2018

BUBBLE BOBBLE

And just like that I am reminded of an old OC Remix by DJ Pretzel: Hillbilly Rodeo.
posted by linux at 3:47 PM on January 26, 2018

So much fun! I was playing Donkey Kong and my 11 year old wandered over from his Xbox. WHAT IS THAT?!?!
posted by TheShadowKnows at 5:27 PM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is basically the same control scheme I used for years of illicit NES emulation
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:08 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]