moechofe 2026-07-17 08:01
This community is very solid; people who frequent this website have been here for years, and that's great.
However, most of the programs shared by members are short experiments, unfinished projects, or simple, relaxing interactions. I was wondering: where are the games?
This tool, like another popular fantasy console (PICO-8), was designed to create games, but I don't see many of them here. When I talk about games, I mean projects that are playable, finishable, polished, and self-explanatory.
Why do you think this community doesn't produce more complete games? Is it a lack of interest, a steep learning curve, or just a preference for smaller creative sketches? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Timo 2026-07-17 10:34
I think BASIC makes it hard to write large programs, because it can get chaotic easily.
The authentic approach of NX makes technical experiments more interesting, but it makes it harder to focus on game design. So people more interested in making full games might be more comfortable with the PICO-8 approach.
The community is small. If you put a lot of effort into a project, you probably want a larger audience for it. Of course you could publish it on something like itch.io, but then there is TOO MUCH competition. I guess a community like PICO-8 is the better audience.
In conclusion: LowRes NX seems to be better suited for small technical experiments.
C-script 2026-07-17 16:27
As for myself I guess I don’t feel that all of my projects are worth sharing because I’m not the most advanced at BG, CELL’s and more. I try to just use text for most things since that’s what I learned first. Funny story when I first started learning BASIC in LowRes NX I didn’t see the manual so I started breaking apart the pre-installed programs and the simplest one that I could understand was a text game. After a month I learned about the manual. I would love to make a game like sNOw ESCAPE which is a favorite of mine but I simply don’t understand how to or where to start.
qwaffe 2026-07-17 18:51 (Edited)
Definitely when you think of an idea, the first thing you would think about is whether it's even possible in NX, and it might not be . also, it's not very straightforward to turn a gameplay idea into a complete game because you would have to (re)structure the whole thing, add a functional GUI ... it sounds very time consuming to do in NX.
moechofe 2026-07-18 08:56
@C-script: you learn BASIC the hard way, that funny.
Is Snow Escape an Escape Game? A type of game that required a lot of drawing.
@qwaffe: That's true but not always. There are solutions to demake a game and still get something descent. My Poink game start by being a demake and finally become my own vision of the an existing game that fit with the limitation of LowResNX.
AkiPot 2026-07-18 11:09
Pico-8 also has tons of projects that you can't really call full-blown games. It's just that Pico-8 happened to become the most popular fantasy console. It has the biggest community and more people who are actually down to make finished games.
Game dev is pretty tough and takes a lot of time. You gotta come up with a concept, draw the art, and nail down the overall design. Then, ideally, you need to add SFX and music. And finally, write the code to tie it all together and make it actually work.
From my own experience, I wouldn't say Pico-8 makes the whole process easier compared to Lowres NX. If you’re making a complex project, you'll have to do some heavy lifting regardless. That said, drawing 3D on Pico-8 (and TIC-80) really is easier since they support vector graphics.
Personally, I prefer to only make fully finished games. But for the reasons I mentioned above, it takes a ton of time. Still, it's super engaging and a lot of fun.
C-script 2026-07-18 17:25
@moechofe I decided to try to make a game because of this post but with a real story. The time of grassy plains
was8bit 2026-07-18 18:32 (Edited)
For those wanting to explore the possibilities of NX, just browse thru all my posted stuff... i have tons of things that you can pick apart to see how things work
I dont have much time to focus on big games, so i post alot of ideas...
... i DO have games posted, but you usually have to wade thru all my postings to find most of them
qwaffe 2026-07-19 05:59
@moechofe You're right, Poink is awesome (i suck at it). That's an interesting approach to polishing a game idea into a full game, i'll have to try it sometime.