Hello to the community

Hi everyone !
Real name is Fabien, 40yo male from France.
New user here, got NESMaker today, super-motivated about it.
I just completed the easy tutorial for adventure games.
I have tons of questions, but I'll first complete the other tutorials before I ask, maybe tutorials will answer them all, most likely some of them but not all. I've been thinking about the storyline for my game all day long, and it's not going to stop any time soon.
I don't have much experience in making games, I used to create mario levels, from old pc programs to super mario maker 2 on switch. It did teach me how to keep a game user-friendly and fun.

OK, I do have a question : has anyone made a compilation of free assets ? I will definitely have to make a lot of custom art, but the ideal would be to have a huge database to browse, then complete with my homemade stuff (and add it to said database). Does that exist ?

Anyway, cheers, it's good to be here, and feel free to tell me anything you think I should know about (good tips, classic mistakes to avoid, any ressource, etc.).
C U around guys !

P.S.: after I heard about NESMAker, I contacted Andrew Gilmour, creator of the games Slain and Valfaris (check them out, cool stuff), to know if he had a simple advice to someone getting into game dev, something to keep in mind all the time when creating a game. His answer was so simple and pure that I feel the need to share it with you. He said :"Make a game you want to play ".
This definitely inspired me, may it inspire you too.

Salut Fabien / welcome

Glad to have you here.
Pour commencer avec NESmaker, j'te conseille de suivre les videos sur le site officiel (www.thenew8bitheroes.com/learn)
Une autre video très instructive "NESmaker Orientation Video", qui t'expliques les bases, tout ce que tu dois savoir; ici: https://youtu.be/yP6Crmyxcbk
La plupart des réponses se trouvent dans les tutoriaux, sinon ici sur le forum. La fonction de recherche est quelque peu limitée... si besoin tu peux toujours utiliser google pour faire ta recherche (dans google, tu tapes "site:nesmakers.com ce que tu cherches")

Pour la base de données de ressources graphiques, non, on n'a pas vraiment de ça... vu que le logiciel incite à faire avec ses propres graphismes, ses propres IP... Cependant, tu trouveras quelques trucs sympas (et parfois libre d'utilisation) dans la rubrique "Graphics" du forum.
Sinon y'a aussi des sites comme https://opengameart.org sur lesquels tu peux trouver des ressources en CC (chercher 8bit ou NES, ...)

Amuse toi bien, n'hésite pas à partager tes projets, tes problèmes, ...
Have fun!

Hi Fabien,

Nice to have you with us.

Regarding assets...

Appart from what Dale suggested, you could also try NES assets on itch.io or spriters-recource.com as inspiration, then create your own from those ideas and adapt / expand on them.

Thx for the info guys, I'm starting a big project that will last for at least a full year, with the ambition to have as much variety as possible among NPCs and foes.
I've started creating my own, and with practice it will be faster and look better, but I really want to fix that one thing that used to annoy me when I was a kid playing NES : color swaps for foes, and heavy sprite repetition.
With 400-500 screens to fill, I'll have no other choice than to simply become good at making my own stuff anyway.
I guess it'll take a month or two before I can grasps what I can do or not, especially when it comes to storytelling, i.e. textboxes, dialog options that may or may not be possible with nesmaker.
Hey, it's a long road, but step by step will do.
Is there any community member who's created a long story-driven rpg with nesmaker, from whom I could get general advice ?

Our advice... start with a small project. Learn how to use the tool, all the limitations (there are a LOT !) when you will feel at ease you can go for a bigger project or just expand your current projet.

(keep in mind you are limited in colors per palette and palettes per screen... also monsters per screen... and total objects for your projects. Also the tiles are not so huge... same for the banks when all the code, the text is stored)

Have you watched the documentary "The New 8bit Heroes" ? A really good movie (by Joe Granato) about the creation of Mystic Searches (also NESmaker).

There are a few places where you can find free assets that you can use in your game. Though they are far and few between. The forums actually have a few posts with links that lead to some free music and assets if you do some light browsing.

yeah don't worry I'm training on a small scale game, expanded from what was in the tutorial.
I'll keep watching all information sources I can find.