The engineering of the NES was rather ingenious, in that its technological capabilities weren’t strictly limited to the console’s hardware. The actual game cartridges could come equipped with special chips to add extra horsepower of sorts, allowing for more varied, evolving experiences. And the power of the NES is being put on display like never before with Super Tilt Bro., a new NES game on Kickstarter that includes built-in Wi-Fi for online play.
Broke Studio’s Super Tilt Bro. is a platformer fighter in the vein of Super Smash Bros., albeit with really small 8-bit sprites. You’re running, jumping, punching, and squeezing as much strategy as possible out of the NES’s D-pad and two buttons. The game is also open-source, inviting others to run their own private servers or improve the game in however way they would like. And yes, the game can receive updates via Wi-Fi.
If you’re wondering how the online tech works in an NES game like Super Tilt Bro., Broke Studio explains that the electronic board “integrates an ESP8266 Wi-Fi chipset and an FPGA to orchestrate communications between the NES and the Wi-Fi chipset.” The game also has rollback netcode, which hilariously puts it ahead of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a reliable online battle experience. A demo is available to download from the Kickstarter page as well, but you probably need an emulator to run it.
As of the time of publication, Super Tilt Bro. has raised nearly $31,000 of its goal of almost $42,000, and the campaign has only been live for about a day. You can check out its Kickstarter if you’re interested in having a bizarrely modern experience on your NES. The game itself is already finished (minus future updates), but it’s planned to ship in April 2024.
