Microsoft made gaming history when it developed Achievements and released them with the launch of the Xbox 360. They have since become a key component of gaming culture, which similar systems rolling out to the rest of the consoles and even many PC games. [odelot] has the honor of being the one to bring this functionality to an odd home—the original Nintendo Entertainment System!
It’s actually quite functional, and it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. What [odelot] created is the NES RetroAchievements (RA) Adapter. It contains a Raspberry Pi Pico which sits in between a cartridge and the console and communicates with the NES itself. The cartridge also contains an LCD screen, a buzzer, and an ESP32 which communicates with the Internet.
When a cartridge is loaded, the RA Adapter identifies the game and queries the RetroAchievements platform for relevant achievements for the title. It then monitors the console’s memory to determine if any of those achievements—such as score, progression, etc.—are met. If and when that happens, the TFT screen on the adapter displays the achievement, and a notification is sent to the RetroAchievements platform to record the event for posterity.
It reminds us of other great feats, like the MJPEG entry into the heart of the Sega Saturn.
Interesting project but horrendous text to speech in the video and very little actual info
Hi! you can find detailed info on the project repository https://github.com/odelot/nes-ra-adapter
We’ll sell you our locked-down hardware at a loss, then you’ll buy our overpriced games and waste hundreds of hours on each, trying to unlock some meaningless single bit of information stored on Microsoft servers.
( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)
Look at the date?
Cirst Google result for “Online Leaderboards” is Space Invaders from 1978.
Odd first sentence to this article. I guess ‘Achievements” could have been more strictly defined. I suppose I am out of the loop, turning off the “social features” at every opportunity. But it seems there was probably acbievements before this, thanks hand waving AI ‘informarional’ video.
Informational.
“Google result for “Online Leaderboards”
“I guess ‘Achievements” could have been more strictly defined”
An “online leaderboard” is not really the same thing. “Achievements” IS strictly defined.
It has meant a specific thing in gaming for 20 years now. It is such a pervasive term that it’s made its way into satire for gaming, referenced in skits, songs, and other things trying to spoof on gaming.
It’s a specific feature on many platforms literally called “Achievements,” not just the common word “achievement.” Getting high up on an online leader board is an “achievement” for yourself, but it isn’t going to be an “Achievement” because that’s a specific micro-goal of a game.
Like, in Space Invaders, an “Achievement” could have been something like “Defeat the bottom row of aliens before hitting any of the second row.”
It’s not just doing generally well at the game, it’s doing something weird and out of the ordinary to explore the depth of the game beyond the main path.
In other words, it’s not just achieving something in a game but achieving a specific side-mission that the game asks of you. It’s a specific system.
On the XBox 360, you’d have a list of small tasks to complete in a game like “Defeat 100 Enemies,” and when you’d complete these micro-tasks in a game you’d get a little popup saying “Achievement Unlocked.” You could go and try to complete each of these missions on top of beating the game or getting a high score.
Steam also has achievements, and PlayStation has something similar, though they call theirs “Trophies.”
That said, while the 360 was the first to do this as a platform across multiple games and was the system that popularized it, calling it the “first to do achievements” is still a bit fuzzy.
There were games that had a predecessor to this system earlier but localized to that game.
For instance, in 1990, 15 years before the 360, there was a game “E-Motion” on the Amiga that had what it called “secret bonuses” which include things like “complete a level without rotating to the right” which is very much like the achievements systems that would come later.
Awesome project! Can’t wait to try It!
This might be an easier way than using a FPGA that connects to the internet for me to do my Legend of Zelda sliders edition – “infinite” quests and the ability to slide to them… Online quest editor to publish custom quests – which could be just maps changes or complete changes like https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1993/ . You may never know what the quest may be like since there would be billions.
This is probably possible, but what a terrible way to go about it! A little computer vision would enable the same functionality with a whole lot less work. See the ball on screen, enable achievement. Yes it can be spoofed, but no one really cares about your achievements anyway. Anyone only ever cares about their own. So if you don’t mind lying to yourself, cheat to your heart’s content. No one will ever notice anyway.