Holy Diver (NES)

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Balanced Rating: 9.18
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by Patrick H. Lauke (redux)

80 12689

FS

Recreation of the pixel font used in Irem's "Holy Diver" (1989) on the NES. This font breaks out of the traditional 8x8 grid, with some characters featuring an additional 1-2 pixel descender (stored in a separate tile in the ROM). With the exception of the "j" and "q" (which were completely absent), only the characters present in the game's tile set have been included.
Info:

Created on 1st November 2013. Last edited on 2nd November 2013.
License:

Creative Commons
Categories:
- Monospaced
Sets:
- Game Recreations
Tag:

12 Comments

Comment by Patrick H. Lauke (redux) 3rd november 2013

@redux - That's a great example of a faux-Old English pixel font. Never knew such things were on the NES!

Comment by Goatmeal 4th november 2013

There seems to be a spacing problem with the 'i'.

Comment by p2pnut 4th november 2013

@p2pnut the font is monospaced, and it's an exact replica of what's in the game's ROM/tile set. spacing is as it should be based on the game.

Comment by Patrick H. Lauke (redux) 4th november 2013

@redux - Actually, p2pnut picked up on something I didn't mention; perhaps a clone version where the spacing is proportional?

Comment by Goatmeal 4th november 2013

@Goatmeal do you mean i should make a proportional clone, or that there is a clone of the Holy Diver game out there with proportional spacing? i just double-checked the game itself, and it definitely uses monospaced "i" with the same spacing as my recreation.

Comment by Patrick H. Lauke (redux) 4th november 2013

@redux - Sorry for the confusion! I meant that _you_ should make a clone that is proportional in spacing. I was going to suggest that in my first comment, but did not.

Comment by Goatmeal 4th november 2013

@redux - Make a clone _font_, that is... (Why can't I be coherent today?) :^P

Comment by Goatmeal 4th november 2013

i would second redux to be the most "historical" possible, even in with the "flaws" of initial sources. If not, this wouldn't be in phase with the archivist work he has built since then. But i would be interested, as Goatmeal develelopped his own, to see what could redux create by its own and develop something personal...

Comment by Abneurone Fluid Types 4th november 2013

Surely game designers of these old times had hard technical restrictions to deal with, and made sometimes inelegant compromises, but thousands of players played hours and hours within these aproximative environments. These flaws brought almost as the goodies their part in the special esthetic developped then. I remember a time where we only had 7 chars to name a file, i remember me as a kid playing for hours before a black and white tv pretending a rectangle to be my tennis racket and a square to be my ball... P O N G!

Comment by Abneurone Fluid Types 4th november 2013

thanks for the clarification, folks. @AFT is right that my intent is mainly archival/preservation (though some of my early fontstructions were more "inspired by" and had lots of extra characters i created myself). i've got a backlog of around 40 other fonts i still want to reconstruct, but once i've cleared that i may revisit some of these classics and make a remix/reinterpretation (including making a proportional version where appropriate) :)

Comment by Patrick H. Lauke (redux) 5th november 2013