Got a project idea coming along that will slice through to the limits of homebrew...

Q: what idea is that?
A: MMO 2D Sidescroller. An awesome remake of MapleStory remade on the DS.

Q: How will i use skills?
A: Hopefully by L+/R+ ABXY

Q: How will the duel screen mode work?
A: Top Screen is you char running, bottom is lvl/hp/mp/exp, map, and buttons for windows such as Items or Skill assign

Q: if my char is running on the top, how can i click on other users?
A: A button can be assigned to swap screens.

Q: If both screens will be full, how will i text chat with my buddies?
A: There will be no text chat for reasons of gameplay. The only time you could chat would be standing still as typing could take a while.

Q: Is it even worth the time to play since i cant chat?
A: Instead of text, one will chat to neerby, freinds, party, guild by selecting that option and then voice chatting.

Q: With the DS, as soon as i see another player, will it lag? what about 10?
A: hopefully we can cut out any data unnessesary to the player. Just X,Y pos and hp for starters... looks are in question.

Q: will there there be any other cool things?
A: yes, first, i want to make it wifi upgradable. Since homebrew apps have shown me that you can use a gba cart for data read AND write, this will make the actual game sizable and affordable on a cheap DS cart. 2nd, to cut down on hacking, player data will be kept online only. last but not least, Screenshots. i plan to make screenshots available to all players while they play... i found a programmer that has done this successfully with a paint program, i wish to implement it

There is no progress as of yet. I need the help of a few specialist DS prgmrs to aid in its creation. Please leave any help in the posts or my email

Sounds cool. Now I can play Maplestory without putting a lot of pressure on my memory. Nice.

But I've never actually played Maplestory before...

Hope you guys like this, it took me a bit to organize it all and fit it to a few pixels off perfect size >.< its like, 4/5 pixel columns taller than the DS...



Breakdown:
Left Side- Buttons for Simple use. Mainly made for ITEMS, EQUIPS, SKILLS, STATS, and BUTTON CONFIG, but it didn't take up enough room, so i double columned it, Took out the original pix, and left some blank for either future editing or player customization.
Center Top- Voice Chat, this will show recent chatters in the past 5 seconds without pausing. Durring conversation, it will be yellow. During Pause, it will be white, and after 5 seconds delay, it will discard the name. Once that person talks again, it will re-appear.
Top Right- MiniMap... we all know what this is for... itll just show a super-mini map mainly used for location and nearby players.
Bottom Center and Right- Stat Bars. Shows Level, Job, HP, MP, and EXP. I intend on making the leveling a slight bit easier and make the max level 999... dont get me wrong, its not going to be easy to hit 999... the level conversion rate im thinking on is around a MS-50 = DS-60 (due for constant changes until it starts getting programmed in)

I still have yet to find the right way of swapping from top to bottom screens. I was originally thinking a touch screen button, but now im thinking of maybe a shortcut key (R+Start or something)


As You can see, this is well built for such a short amount of time... Its also very well thought out... Sadly, i have to take all the credit. No programmers wish to aid in this project so far. I also need a lil help getting started (quick boost). I already started on the GBADev, and got stuck at an indestructable wall... Now im back, and i want to learn as much DSDev as i can. This will be my first official (non-tut) game for the DS. My problem lies in the inability to create my first tut... im missing a file or two... i think.... (cant do the DOS "make" because there IS no make.bat- also, i prefer compile.bat, just easier to type for me)

That was made on the computer, not DS screenshot?

Complete Computer editing... like i said, there is no game yet... not even a program running a picture... this is all in the development stage... If you have any suggestions, post now, once i get through programing something, i wont edit it unless its much better than the first idea.

got the next pre screeny for it ^.^ this one i went nutz over... the character got a little smaller but i viewed the picture on my ds and it looks perfect... the graphics got a lil wierd so i edited things like the cash bundle, the gold coin, the lips(dissapeard in the shrink) but i also alowed you to see as much as the screen as possible... its a 50% shrink on a 192x252 screen... so you get to see 384x504 what is ACTUALLY in the PC version. with no further adu:





A couple graphic updates and re-organization... also, youll notice i added more buttons... found 5 new buttons... Change Channel (so you dont get crowded in 1 chan) Buddy, Party,Guild, and yes... Blacklist

After putting those on, i realized a new capability.... Drag-and-Drop Buddy/Party/Guild/Blacklist requests... Drag the voice name over the designated area and drop it... they'll get the msg, then violla.... no annoying typing!

Also, since in the last pic i was running off of a screen shot that the game had made, i couldnt do this well enough so i tried my own. This pic was ripped from a PrintScreen.... 100% clarity... i put in the origional hp/mp/exp bars ^.^ not to mension the origional minimap! I also ripped the mouse out to make it look better and bigger... seeing as its not very important... ill end up making it dissapear when you swap screens...

which brings me to my last paragraph... The Button in the bottom Left is the SWAP hotkey... it swaps the screens for new functions.... like clicking and what not ^.^ this seams to be the best place for it overall... now you can run and click at your hearts desire

Keep in mind that this is still just computer edited screen shots... it is NOT the game... i still need more programmers to start the project. Enjoy the screeny!

i found most of the code i needed (biggest reason i put it off) so i got back to coding....

progress... i used the bottom screenshot from the pre-screeny (2) as the bottom screen... lemme tell you, it looks GREAT! i have a sprite on the top (no gravity/physics engine yet, still working out the frame kinks) so heres what i got so far
--------

--------
-Top background (just a pic right now, ripped from the original game and modified to fit my debugging needs.)
-Bottom Menu (no menu objects, just touch it anywhere and it swaps with the top screen, press select and it moves back, dont know why it wont accept the touch to go back up)
-full standing frames - this means, while you stand, it cycles your normal 3 standing frames, when you turn, it cancels, turns, and restarts the cycle (designed for walking frames, which i dont yet have)
-reads button presses/holds/releases/precision touches

todo list from soonest to soon (not looking to far ahead this time)
-obtain more frames and finish the sprite
-code in the frames with the controls
-work on the physics engine (jump and gravity)
-move toward boundaries/walls

multiplayer(online) and monsters will be left for a later activity, i need to get a physics engine down or the character wont know hes on the ground and continue to fall. The online multiplayer will be held on my uncles server (hes a pro web developer) as soon as i begin on the code to support it. Updates will be automatic after a final version has been released,(i found the code ill need to do this) so dont sweat the updates >.> i hate updates...

i also found the code ill need for the voice communications so it looks like thatll work, ill get you more details when i actually put it in action

if any1 is willing to gimme a hand, all they gotta do is get perfect screenshots of the char... i can resize them myself but they cant be done by the in-game screenshot method (too pixelated)... you have to hit [print screen] then [alt] [tab] out and "paste" into paint (or any other tool) dont worry about the colors, it will need to be 256 in the end (just the character, nothing else.. if you dont want to cut him out, dont limit the palette) if you want your character to be specifically designed thats fine, i need all the frames you can get... walking (left foot out, right foot out, half ways, any frames you can see look different) standing (just 3 frames, dont worry about the blinking, thats going to be a different sprite (i think) jump(1) duck(1) atack(multiple depending on the attack, melee has 3 different attack modes usually) climb (2 i think, extended and crouched) its best if you just get a lvl 1 char or noob outfit since there wont be any problems with fusing it with other...

--im asking this because my computers processor and ram is insufficient to do the task (1.25 G proc, 384 ram, 128 vid, vista ult OS) as soon as i get online (takes 2 tries to login) and grab 1 pic, alt tab and paste, try to go back in, it loses connection to the server... so its getting really frustrating >.>

preference on you spite sheets:
-paste into a paint app(paint, paintshop, photoshop etc)
-crop it to around the char, close as you want without cutting parts of him/his wpn
-char looks:
->[pale] [white] [brown] [black] white male
->blonde hair
->long hair, not short
->blue eyes (almost doesnt matter since hes going to get really small - not too small, he still looks great on the screen)
->white t-shirt
->blue jean shorts
->sandles
->sword
-name does not matter (of course) cut out the name if you dont want me to see it
-if you dont want to make a new char, just get the clothes as close as u can, i just need sprites to work with for now...


any help will lead to the personal releases of the demo with your char with all the sprites you got - gimme a name/nick and signature and ill put you into the credits/about part ^.^

cool! it seems this is progressing well

Not bad...for a beginner
, it looks amazing!

i went to my freinds house to get the rest of the basic sprites i needed, it about time to copy, edit, resize, paste, and convert them to my whim... it makes me laugh that Maplestory only has 4 walking frames (doesnt even move the right leg >.>) so lemme get that in and see what happens, now... who has an idea how the physics engine should opperate? should it be frame based and how should i go around finding "ground"? keep in mind that i will eventually have to have the background to scroll around my "moving" character (when he moves out of a small boundary, start scrolling the screen to keep up)

main loop so far:

Code:


knock yourselves out on ideas, itll help me out a ton to see some vague ideas on how to do it, ima be somewhat busy with the frames

^.^

as you all know, this program has been written with a version of C++ language. Im posting to ask for some help. My method for animating the sprite is proving inefficient for more frames. i have a good bit of code changed to make it a bit more fluent but i need a visual "general" idea on how to do that... heres the primary animation function that i made to give you a basic representation


Code:


all the DIM's are global so i can call it from anywhere. its meant for my frame-rate since some animations have less frames. i dont care how basic you make it.. even if its in psudo code ^.^... i need an idea on what to do to make this run flawlessly.

since my framerate is in intervals, if i needed, i could add a variable to tell it just how fast each frame should be changed. thats mainly for attacks and what not... however, im having issues visualizing how the frames should be changed.if im holding left, it needs to swap the animation frames to Walk[] and go from 0-3 then cycle... if you look at my code in the last post i made, it shows you the frames being called.

Psudo:

Code:


the main thing i need to add, is a read on which animation is being used...

do YOU have what it takes?

hey guys, me again >.> i got some code down that i guess might work, and i went to try it to debug it and im getting some errors i have NO idea whats wrong >.>


Code:


any1 got an idea what its sayin is wrong?

Its kind of hard to debug something without the source

Google for some game animation tutorials - this is basic stuff that is explained all over the place.

>.> b4 i get one of these replies again, let me tell you... there are no more code bugs... that was step 1 of the compile... then it makes an elf file, this is where i got these bugs, then it makes the nds file (executable)

the code has been written and cleaned for compilation... for whatever reason, it gives me a "region ewram is full" error and then a few overlap errors... what does this mean? i have never gotten these errors until now... i usually only have to worry about code errors... mis-spellings, non-dimmed vars, missing lines of code, missing punctuation... but with this, there is no code bugs. there are a bunch of parenthesis warnings that say something of a "looks like a true statement- should be put into a parenthesis" or something... anyways, it ignores those like it did b4 but instead of compiling, it gives me these strange errors... no idea...

It can be, and most likely is, still a code error. After all, your code is likely the only thing that has changed since it went from compiling just fine, to not compiling and throwing errors. It could also be the command you are using to compile it, but that isn't as likely as you said it used to compile just fine. Without this basic information, no one can help you.

roflz... roflmaoz.... i found the issue. i was trying to throw in a new sound track in place of the old one (which was almost just a beep)... the format i tried it in was correct, but the tool i used was not converting it to what the NDS homebrew code required... i removed it from the compilation and it workd.... the code looks like its working pretty cleen... but im having uber sprite issues with this new compilation... it got what i needed out there, there is a right, and a left sprite (neither will hide) but the mouse was a bit different... i cant get it to show >.> its pulling from sprite[0] for whatever reason.... and i can no longer test-debug it on the hardware. My DS shows more errors than the emulator right now so im trying to fix the hard-core issues first and then make it compatible (smartest way i think i can do it)

ill try to get a screeny to see if you guys can see what you think might be wrong

This project was inevitably delayed due lightning storms wiping out my computer, and the HD being physically damaged due to excessive adding and removing. Recently I was able to make a temporary repair that lasted just long enough to extract my project.

This is to say that I will be attempting to REVIVE this project. When I started from a very old source backup, It cause the code to break in unforeseen ways. Now that I have the final source, its about time to start fixing it. Updates will come as progress is made. Because the source is old, updating can and may actually delay starting it up. Hence I'm trying to get the active libraries running with a newly installed cygwin. It's taking a bit longer than expected.

Glad to hear it. Just looking at that error output from two years ago, it sounds like you're trying to stuff more data than can fit into the data section of your program.

this project was started with a very limited supply of coding knowledge base. It was built with the intention of learning as i go (pretty good method if i do say so myself). The last error i posted was because i wanted to fiddle with the Audio file (once), which ultimately failed.

Currently im working on getting a valid sprite again. Somewhere along the lines (while i was last working on this project) i compiled the sprite using the wrong tool, and because i was compiling without emptying the build folder, didnt notice something was wrong until it was too late.

Also, im trying to think up a way to build up a sprite on the go. The DS has a lot of sprite limitations, and i wont be able to put in as many sprites as i would need to give the customization this game needs. The avatar has at LEAST 1 sprite for every clothing item, and some are very peculiarly added. I need to have it grab data from a table, and save the different prints as another frame... this may be somewhat difficult, since ive never tried it, nor have i ever seen something use this method.

Fair enough, glad to hear that it's getting going again. I always find it interesting to look back at my coding mistakes from the past and realizing how much I've learned since then and how much I still have to learn.