Homebrew Best way to port my CYOA game to DS?

Circus-Society · Dec 14, 2018

Hey guys, I'll try not to waste too much of your time with this question, so I'll make a brief version and a long version.

SHORT VERSION

I have no coding knowledge
I'm stuck using a MAC
I've created most of the art assets, as I do pixel art
I've got most of the passages and choices written up
I'm currently making a prototype in Twine
No inventory system needed
I need to be able to display test on the bottom screen, with selectable text taking you to the next screen
I want to display a picture on the top screen, doesn't need to be animated
Ideally I'd like looping music in the background (again, I can make the music myself, it's just implementing it)
I looked at VNDS, but I found the tutorials very confusing as it was talking about converting, rather than creating

LONG VERSION

I'm currently working on a Visual Choose Your Own Adventure style game, It's a fan game for my favourite series and one that has a lot of sentimentality for me. I've written up most of the plot and made a decent amount of art assets in a pixel art style (though I have no idea the limitations of the DS) and I'm currently making the game in Twine (Which if you don't know, is a very user friendly program designed to help you create HTML based text adventures)... and it's progressing swimmingly! However the main reason I'm working on this game is so that my favourite series can be represented on my favourite console.

Now I feel like the main hurdle is that I have no coding knowledge, and the only computer I have is a MAC, Also I'm a bit afraid of trying to code the game from scratch because most of the tutorials I find are 404 pages from 2009, and every attempt at coding in the past has led nowhere fast (probably because I'm actually quite dense)

Though I do imagine the game would be somewhat simple? I don't really need any backtracking, health, inventory. I'd like background music and a picture on the top screen (different picture per passage of text). I noticed there's a few adventure game makers for DS, but they're either in Chinese, Spanish, or in the case of VNDS.... I'm finding the tutorial very confusing as it's all based around the concept of converting a pre-established commercial visual novel rather than creating one from scratch.

If anyone has any suggestions for which program best to use, or maybe an example game for either VNDS or coded from from scratch, that I could look under the hood at and figure out, that would be fantastic.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Archerite · Dec 15, 2018

To program for the DS I recomend you look at Devkitpro which should run fine on MacOS. I used the DS to test the menu system of a remake I am working on, had to drop the DS for a couple of reasons but I liked the simple api provided by libnds. Your type of game is not my thing, sorry, but I'll be willing to help get you started.

First thing would be to install Devkitpro on your system and compile the examples and study them. That last part you could also do on github if you want.

FAST6191 · Dec 15, 2018

Not being able to program is going to be an essentially insurmountable roadblock here.

There are not many things I can really suggest as a framework for a choose your own adventure. There is the audio adventure player thing https://www.projectaon.org/staff/jens/ but that is more audio adventure, and for the effort you might as well go look at something like the SCUMM engine and write something for that and make it work with SCUMMVMDS. Same for the various AGI, SGI, ZZT and other such things. Possible exception might be the visual novel stuff ( https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/DS_Visual_Novel_Reader ) but I have limited experience with that, the fact we did not see anything really come from it other than ports of existing ones steering me as far as placing bets.

I don't really have a suggestion for an open source project you could try to adapt.

Scripting language wise you might be able to get something going on with lua -- lua is very much still coding but it is far easier to get to grips with than having to learn C/C++ for an embedded system which is where devkitpro will start you. There are a handful of other scripting languages available for the DS ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/attempt...amming-languages-available-for-the-ds.357792/ ) but most of those are proof of concept rather than anything real. All the "game creators" for the DS were much the same, or incredibly limited.

Circus-Society · Dec 16, 2018

Thanks guys, I reckon I'll start with Lua, It looks somewhat easy to get to grips with, and it also seems like the limitations won't affect the idea I have.

FAST6191 · Dec 16, 2018

Yeah I forgot to ask what sort of CYOA type game it was -- old school visual novel/might as well be a slideshow with a branching path a la the books of old ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/interactive-lets-play-choose-your-own-adventure.491973/ ) being quite a different affair to some of the really modern things that almost use the framework like those 3d games that only view such that they are 2d games.

Circus-Society · Dec 18, 2018

FAST6191 said:
Yeah I forgot to ask what sort of CYOA type game it was -- old school visual novel/might as well be a slideshow with a branching path a la the books of old ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/interactive-lets-play-choose-your-own-adventure.491973/ ) being quite a different affair to some of the really modern things that almost use the framework like those 3d games that only view such that they are 2d games.

Yeah, I was planning on it being pretty simple and old school. Essentially pages you read on the bottom screen with an accompanying picture. You click a link and it takes you to another page, with occasional branching.
Music would be nice but definitely not essential, the only thing I NEED is a different picture per page, and being able to progress through the text pages.

jurassicplayer · Dec 18, 2018

VNDS is dead simple (I would hope that I know, since I wrote that tutorial). There's also an android interpreter that was made by anoNL some long while back. It more or less doesn't have any home-made VNs because nobody cared to make any or gave up midway (since you know, there are actual good commercial VNs).

Would I recommend using it as a platform? Maybe.At the very least, if it's a simple project like your example seems to say, it would be trivial to port. Though there wouldn't be any link clicking. It would be something more along the lines of choices after the text.

You enter a dark room. The eerie silence permeates under skin as you sharpen your senses in hopes of gleaning any information from your surroundings.

- Follow along the wall.
- Walk straight down the middle.

Circus-Society · Dec 18, 2018

jurassicplayer said:
VNDS is dead simple (I would hope that I know, since I wrote that tutorial). There's also an android interpreter that was made by anoNL some long while back. It more or less doesn't have any home-made VNs because nobody cared to make any or gave up midway (since you know, there are actual good commercial VNs).

Would I recommend using it as a platform? Maybe.At the very least, if it's a simple project like your example seems to say, it would be trivial to port. Though there wouldn't be any link clicking. It would be something more along the lines of choices after the text.

That's pretty much exactly what I wanted, when I said "clickable links" I essentially mean that you'd have a passage of text, and two choices at the bottom. You'd touch one option with your stylus and it would take you to another passage of text.

So far VNDS is sounding pretty appealing, I'd like the finished result to be a .NDS file, but I imagine with VNDS I'd have to start up VNDS and load the particular novel. I don't suppose there's any support for a VNDS autoboot? So that as soon as I start VNDS it immediately and automatically loads my novel?

Also I feel like I'm struggling to describe what I want, I could always make a little demo in HTML to show you?

jurassicplayer · Dec 19, 2018

Circus-Society said:
...I don't suppose there's any support for a VNDS autoboot?

...I could always make a little demo in HTML to show you?

No, it doesn't. The only ones that come to mind are things from multiple-option (a dev who may or may not have used PALib which is now defunct, so even if source code was provided...the dev environment would be painful to set up) or another framework type (the name of the projects elude me, started with an A and I could only ever find stuff from China) that has to be compiled afterwards.

I don't mind if you want to post up a demo. I know about Twine as well.

Vic135 · Dec 20, 2018

jurassicplayer, dude! I finally find a way to talk with you!! There's something about VNDS that I'd like to talk with you. Could you give me your email or something to speak? I'm a new user and I don't know who to creat a forum, so I prefer to talk by private chat or email. I hope you can answer me! There are many questions that I have about VNDS, specially, about and old forum I found about it

jurassicplayer · Dec 20, 2018

Vic135 said:
...Could you give me your email or something to speak?...I prefer to talk by private chat or email.

I sent a PM.

Homebrew Best way to port my CYOA game to DS?

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