Homebrew DS Game Maker

[questccg]

Well I downloaded "DS Game Maker" which is a GUI-Toolkit for developing DS Roms using a 5th Generation language in addition to permitting the tool to use the Nitro (or TWL) SDKs to further interact with the hardware.

Interestingly enough, the GUI-Toolkit uses DevkitPro (which also uses libnds)... As a HOMEBREW tool, it's amazing. Not certain if all games can be designed with "DS Game Maker" but the tool seems pretty cool in terms of coding and graphics (management) in addition to sound effect (and music - MP3s).

I'm not sure how the *rooms* concept will work. The tool is also using OBJECTS (that can be defined)...

It's rather a *brilliant* tool... The only drawback is that the newest version requires Windows 7 or 8 in order to use the latest version of the .NET Framework. And that won't work for me...

Has anyone *explored* further "DS Game Maker"? Anyone used the tool set? Any comments???

 

[Technicmaster0]

At least the versions I used, needed the outdated library PaLib, too. (Although PaLib is very good for a beginner but buggy which is very annoying).

 

[Foxi4]

I used the toolkit extensively when I was starting to learn how to code - since then I moved on to greater things, but in my spare time I write C libraries extending DSGM5's capabilities.

The basic tools set gives you everything you'll ever need to "start" and from there, once you get some experience and learn how logic works in video games, you can either expand your projects with custom code or you can simply leave DSGM behind and code in a more advanced environment. It's a very good stepping stone between "fun" and "serious coding".

I can assure you that DSGM5 works perfectly fine on Windows XP, 7 and 8 - chances are that you're using the bug-ridden 5.20 edition or your PALib/Devkit Pro installation is out-of-date. Post a thread on DSGM Forums and I'll help you out with your issue (or someone else will - it's still frequented by some DSGM oldies).

 

[questccg]

...The basic tools set gives you everything you'll ever need to "start" and from there, once you get some experience and learn how logic works in video games, you can either expand your projects with custom code or you can simply leave DSGM behind and code in a more advanced environment. It's a very good stepping stone between "fun" and "serious coding".

I can assure you that DSGM5 works perfectly fine on Windows XP, 7 and 8 - chances are that you're using the bug-ridden 5.20 edition or your PALib/Devkit Pro installation is out-of-date. Post a thread on DSGM Forums and I'll help you out with your issue (or someone else will - it's still frequented by some DSGM oldies).

No I downloaded version 5.12 that uses .NET Framework 3.5... It works okay on my XP system. I have tested a couple of the *demos* only. I'm an experienced C coder - but I'm not used to the toolkit itself. All I know is the .NET Framework 4.0+ will only run on Vista/7/8, not XP. I tried to install it and it said: "This version is incompatible with your OS version." (Something like that - I am paraphrasing).

So the newest version I can use for my OS is 5.12 (the most stable release of DS Game Maker)!

 

[Foxi4]

5.12 is what you should be using anyways - 5.20 is bug-ridden and as a more-or-less seasoned user of the kit I strongly discourage using it. I could never get it to work properly and do what it was supposed to do.

 

[joeyjoey396]

Why do you *keep* putting *asterisks* in every few *sentences?*

I tried DS Game Maker a few years back and I stopped because of the limitations.

 

[questccg]

Why do you *keep* putting *asterisks* in every few *sentences?*

It's like a Bold or CAPS but less annoying... IMHO. Or sometimes I use quotes (" ... ") and other times I use asterisks (* ... *)!

 

[Foxi4]

Why do you *keep* putting *asterisks* in every few *sentences?*

I tried DS Game Maker a few years back and I stopped because of the limitations.

Most of the supposed limitations of DSGM5 are completely imaginary, made up by people who don't feel like looking for work-arounds. In fact, I recently got 3D to work perfectly fine in it, among other features.

 

[Technicmaster0]

Most of the supposed limitations of DSGM5 are completely imaginary, made up by people who don't feel like looking for work-arounds. In fact, I recently got 3D to work perfectly fine in it, among other features.

Through direct code access or with the GUI?

 

[Foxi4]

Through direct code access or with the GUI?

You can do it through the GUI, however I opted for including some additional .c files not to make things convoluted. You can do it both ways.

 

[Technicmaster0]

You can do it through the GUI, however I opted for including some additional .c files not to make things convoluted. You can do it both ways.

Okay. But I'll stay with plain code

 

[Foxi4]

Okay. But I'll stay with plain code

If you know how to use plain code in a standard IDE, you have no need for DSGM anyways unless you want to make a quick project.

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

May I also add, that aside from requiring an outdated version of devkitPro which is compatible with PAlib; the generated code is also inefficient and ugly (code in header files); for example:

In a room of 50 objects or so, (1 being the player, and 20 being enemies), in order to check collision between the player object and any enemy, the generated code will loop though all 50 objects, then check if they are of type enemy, and then check for collision. It does not go into an advanced enough level to allow you to either chose the range of objects which are of enemy type, (tell it to check for collision between player and sprites 20 - 40) or directly loop though all enemy objects in a room through an organised array or a linked list.

 

[Foxi4]

May I also add, that aside from requiring an outdated version of devkitPro which is compatible with PAlib; the generated code is also inefficient and ugly (code in header files); for example:

In a room of 50 objects or so, (1 being the player, and 20 being enemies), in order to check collision between the player object and any enemy, the generated code will loop though all 50 objects, then check if they are of type enemy, and then check for collision. It does not go into an advanced enough level to allow you to either chose the range of objects which are of enemy type, (tell it to check for collision between player and sprites 20 - 40) or directly loop though all enemy objects in a room through an organised array or a linked list.

You don't need to use outdated Devkit Pro, you can use the latest one with a one-line fix. As for collision, DSGM's scripts for it are very rudimentary so custom ones work best. As for the headers, it generates three messy ones, but nothing forces you to keep engine code in them, you can isolate that. All in all you are correct, it's clearly a beginner's tool, which really was the intention behind it.

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

You don't need to use outdated Devkit Pro, you can use the latest one with a one-line fix. As for collision, DSGM's scripts for it are very rudimentary so custom ones work best. As for the headers, it generates three messy ones, but nothing forces you to keep engine code in them, you can isolate that. All in all you are correct, it's clearly a beginner's tool, which really was the intention behind it.

If you're willing to change the generated code each time you compile, or create custom actions, or really do anything that it wasn't designed for (if you init 3D for example, it breaks PAlib completely) then it really isn't worth using for you, and you should be coding manually.

I have the genuine source code from the author ( DSGameMaker ) (not decompiled, and I wont distribute it) and have tinkered it a lot so that you can have GFX loaded from NitroFS by using the default GUI, as well as clearing up the generated code a tiny bit; but even so there really isn't much you can do because of the way it was initially designed just didn't have certain functionality in mind.

 

[BLsquared]

Nice to see you guys!
So, how is DSGM Zero going?

 

[Foxi4]

Nice to see you guys!
So, how is DSGM Zero going?

It's "laying down" as far as I know - the DS homebrew scene is slowly dying, sadly. Whoever's left is a straggler, really. That being said, with the recent developments in the 3DS scene, soon there might be a new platform to work on.

 

[homsar47]

Mint from the DSGM forum here, bros!

Gosh, I didn't realise every one of you would be at GBATemp. Now that the "lovely" staff has accepted me into the forum, two questions.

1. Yoshi: Source, or no? I was told I would receive it by James, anyway.

2. Any experienced DSGM user: You know how to use PA_IsEmulator(), as in "if an emulator isn't used"?

 

[BLsquared]

homsar47 / Mint
Um, I haven't used it before, but here is how I would think it would work:

If PA_IsEmulator() == true
{
//Do stuff
}

Foxi4
I hope that 3DS development picks up. That would be awesome. Unfortunately, I may be moving on from the homebrew scene. If I were to make a "Last DSGM Game", it would be Littlepip - The Stable Dweller. You know how the first attempt went...

 

[Technicmaster0]

homsar47 / Mint
Um, I haven't used it before, but here is how I would think it would work:

If PA_IsEmulator() == true
{
//Do stuff
}

More like

If (PA_IsEmulator() == true)
{
  //Do stuff
}