Homebrew DSCrawl - a humble request

[Atantuo]

Hi everyone.

First of all, please don't get me wrong. I'm well aware many people will not take kindly to this kind of posting, and I can see why.
However, I'm not making any kind of demand, just asking. If someone around here, more knowledgeable than I (which should be almost everyone), can afford the time to look at this, I'll be forever grateful - if not, then that's ok as well.

But perhaps I really should make my request clear first... so here goes.
There is a wonderful game called Linley's Dungeon Crawl, aka Crawl, that has been kindly ported by Sasq to be playable on the DS. Version 1.0 beta1 has been in some form modified by errabes, so that it runs on slot-1 devices, like my DSTwo.
Ever since I learned about this game, I have been playing it like crazy, and it works well enough, even though it's labeled beta.
Now, a little while ago, I learned that a newer version of DSCrawl exists, V1.0 . I looked all over the internet, only to find that no patched or modded version exists (or at least I didn't find it) that works with my supercard.
That is, it works, but runs only in RAM, so I have no score table, no saving, etc., but it fixes all those little bugs and annoyances, making the game even better than the awesome beta version.

I have tried to figure out how to make the necessary changes myself, but so far haven't had any luck. At first, I thought my (albeit quite limited) knowledge in programming might enable me to find some way to fix the problem, but apparently that's not the case.
So, to finally make my point, If anyone here knows what exactly has to be done, and maybe even knows how to do it, please tell me. Maybe a little push in the right direction might help me to fix it after all. Or if it is, as I suspect, a rather trivial matter to anyone more proficient in homebrew programming, it would be super awesome if that kind person could piece together a version 1.0 final with the same kind of changes errabes made to th beta version.

In any case, many thanks to everyone who decides to help me in some way or other.


By the way, the files I have been talking about are available here:

Modded version 1.0 beta1: http://errabes.free.fr/pogo2/

Version 1.0 (final): http://web.archive.o...de.org/dscrawl/

 

[Foxi4]

It's fairly easy to create a Save/Load feature for the game.

Do you know all the variables that you'd want to save? If you do, you can place them all in a structure and save into a file using FAT. To do so, include libfat into the source project. To load them, you do the oposite - open the file, load up the variables into the structure and presto!

Of course it would require certain changes to the game code itself, but it shouldn't be *that* hard, merely time-consuming.

 

[Atantuo]

include libfat into the source project

From what I've read so far, I think this is what would have to be done (a save feature is in the game, but since it will only run in RAM, it can't be used) - except I haven't even an idea where to start doing that.
My knowledge of DS (or any kind of) homebrew is basically zero. My idea was to open the program code, figure out the "libfat support piece of code" errabes added (by comparing it to the "unchanged" file) and replicating that with the newer version of the game.
So far I haven't even managed to get any human-readable code to get started - yes, I'm that much of a noob.

Thanks for the reply though. Maybe someone can give *very* specific hints as to what programs to use, what tutorials to read that I need, and whatnot, that would be awesome! Or, of course, hand me a libfat-patched ready-to-play rom, that'd be fine as well

 

[Foxi4]

include libfat into the source project

From what I've read so far, I think this is what would have to be done (a save feature is in the game, but since it will only run in RAM, it can't be used) - except I haven't even an idea where to start doing that.
My knowledge of DS (or any kind of) homebrew is basically zero. My idea was to open the program code, figure out the "libfat support piece of code" errabes added (by comparing it to the "unchanged" file) and replicating that with the newer version of the game.
So far I haven't even managed to get any human-readable code to get started - yes, I'm that much of a noob.

Thanks for the reply though. Maybe someone can give *very* specific hints as to what programs to use, what tutorials to read that I need, and whatnot, that would be awesome! Or, of course, hand me a libfat-patched ready-to-play rom, that'd be fine as well

Do you have the source code that could be modified? "Decompiling the game" isn't going to work.

 

[Atantuo]

Way to destroy what little hope I had

Is there really nothing to be done without the source? Some kind of workaround maybe, without actually changing the game file? Any ideas? *grasping at straws*

I don't know if this is of any help at all, but I was going to post this above anyway, except I forgot to do so...
This is the error message the game gives on startup (pretty much the same for all of the supplied versions, but this is from the standard version using rein):

Initing fat filesystem (rein) ...
No FAT filesystem detected
Using internal (GBFS) data files
Could not detect GBA cart SRAM!
RAM will be used instead which means your game will be lost when you switch off your machine.
Saving to '/ram/'

 

[chyyran]

Way to destroy what little hope I had

Is there really nothing to be done without the source? Some kind of workaround maybe, without actually changing the game file? Any ideas? *grasping at straws*

I don't know if this is of any help at all, but I was going to post this above anyway, except I forgot to do so...
This is the error message the game gives on startup (pretty much the same for all of the supplied versions, but this is from the standard version using rein):

Initing fat filesystem (rein) ...
No FAT filesystem detected
Using internal (GBFS) data files
Could not detect GBA cart SRAM!
RAM will be used instead which means your game will be lost when you switch off your machine.
Saving to '/ram/'

Should be a way to decompile it into ARM assembly language.

But, good luck learning ASM! :/

 

[avenir]

Do you have the source code that could be modified? "Decompiling the game" isn't going to work.

Yep. With no src, I cannot help either.

 

[Byny]

The thing is, DSCrawl is probably very dated.
DCSS is being updated regularly, and it is awesome.
Now, if someone is really willing to create a port for the DS, it would awesome and doable.
DCSS is open source, coded in C++ using SDL. It has an ASCII and a tiles version(which has a nice mouse interface, and should be the most suitable for the DS).

 

[Arras]

It looks like it's released under a modified GPL license. You might be able to get the source for 1.0 if you can contact the author.

 

[Foxi4]

I second the motion of contacting the author, and if that fails, "technically" you could create a bootloader-type application that would work in the background and dump the entirety of the RAM to a file and load it by using a combination of keys - that way, you would be able to extract the values without having to modify the original binary at all. That said, Real Time Saving is quite a tall order for someone with no previous experience in coding. It's doable, but tricky, depending on how much RAM is allocated after the game boots.

 

[Foxi4]

What, I just read that error you posted. So, the game does natively support FAT, it merely cannot detect it? Have you tried DLDI patching it for your flashcart?

Edit: Blasted T9 writes whatever it feels like writing. >>;

 

[avenir]

What, I just read that error you posted. So, the game does natively support EAT, it merely cannot detect it? Have you tried DLDI patching it for your flashcart?

Very sadly, all 5 files don't have DLDI region.
In dualSwan case, it was open source and adding DLDI support was quite easy... http://gbatemp.net/topic/289318-dualswan-dldi/

 

[Foxi4]

That's a real shame then, your only hope is what was posted earlier then - contacting the developer or creating a crude bootloader.

 

[Atantuo]

Many thanks for all the replies.
After reading this, and looking around the internet some more, I think I'll just give up for now.
The beta is fun and playable enough, and I don't see myself creating that bootloader anytime soon
In the meantime, I'll be hoping for someone to bring DCSS to the NDS...